The Sentimental Bloke with live score by Jen Anderson and The Larrikins

A special presentation of this Australian silent era classic, presented live with a musical score by Jen Anderson and the Larrikins.

As part of the 2022 Victorian Seniors Festival, ACMI and the National Film and Sound Archive present the digitally restored version of the Australian classic silent film from 1919, The Sentimental Bloke, directed by Raymond Longford, one of the Australian silent era’s most prolific and successful film directors.

An adaptation of C.J. Dennis’ verse narrative of life set on the backstreets of inner Melbourne in the 1910s, The Sentimental Bloke is a tale of redemption, depicting the social rehabilitation, courtship and marriage of the titular ‘Bloke’, Bill (Arthur Tauchert) to his sweetheart, Doreen (Lottie Lyell). Lyell, an international star of the Australian silent era and a filmmaker in her own right, co-wrote and edited the film with Longford, her partner and key creative collaborator until her premature death in 1925, from tuberculosis. Lyell was 35. For the film, Longford and Lyell relocated the setting from Melbourne to Sydney, shooting on location in Woolloomooloo, which then enjoyed a well-earned reputation as a tough inner-city neighbourhood, as well as at Manly Beach and the Hornsby Valley (the orchard scene). Longford’s direction – Longford was himself an actor before becoming a director – elicited a remarkable naturalness from his talented cast, which also featured Gilbert Emery in the role of Ginger Mick.

A hit when it opened at Melbourne Town Hall on the 4th of October 1919, The Sentimental Bloke broke domestic box office records and screened to packed houses for some years. It subsequently disappeared without trace once ‘the talkies’ took over until the 1950s when it was rediscovered in a parliamentary library in Canberra.

The Sentimental Bloke will be presented in-cinema with a music score by Jen Anderson performed live by Jen Anderson and the Larrikins.