The Hero of the Dardanelles
About The Hero of the Dardanelles
After war is declared, Will Brown enlists, trains at Liverpool near Sydney, and puts up a recruiting poster to bring other men in. He proposes to Lily Brunton before he sails. At Mena camp, by the Great Pyramid, he trains again, then goes ashore at Gallipoli on April 25, 1915, and drowns a Turkish sniper in a hand-to-hand fight. Wounded, he comes home, marries Lily, and the film ends by asking Australian men to enlist.
Cast & crew
More about The Hero of the Dardanelles
Alfred Rolfe directed. Australasian Films released it on July 17, 1915. The Gallipoli landing was restaged at Tamarama Beach with about a thousand soldiers from Liverpool Camp. Guy Hastings plays William Brown. The original ran about 4,000 feet.
Themes
Background
The film opened in July 1915, less than three months after the April 25 landing at Gallipoli, and closes on a recruiting appeal.
Making
The landing sequence used soldiers from the real Liverpool Camp, put into boats and brought onto Tamarama Beach as a stand-in for Anzac Cove.
Preservation
About 21 minutes survive of the original 59. The National Film and Sound Archive holds the fragment. A copy is on the Internet Archive.
Notes
- Loma Rossmore plays Lily Brunton. C. Throoby plays Mr. Brown. Ruth Wainwright plays Mrs. Brown. Fred Francis plays Gordon Brown.
- Real troops and the Liverpool training camp are in the film.
- The beach landing was shot at Tamarama, not at Gallipoli, and was later mistaken for newsreel.
- Shots from it were reused in The Spirit of Gallipoli (1928).
- The National Film and Sound Archive holds the surviving material.
Scenes
- Soldiers come ashore in the Tamarama staging of the April 25 landing.
- Will drowns a sniper during the fight on the beach.
- The last titles ask men to enlist.
Influenced
- The Spirit of Gallipoli (1928)
Also available
- Internet Archive (silent-the-hero-of-the-dardanelles)