The Story of the Kelly Gang

While The Story of the Kelly Gang is heralded as a landmark in Australian cinema, today it only remains in scattered film fragments. As early as the end of the Second World War all known complete prints of the film were thought to have vanished. Rigorously toured across venues throughout Australia and abroad, films that had been recorded on fragile cellulose nitrate were then exposed to further damage through repeated use, becoming worn, scratched, broken and incomplete. With so little of the film surviving today, it is difficult to get a clear picture of the original narrative. However, the film’s success and the cultural impact it had on audiences both at the time and that continues today is certainly clear.

On a budget of £1000, the film earned £25,000 in profits touring extensively in Australia, New Zealand, and England. Created only 26 years from Ned Kelly’s hanging in 1880, the film featured recent Australian history and served to reinforce the growing legend of the Kelly Gang as anti-authoritarian folk heroes. Audiences flocked to see the film, enraptured by the action sequences such as the dramatic scene where Dan Kelly and Steve Hart shoot each other to prevent themselves being taken alive by the police. As well as Ned’s thrilling last stand which saw actor Frank Mills staggering towards the camera in full armour and with guns blazing.

The huge success of the film resulted in a popular new and Australian specific genre of ‘bush ranging’ films with fellow filmmakers creating their own outlaw narratives. American producers also picked up the genre with the release of The Bushranger in 1928, Stingaree in 1934 and Captain Fury in 1939. Such was their popularity with local audiences that by 1912 the New South Wales and Victorian Governments banned both the production and screening of bush ranging narratives, citing the perceived influence on rising crime. The Argus daily morning newspaper from April 1912 reported that police had banned the ‘harmful picture’ from screening in Melbourne after similar regional bans of the film years earlier. The ban was eventually lifted in 1942 and with it came the release of When the Kelly’s Rode which was originally shot in 1934 and was the first Kelly film with sound. Since the lifting of the ban Australian audiences have continued to be enthralled by the Kelly Story on screen with a further nine pictures being produced since 1947, including The True History of the Kelly Gang in 2018.

– Curator Chelsey O'Brien

Find out more about The Story of the Kelly Gang with these resources from the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia (NFSA).

The mystery of the other Kelly Gang film

The Story of The Kelly Gang: Ned Kelly's last stand and capture

The Story of The Kelly Gang: Fitzpatrick at Mrs Kelly's homestead