Cinema
The Sentimental Bloke
Raymond Longford · 1919
Synopsis
Bill, known as the Kid, a rogue from the port district of Woolloomooloo in Sydney, serves six months in prison after a police raid on a game of two-up. On his release, he promises to give up gambling and drink, and falls in love with Doreen, who works in a pickle factory and urges him to leave his gang. He courts her under the eye of the young woman's mother, runs into a rival, nicknamed the bloke in the boater, and has to reckon with his mate Ginger Mick. The intertitles take up the slang verses from which the story is drawn.
Context
The director and Lottie Lyell, who plays the role of Doreen, collaborated on every aspect of the film and wrote the screenplay together, based on the verse novel by C. J. Dennis; they transposed to Sydney a story that Dennis set in Melbourne. After a private screening in Adelaide in November 1918, the film was released in Melbourne in 1919; it pleased British and New Zealand audiences, but failed in the United States, re-edited under another title. A negative found in 1973 at George Eastman House made possible the restorations by the national film archive, including that of 2004.
Who it is for
A silent film with intertitles in Australian slang, one of the few silent films of the country preserved in full.
Prizes and reception
According to Variety, the best Australian feature film of its time; more than £33,000 in takings.
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