Page 22 - 2015-09

Reprinted below the text of the original SUFG program for the screenings of The Kid Stakes.

THE KID STAKES
Australia, 1927. 85 mins. Silent.
Produced by Ordell-Coyle, Director: Tal Ordell.
Script: Tal Ordell and Syd Nicholls. Photography: Arthur Higgins.

To celebrate our seventh birthday we are proud to be able to show this wonderful Australian film.
Two years ago the Film Group discovered it and included it in the International Film Festival. Six
months later the only existing prints were cut to make a twenty-minute version for the newsreels.
Last term the committee of the Group decided that it would take all necessary action to ensure
that the film is preserved in its original condition, and so one of the committee set about
reconstructing the print.

When this was done, and with the kind permission of the owner, Mr. Tayler, of National Films,
we had a negative made. As there is no film archive established in Australia, this negative will be
stored in London at the National Film Library.

The purpose of these three screenings is to help pay the cost of this negative and also to make a
16 mm. print which can be loaned to the British Film Institute and the Museum of Modem Art in
New York.
Said to be the last Australian silent feature made, THE KID STAKES concerns Fatty Finn and
his gang. They are preparing to enter their pet goat, Hector, in the goat-cart race, but a member
of a rival gang lets Hector escape on the very morning of the race. The adventure of Fatty and the
gang in their attempt to rescue Hector are told with real humour and a great deal of charm.
The action, which is nearly all photographed around Woolloomooloo, leads the gang up the
well-known McElhone Stairs into the garden of a large Potts Point home where Hector has been
imprisoned.

Throughout the film the photography is of a remarkably high standard. Although there is not one
interior shot in the entire film, the quality of the images is never harsh and the movement of the
camera, especially in the final race sequence, is very advanced. ‘When THE KID STAKES is
compared with another film made at the same time, say SECRETS OF THE SOUL, it is surprising
how very modern the Australian one seems. Perhaps it is because the cast consists mainly of
children that the acting seems so fresh.

The humour in THE KID STAKES falls into two main types. Firstly, the chases, deceptions and
escapades traditional to slapstick, but because the characters are built up so well, the comedy
never leaves the personal level to descend to mere mechanics. There is also a strong flavour of
satire running right through the film. The gangs that meet by the wharves, the double-crossings
and betrayals and the threats are all mocking the gangster era that was then in full swing. Other
contemporary fashions are satirised, the aviator-hero, the popular Romeo and Juliet type romance
and the A.B.C.

As a piece of Australiana, with the clothes, customs, jokes and appearances of another era, the
film is a valuable historical record.

22 REEL DEALS September 2015