Eureka Stockade (George & Arthur Cornwell, 1907) Australian Cinematograph Company, screened Atheneum Theatre, Melbourne, 19 October 1907 (Reade 1975: 275)
The Australasian Cinematograph Company was formed in 1907 by George Cornwell, a motor mechanic, and his brother Arthur, with a group of Melbourne businessmen and capital of £1500. Their only film was this story of rebellion on the Ballarat goldfields. A writer in the Bulletin, 31 October 1907, was greatly taken by it: 'However short of the possible the Eureka scenes might be, they stirred me to the core... What tremendous possibilities there are in the biograph!'
The first screening was at the Athenaeum Hall, Melbourne, on 19 October 1907, and it ran there for two weeks. Public reaction does not seem to have been enough to interest the Cornwells in further production, and the company was wound up in March 1908. Pike & Cooper: 7.
There is another film with this title, and other films on the same subject:
Loyal Rebel, The (Alfred Rolfe, 1915) aka Eureka Stockade wr. Arthur Wright; Reynolds Denniston, Maisie Carte, Charles Villiers; 5 reels
Eureka Stockade (Harry Watt, 1949) Ealing Studios, prod. Michael Balcon, assoc. prod. Leslie Norman, wr. Harry Watt, Greenwood & Ralph Smart, dp George Heath; Chips Rafferty (Peter Lalor), Jane Barrett, Jack Lambert, Peter Illing, Gordon Jackson, Peter Finch, Reg Lye; events of 1854; 102 min.
Stockade (Ross McGregor, 1971) prod. Hans Pomeranz for Spectrum Films, wr. Kenneth Cook, dp Jack Bellamy; Graham Corry, Michelle Fawdon (Elizabeth Green), Rod Mullinar (Peter Lalor), Michael Caton; began as a musical play detailing, with reasonable historical accuracy, the events at the Eureka Stockade when rebellious miners fought against government regulation of the goldfields in Ballarat in 1854; 90 min.
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