Extract from ABC News
Louise Lovely starred in about 50 Hollywood films. (National Film and Sound Archive)
In short:
Tasmania's early mining days were immortalised on screen in the 1925 film Jewelled Nights by Australia's first Hollywood star, Louise Lovely, who hoped to take Tasmania to the world stage.
The silent film was a screen adaptation of a popular romance novel by Marie Bjelke-Petersen, the aunt of former Queensland premier Joh Bjelke-Petersen.
What's next?
The silent film has inspired an art installation at this year's The Unconformity festival, held at Queenstown. The artist is seeking a permanent home for the work.
It has been nearly 100 years to the day that Tasmania's remote and rugged west coast played backdrop to an ambitious film project led by a Hollywood silent film starlet.
Considered a lost classic of Australian cinema, Jewelled Nights was mostly shot at Savage River, deep in the bush at an alluvial mine site.
At the time of its release, it was billed to be the making of Hobart as the "Hollywood of the south", but its production ran overtime, the budget overblown and its star never went on to make another film.
As for Jewelled Nights, only remnants of the silent film remains.
Only a few minutes of the silent film Jewelled Nights remains, but the musical score survived.
The film's restorer, Bernard Lloyd, previously said filming at that location would have been an extraordinary feat at the time.
"There was no road then, no track there and so to bring this film crew down there, two hours down the gully and then back out again each day, it was a huge ask with the weather, the snakes,"Mr Lloyd said.
The film featured leading lady Louise Lovely, an Australian darling who had starred in about 50 Hollywood films, mostly by major production companies Universal, Goldwyn Picture Company and 20th Century Fox.
Film historians have said Lovely was the first Australian actress to find success in America.
Louise Lovely played a female character who dressed as a man in order to try her luck at mining in the 1925 film Jewelled Nights. (Supplied: Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery)
Marie Bjelke-Petersen — a prolific romance writer considered the Danielle Steele of her time — asked Lovely to star in and produce the film adaptation of one of her books.
At the time, both Lovely and Bjelke-Petersen were celebrities in their respective fields.
In an interview, Lovely said: "Everyone said that good pictures could not be made in Australia. I have set out to prove that they can."
Only a few minutes of the film Jewelled Nights have survived.
Following its premiere in Melbourne in October 1925, Jewelled Nights reportedly screened to 350,000 people, more than a third of the city's population at the time.
Its box office success propelled Tasmania and its dramatic landscape onto the big screen.
But now, only fragments of the silent film remain.
Film's intrigue inspires artwork
The film's allure has led local Tasmanian artist Jacqueline Dortmans on a deep dive.
Her installation at this year's The Unconformity festival in Queenstown on Tasmania's west coast was a homage to the film and Bjelke-Petersen.
"The biggest mystery for me is the film, having been lost, there's no way to know how Louise Lovely [and her co-producer] told the story,"Dortmans said.
"We can draw on the book, which tells the story clearly, but what's unclear is how they told the story in silent film.
"Silent film is not that well understood as a format.
"When you look at other silent films you recognise that they have this way of delivering a punch line just through a couple of words on a screen."
Jacqueline Dortmans says silent film is not a well understood format. (The Unconformity)
Dortmans said she leant heavily into that formula to convey her Jewelled Nights piece, a three-part journey into the book's setting, the script and its creators.
"It celebrates not just the achievements of Louise Lovely with the film, and the history that the film and book is grounded in, which is the osmiridium mining, but Marie Bjelke-Petersen as a person who is someone who should be more known in the Tasmanian context," she said.
"She was very forensic in her research.
"She spent time at Savage River and 19 Mile Creek talking to miners and gathering the information to allow her to write with quite impressive accuracy."
Romance author Marie Bjelke-Petersen was a celebrity in her time. (Athol H Shmith)
Tasmanian mineral needed for fountain pens
The Jewelled Nights story begins with the fountain pen.
At the turn of last century, Tasmania was the world's only mined source of osmiridium, a mineral needed for the production of fountain pen nibs.
For years, gold prospectors on the Savage River system thought of the alloy as a nuisance as they panned for the more precious mineral. But, later, as osmiridium's value was realised, it fetched prices higher than gold.
The Burnt Spur mining site at Savage River has been given heritage listing. (Heritage Tasmania/JH Robinson)
Miners quickly switched their alluvial techniques of gold panning to the search for osmiridium.
They worked streams by diverting water onto dry beds through stone wall channels and dams, many of which survive today.
Rough huts were also set up to house the temporary workforce, including prospector Jos Hancock's, at Flea Flat, which featured prominently in the film.
These early mining sites, Burnt Spur and Flea Flat, have recently secured permanent heritage listing with the Tasmanian Heritage Council.
Jos Hancock's hut at Flea Flat featured in Jewelled Nights. (Heritage Tasmania/JH Robinson)
In its submission for heritage recognition, the mines were described as presenting "intact archaeological examples of alluvial mining features" and having a "special association with pioneering Australian actor and entrepreneur Louise Lovely".
Speaking on ABC Radio Hobart, historian Nic Haygarth said of the location:
"Marie Bjelke-Petersen had this idea that Tasmania should be a second Hollywood as it had the wonderful scenery.
"She was a great advocate for Tasmania's rainforests and the scenery of the west coast."
Tasmania's wildness critical to film
At its heart, Jewelled Nights was a love story.
One where Tasmania's brooding landscape and expansive skies played a role in maintaining the romantic tension between the cross-dressing lead female and the miner she falls in love with.
The lead character, Melbourne socialite Elaine Fleetwood, flees to the osmiridium mines of distant Tasmania after leaving her groom at the altar.
There, she dresses as a man in order to work the mines as she has heard there were riches to be made.
But as film restorer Bernard Lloyd said:
"On the mining fields, she finds something much more valuable — true love."
When it opened, the film was well received by audiences.
But Lovely's dream of putting Tasmania in the world film scene was crushed after the movie ran dramatically over budget.
"They had a budget of 8,000 pounds, and they only got 5,000 pounds back," Mr Haygarth said.
Today, that would be a return of $500,000 from a $800,000 investment.
"That pretty much scuppered the deal. There were plans to make two more films, but it was pretty much the end of this idea of making Tasmania a second Hollywood."
It proved to be Lovely's final role.
She lived the last 32 years of her life in Tasmania, and some may remember her as the the lady who ran, with her husband, the lolly shop beside the Prince of Wales Theatre on Macquarie Street in Hobart.
Louise Lovely lived the last 32 years of her life in Tasmania. (Supplied: National Film and Sound Archive)
Dortmans said following The Unconformity festival she would search for a permanent home for the artefacts she has amassed for the artwork.
What remains of the film screens regularly at Queenstown's Gaiety Theatre.
"I dived deeply into silent film," Dortmans said.
"There's a confronting statistic that 90 per cent of all silent films are lost. Jewelled Nights is just one of many films that have been lost."
No comments:
Post a Comment