The Story of The Kelly Gang - Origins and Locations of The Film

Origins and Locations of The Film

Australian bushranger Ned Kelly had been executed only twenty-six years before The Story of the Kelly Gang was made and Ned's mother Ellen and younger brother Jim were still alive at the time it was released. Historian Ian Jones suggests the story still had an "indefinable appeal" for Australians in the early twentieth century. The film was made by Charles and Nevin Tait, Millard Johnson and William Gibson, pioneering exhibitors. Johnson and Gibson also had experience developing film stock. Much of the film was shot on the Chartersville estate at Heidelberg, now a suburb of Melbourne. In later years, William Gibson claimed that while touring through New Zealand showing the bio-pic "Living London", he noticed the large audiences attracted to Charles McMahon's stage play The Kelly Gang. Film historian Eric Reade claims the Taits themselves owned the stage rights to a Kelly play, while actors Sam Crewe and John Forde later also claimed to have thought of the idea of a making a film of the Kelly Gang's exploits, inspired by the success of stage plays. A second variation of the story claims that the rights to a popular Kelly play were purchased from E.J.Cole's Bohemian Company, and members of the troup performed in the film. Tait's wife Elizabeth and their children and brothers are thought to have also taken part. The film, which cost £1,000, was extremely successful, and was said to have returned at least £25,000 to its producers.

Other scenes in the film were shot in the suburbs of St Kilda (indoor scenes), and possibly Eltham, Greensborough, Mitcham, and Rosanna. At the end of the twentieth century, only about 10 minutes were known to have survived. In November 2006, the National Film and Sound Archive released a new digital restoration which incorporated 11 minutes of material newly discovered in the United Kingdom. The restoration now is 17 minutes long and includes the key scene of Kelly's last stand. However, a copy of the programme booklet has also survived, containing both extracts from contemporary newspaper reports of the capture of the gang, and a synopsis of the film, in six 'scenes'. The latter provided audiences with the sort of information later provided by intertitles, and can help historians imagine what the film may have been like.

In 2007 The Story of the Kelly Gang was inscribed on the UNESCO Memory of the World Register for being the world's first full-length feature film.