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THE HOME TALKIE COMPANY – Who WereThey?
David Donaldson
Always just called “Home Talkies”; this Australian features included HIS LOYAL
Sydney enterprise was a mainstay of the HIGHNESS with George Wallace.
burgeoning world of 16mm in the 1950s. Underwater specialist Noel Monkman’s
Their office was upstairs near Wynyard only feature THE POWER AND THE
Square in the centre of the CBD. You could GLORY in 1941 had smallish roles for both
readily pick up a taxi or just park to load the youngish Peter Finch and older Raymond
gear right outside in those days. It was run Longford, now held by Home Talkies under
by Mr. and Mrs. Clubb with their daughter the 1952 reissue re-title THE INVADERS.
(Dorothy?). Probably Mr. Clubb had set up The Redex Trial films from both 1953 and
in business with war-surplus equipment 1954. And Leeton Cannery’s sponsored
and film supplies. industrial promotionals.
Visual education had been an ideal from American films in plenty, in the 60-80
the 1920s, but WW2 made it practical. One minutes range mostly. British similarly.
delightful little double-sprocketed silent THUNDER IN THE CITY had been made in
instructional, THE WILLIAMSON England with Edward G. Robinson, so it
BROMIDE PRINTER, shows shirtless was both. A handful of “Continental”
Aussies in their Bombay Bloomer shorts features such as the notorious LA RONDE
turning out huge pages under a jungle roof. and PASTORAL SYMPHONY with heart-
In wartime and for the decade after, local achingly beautiful Michele Morgan. Lots of
manufacturers like Pyrox, Harmour and two-reel comedies, including Buster
Heath, and Precision Engineering were Keaton’s very funny THE GOLD GHOST.
protected by import licensing, customs
duties and sheer shortage of shipping. By the sixties, the Greater Union subsidiary
Precision made the Cinevox with the Sixteen Millimetre Australia Pty Ltd had
speaker in the detachable lid of the case: flooded the schools, churches, licensed
low-powered, noisy and awkward, but clubs and mobile exhibitors with a co-
magic in its day. ordinated range of Bell and Howell gear
backed by access to major and recent
Films with wartime themes included the features, albeit on contracts of thirteen at a
early Ealing SAN DEMETRIO, LONDON stretch. Home Talkies were left as the
and the Eighth Army semi-doc NINE MEN minor player for home and rural users. The
which was directed by Harry Watt (he came office moved out to the fringe at Cleveland
on to Australia to make THE Street and switched to retailing the brave
OVERLANDERS). ALL-STAR BOND new thing, Super Eight.
RALLY offered leggy Betty Grable,
trumpeter Harry James and many others Where did all those 16mm comedies,
doing their acts patriotically. SARGE GOES Castle cut-downs and thirties-forties
TO COLLEGE had Alan Hale jr. finding his features go to? Where is BARON OF
civvy feet among Californian teenagers; ARIZONA, photographed by James Wong
their musical education included “Open the Howe and directed by not-then-fashionable
Door, Richard”, soon to chart as a novelty Sam Fuller? You can bet that the
song. Cinevoxes are boat anchors now.
