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My great aunt Lilly Molloy - was an early silent film star and comedienne.
Here c.1920
http://www.latrobe.edu.au/screeningthepast/firstrelease/fr_16/jdfr16.html
http://www.nma.gov.au/collections-search/display?irn=124697
Her co-star/leading man in 'The Enemy Within' was the famous Snowy Baker
The Enemy Within
An adventure about a spy organisation set up in Australia by Germans. Stars ‘Snowy’ Baker who performs some spectacular stunt work in rounding up the spy ring
b/w 16mm silent 60 mins (1918) G
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/mediareport/stories/2008/2226437.htm
http://images.google.com.au/imgres?...1&hl=en&cr=countryAU&rlz=1G1GGLQ_ENAU313&sa=X
In March 1918, the dramatic picture The enemy within was released. Starring Snowy Baker, the legendary Australian athlete and stuntman, the film was a virtual realisation of the Australia of Hughes' febrile imagination. The plot involved a German spy ring, in close collaboration with a radical union group that strongly resembled the IWW, co-ordinating the activities of a German fleet off the Australian coast. However, it was not strictly a war film, although its themes were topical. Indeed, while its plot would have pleased the Government, it was specifically advertised as "not a war picture" in an attempt to circumvent popular distaste for more propaganda.
Given the context, one might imagine that it was a box-office disaster, but in fact it turned a reasonable profit, although why audiences flocked to it is less clear. It made no attempt to be purely realistic; as one critic noted, "that the whole bears the color [sic] of truth. Only, of course, it is far more sensational. We don't go to a picture show for a history lesson."[45] The review nicely balances an awareness of both the realism and the fantasy required for successful entertainment, showing a much more sophisticated judgement than the uncritical praises of the earliest war dramas. Probably a major drawcard was its star, who performed all of his own "bewildering", and "amazing" stunts.[46]
He is now well represented on "Google" in "The Australian Dictionary of Biography". Perhaps one of Aussies' most accomplished athletes in so many fields. He went into films in 1918, & was responsible for giving the young Charles Chauvel a job. He followed him to Hollywood, where Snowy helped a lot of the big names, stunting & training, becoming director & managing partner in the Riviera Country Club. Born 8 Feb 1884 in Surry Hills, NSW, died 2 Dec in LA, CA, USA. Blonde since birth, hence "Snowy". Two brothers, Frank & Ernest. I'd like to know more of his grey "wonder horse" "Boomerang", who starred with him in one of his last Aussie films in 1920! At any rate a fascinating Aussie of that period. http://www.nla.gov.au/apps/cdview?pi=nla.pic-vn4511648
‘Snowy’ Baker was the most versatile of all Australian sportsmen, and a star of stage and screen. Sydney born, Baker competed at either state
or national level in an incredible 29 different sports and was an international in five of them: rugby union, diving, boxing, swimming and water
polo. He believed in his fathers maxim that varied activity and the enjoymen of good health was the law of life.
In rugby union, Snowy played for the Eastern Suburbs, Sydney, New South Wales and Australia. He played half back for NSW in 1900 at sixteen
years of age, and the following year gained his Australian cap against England.
At the 1908 London Olympic Games, he became the first - and only -Australian to compete in three sports in a single Games. He started on
the diving board finishing a credible 7th against the powerful Germans who dominated the sport at the time. He then moved to the swimming
pool where Baker and Frank Beaurepaire were part of Australia and New Zealand’s 4 x 200m freestyle relay team. They finished fourth but walked away from the pool unlike Hungary’s silver medalist who had to be dragged out after almost drowning at the finish.
He won silver in the middleweight boxing division losing a disputed decision to subsequent English cricket captain J W H T Douglas. Douglas’ father J H Douglas, as President of the Amateur Boxing Association,presented his son with the gold medal and Baker with the silver. The official report did not name referees,but a number of newspaper and magazine reports later claimed that Douglas senior had actually refereed
the final, this was later confirmed by Snowy. The pair met in a return match (bare knuckle) at a London club and Baker knocked out Douglas!
He held the light, middleweight and heavyweight amateur boxing championships of NSW, the middle and heavyweight titles of Victoria and the Australian middleweight title.
In just one night at the age of 18, he won the Australian middleweightand heavyweight titles.
Five years later Baker became Australia’s darling of the screen when his silent movie career took off. His movies included The
Enemy Within, The Man from Kangaroo, and The Shadow of Lightning Ridge. He taught Elizabeth Taylor, Shirley Temple, Douglas
Fairbanks, Greta Garbo and Rudolph Valentino how to ride, fence and swim.
After World War I, he lived in California where he designed the equestrian course used later in the 1932 Olympics. He died in
America in 1953 at the age of 69. Snowy Baker was a quick witted wise cracking prankster who loved a bet and will always remain
one of this country’s most legendary sporting figures. Snowy was one of the original 120 inductees to the Hall of Fame in 1985.
CHARLES CHAUVEL:
Charles was born in 1897 in Warwick, Queensland, the second in a family of five children. Soon after, the family moved to the Fassifern Valley, S.E. Qld., and established a dairying property, ‘Summerlands’. Charles grew up with a love of mountains and horses and an interest in Art. At seventeen, after jackerooing and droving on the Barcoo, he managed the family property while his father, Alan Chauvel, was on active service.
Charles’ uncle, Harry Chauvel, became the first Australian General and led the Light Horse in the Palestine campaign in W.W.1. Uncle Harry’s letters home stirred Charles’ imagination and later provided the subject matter for his 1940’s film, Forty Thousand Horsemen. When his father, Alan Chauvel, returned from the war, Charles went to Sydney to study Art. He met the sporting idol of the time, Snowy Baker, who was also making Australian silent westerns (Carroll Baker Productions). Charles was fascinated by the new medium of ‘moving pictures’ and asked Snowy for a job. The only job available was that of horse handler. Charles accepted. He took care of the horses, drove the Cobb & Co. coach for location shooting and gradually took small parts in movies such as The Jackeroo of Coolabong and The Man from Lightning Ridge.
Two-three years later Charles went by ship to California, to study film-making in the Hollywood studios. He took odd jobs to make ends meet, played bit parts in the silent comedies and did publicity work for Douglas Fairbanks Snr. He returned to Australia in 1923, to make his first film. Chauvel’s first two features, Moth of Moonbi and Greenhide, were typical Australian westerns, set in south-east Qld. The star of Greenhide was a young Australian actress, Elsie Sylvaney, who had grown up in South Africa. At the end of the film she and Charles were engaged, and married in 1927. Their partnership was also a working one, as Elsie took charge of make-up (for the early films), script and continuity work and on-the-spot rehearsing of actors.
The thirty-year partnership of Charles and Elsa Chauvel (she changed her Christian name to Elsa) spanned a period of tremendous change in cinema entertainment, from silent movies and advent of sound to colour film and eventually television documentary. Their first sound film, In the Wake of the Bounty, gave Errol Flynn his debut role, as Fletcher Christian of the Bounty. Probably their most famous films were Forty Thousand Horsemen and Jedda, Australia’s first feature film in colour. Their last project was Australian Walkabout, a series of outback documentaries for BBC television. Charles was planning to follow it with a south-sea island walkabout series when he died of a sudden heart attack, in 1959. Elsa did much to see that his films were preserved, with the help and collaboration of the National Film & Sound Archive. Charles Chauvel was a man with enormous drive and enthusiasm, and believed that the only way to give an Australian film international appeal was to make it totally Australian.
© Susanne Chauvel Carlsson
Here c.1920
http://www.latrobe.edu.au/screeningthepast/firstrelease/fr_16/jdfr16.html
http://www.nma.gov.au/collections-search/display?irn=124697
Her co-star/leading man in 'The Enemy Within' was the famous Snowy Baker
The Enemy Within
An adventure about a spy organisation set up in Australia by Germans. Stars ‘Snowy’ Baker who performs some spectacular stunt work in rounding up the spy ring
b/w 16mm silent 60 mins (1918) G
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/mediareport/stories/2008/2226437.htm
http://images.google.com.au/imgres?...1&hl=en&cr=countryAU&rlz=1G1GGLQ_ENAU313&sa=X
In March 1918, the dramatic picture The enemy within was released. Starring Snowy Baker, the legendary Australian athlete and stuntman, the film was a virtual realisation of the Australia of Hughes' febrile imagination. The plot involved a German spy ring, in close collaboration with a radical union group that strongly resembled the IWW, co-ordinating the activities of a German fleet off the Australian coast. However, it was not strictly a war film, although its themes were topical. Indeed, while its plot would have pleased the Government, it was specifically advertised as "not a war picture" in an attempt to circumvent popular distaste for more propaganda.
Given the context, one might imagine that it was a box-office disaster, but in fact it turned a reasonable profit, although why audiences flocked to it is less clear. It made no attempt to be purely realistic; as one critic noted, "that the whole bears the color [sic] of truth. Only, of course, it is far more sensational. We don't go to a picture show for a history lesson."[45] The review nicely balances an awareness of both the realism and the fantasy required for successful entertainment, showing a much more sophisticated judgement than the uncritical praises of the earliest war dramas. Probably a major drawcard was its star, who performed all of his own "bewildering", and "amazing" stunts.[46]
He is now well represented on "Google" in "The Australian Dictionary of Biography". Perhaps one of Aussies' most accomplished athletes in so many fields. He went into films in 1918, & was responsible for giving the young Charles Chauvel a job. He followed him to Hollywood, where Snowy helped a lot of the big names, stunting & training, becoming director & managing partner in the Riviera Country Club. Born 8 Feb 1884 in Surry Hills, NSW, died 2 Dec in LA, CA, USA. Blonde since birth, hence "Snowy". Two brothers, Frank & Ernest. I'd like to know more of his grey "wonder horse" "Boomerang", who starred with him in one of his last Aussie films in 1920! At any rate a fascinating Aussie of that period. http://www.nla.gov.au/apps/cdview?pi=nla.pic-vn4511648
‘Snowy’ Baker was the most versatile of all Australian sportsmen, and a star of stage and screen. Sydney born, Baker competed at either state
or national level in an incredible 29 different sports and was an international in five of them: rugby union, diving, boxing, swimming and water
polo. He believed in his fathers maxim that varied activity and the enjoymen of good health was the law of life.
In rugby union, Snowy played for the Eastern Suburbs, Sydney, New South Wales and Australia. He played half back for NSW in 1900 at sixteen
years of age, and the following year gained his Australian cap against England.
At the 1908 London Olympic Games, he became the first - and only -Australian to compete in three sports in a single Games. He started on
the diving board finishing a credible 7th against the powerful Germans who dominated the sport at the time. He then moved to the swimming
pool where Baker and Frank Beaurepaire were part of Australia and New Zealand’s 4 x 200m freestyle relay team. They finished fourth but walked away from the pool unlike Hungary’s silver medalist who had to be dragged out after almost drowning at the finish.
He won silver in the middleweight boxing division losing a disputed decision to subsequent English cricket captain J W H T Douglas. Douglas’ father J H Douglas, as President of the Amateur Boxing Association,presented his son with the gold medal and Baker with the silver. The official report did not name referees,but a number of newspaper and magazine reports later claimed that Douglas senior had actually refereed
the final, this was later confirmed by Snowy. The pair met in a return match (bare knuckle) at a London club and Baker knocked out Douglas!
He held the light, middleweight and heavyweight amateur boxing championships of NSW, the middle and heavyweight titles of Victoria and the Australian middleweight title.
In just one night at the age of 18, he won the Australian middleweightand heavyweight titles.
Five years later Baker became Australia’s darling of the screen when his silent movie career took off. His movies included The
Enemy Within, The Man from Kangaroo, and The Shadow of Lightning Ridge. He taught Elizabeth Taylor, Shirley Temple, Douglas
Fairbanks, Greta Garbo and Rudolph Valentino how to ride, fence and swim.
After World War I, he lived in California where he designed the equestrian course used later in the 1932 Olympics. He died in
America in 1953 at the age of 69. Snowy Baker was a quick witted wise cracking prankster who loved a bet and will always remain
one of this country’s most legendary sporting figures. Snowy was one of the original 120 inductees to the Hall of Fame in 1985.
CHARLES CHAUVEL:
Charles was born in 1897 in Warwick, Queensland, the second in a family of five children. Soon after, the family moved to the Fassifern Valley, S.E. Qld., and established a dairying property, ‘Summerlands’. Charles grew up with a love of mountains and horses and an interest in Art. At seventeen, after jackerooing and droving on the Barcoo, he managed the family property while his father, Alan Chauvel, was on active service.
Charles’ uncle, Harry Chauvel, became the first Australian General and led the Light Horse in the Palestine campaign in W.W.1. Uncle Harry’s letters home stirred Charles’ imagination and later provided the subject matter for his 1940’s film, Forty Thousand Horsemen. When his father, Alan Chauvel, returned from the war, Charles went to Sydney to study Art. He met the sporting idol of the time, Snowy Baker, who was also making Australian silent westerns (Carroll Baker Productions). Charles was fascinated by the new medium of ‘moving pictures’ and asked Snowy for a job. The only job available was that of horse handler. Charles accepted. He took care of the horses, drove the Cobb & Co. coach for location shooting and gradually took small parts in movies such as The Jackeroo of Coolabong and The Man from Lightning Ridge.
Two-three years later Charles went by ship to California, to study film-making in the Hollywood studios. He took odd jobs to make ends meet, played bit parts in the silent comedies and did publicity work for Douglas Fairbanks Snr. He returned to Australia in 1923, to make his first film. Chauvel’s first two features, Moth of Moonbi and Greenhide, were typical Australian westerns, set in south-east Qld. The star of Greenhide was a young Australian actress, Elsie Sylvaney, who had grown up in South Africa. At the end of the film she and Charles were engaged, and married in 1927. Their partnership was also a working one, as Elsie took charge of make-up (for the early films), script and continuity work and on-the-spot rehearsing of actors.
The thirty-year partnership of Charles and Elsa Chauvel (she changed her Christian name to Elsa) spanned a period of tremendous change in cinema entertainment, from silent movies and advent of sound to colour film and eventually television documentary. Their first sound film, In the Wake of the Bounty, gave Errol Flynn his debut role, as Fletcher Christian of the Bounty. Probably their most famous films were Forty Thousand Horsemen and Jedda, Australia’s first feature film in colour. Their last project was Australian Walkabout, a series of outback documentaries for BBC television. Charles was planning to follow it with a south-sea island walkabout series when he died of a sudden heart attack, in 1959. Elsa did much to see that his films were preserved, with the help and collaboration of the National Film & Sound Archive. Charles Chauvel was a man with enormous drive and enthusiasm, and believed that the only way to give an Australian film international appeal was to make it totally Australian.
© Susanne Chauvel Carlsson
