In 1935, or thereabouts, filmmakers Charles and Elsa Chauvel invited English vaudeville star Denis Hoey to come to Australia to play the lead in new movie, Uncivilized (1936). The plot is complex, but includes the notion that the child of missionaries lost in the desert, survives and, in the film, we see him as the headman of a strangely tropical village. His Australian co-star, Margot Rhys, plays a journalist sent to the desert to find the now grown-up missing child, instructed by her editor to brave the desert and to use her ‘woman’s charms’ to collect his story. The journalist travels on her quest by camel, is drugged with pituri and there is much more. The main structure of the story line was greatly influenced by then current developments in American cinema, especially the huge popularity of Tarzan talkies made in the earlier 1930s, especially those starring Johnny Weissmuller. The Australia ‘Tarzan’, strode into Australian cinema history wearing sensible moleskin trousers rather than the skimpy loincloth of the vine-swinging, elephant-wrangling ape-man of the American Tarzan movies. Margot, as Beatrice Lynn, in addition to her camel-riding gear and pith helmet, is stuck with slinky, silk pyjamas. Conscious of the sources of his own popularity, Denis Hoey insisted that his contract should include a couple of good songs. This session will be in two parts. The first, is an introduction to the Chauvel’s contribution to Australian cinema. The second a screening of their early film, Uncivilized.

Session to be presented by Jeff Brownrigg.