Thunderbolt
About Thunderbolt
Cattle drover Frederick Ward is accused of theft and sentenced to seven years on Cockatoo Island. He swims off the island, learns that his fiancée Jess Anson has died of grief, and turns bushranger as Captain Thunderbolt. He steals the racehorse Combo, robs the Moonbi mail coach, wins a race, and is pulled out of a police trap by Sunday, whom he marries. He dies in a shootout with police at Uralla.
Cast & crew
More about Thunderbolt
John Gavin directed and plays Thunderbolt, in his first film as director. H. A. Forsyth produced and adapted Ambrose Pratt's play, itself drawn from William Monckton's book Three Years with Thunderbolt. The company shot in October and November 1910. The Sydney premiere was November 12, 1910. The original ran about 4,000 feet.
Themes
Background
The picture opened a run of Australian bushranger films that the New South Wales authorities cut off in 1912.
Making
Forsyth's scenario follows Ward from the island prison to the Uralla shootout, using the Lithgow district for the bush.
Audiences
It was still being booked into theaters as late as 1916.
Music
Silent.
Preservation
In 1992, 1,452 feet, about 24 minutes, were given to the National Film and Sound Archive. The reel had been kept in a cake tin. The rest of the 4,000-foot film is missing.
Notes
- Ruby Butler plays both Jess Anson and Sunday.
- H. A. Forsyth also acts, as Monckton, the boy who rides with Thunderbolt.
- Charles Henry Lay plays a prison guard and, later, the police sergeant.
- The death scene was staged near the second junction bridge on the Bowenfels–Rydal road.
- Another scene was shot at the Gap, about ten miles from Lithgow.
- Gavin later called it the first four-reel film made in Australia.
- A New South Wales ban on bushranger films in 1912 stopped a proposed 1922 re-release.
Scenes
- Ward swims away from Cockatoo Island.
- He rides Combo in a race after stealing the horse.
- Police shoot him down at Uralla.
Influenced by
- Ambrose Pratt's play Thunderbolt
- William Monckton's Three Years with Thunderbolt
Also available
- Internet Archive (silent-thunderbolt)
