The Story of the Kelly Gang
About The Story of the Kelly Gang
Ned Kelly and his gang move from early fights with the police through robberies in rural Victoria to the last stand in which Kelly is taken.
Cast & crew
More about The Story of the Kelly Gang
Charles Tait directed. Millard Johnson and William Gibson are also credited with direction. Tait wrote it. Johnson and Orrie Perry photographed it. It was shot in and around Melbourne. The original ran more than an hour, with a reel length of 1,200 metres (4,000 feet). Wikidata gives 70 minutes. It opened at the Athenaeum Hall in Melbourne on December 26, 1906, and was shown in the United Kingdom in January 1908. John Tait and Elizabeth Tait are in the cast. As of 2020, 17 minutes are known to survive, held with the National Film and Sound Archive in Canberra and restored with stills. UNESCO inscribed it on the Memory of the World Register in 2007. A copy of the surviving material is on Wikimedia Commons.
Themes
Background
Ned Kelly's gang was still within living memory in Victoria in 1906.
Making
The Tait family and their Melbourne partners staged Kelly's story at feature length.
Look
Millard Johnson and Orrie Perry shot the Victorian countryside stands-in around Melbourne.
Preservation
17 minutes survived as of 2020 at the National Film and Sound Archive. Inscribed on the UNESCO Memory of the World Register in 2007.
Notes
- At release it was the longest narrative film yet made.
- The bushranging drama that followed in Australia starts from this picture.
- Producers listed with Gibson and Johnson are John Tait and Nevin Tait.
- The 17 minutes are what was known in 2020, not the 1906 length.
Scenes
- The gang robs in the countryside.
- Kelly is captured at the end of the story.