The Fatal Wedding

The Fatal Wedding
Still from the film
Directed by	Raymond Longford
Produced by	Charles Cozens Spencer
Written by	Raymond Longford Lottie Lyell
Based on	play by Theodore Kremer novel by R. M. Clay
Starring	Raymond Longford Lottie Lyell
Cinematography	Arthur Higgins
Edited by	Arthur Higgins[1]
Production company	Spencer's Pictures
Distributed by	Spencer's Pictures
Release dates	24 April 1911[2]
Running time	3,500 feet
Country	Australia
Language	Silent film English intertitles
Budget	£360[3][4] or ₤600 (Longford estimate)[5] or £4,000[6]
Box office	₤18,000 (est.)[3][4][6]

The Fatal Wedding is a 1911 Australian silent film directed by Raymond Longford based on a popular American stage melodrama which he and Lottie Lyell had toured around Australia.^[7]

It was Longford's debut feature as director and one of the most popular Australian movies of its day. It is considered a lost film.

Synopsis

An adventuress, Cora Williams destroys the happy marriage of Howard and Mabel Wilson and drives them to divorce. Howard gets custody of their children Jessie and Frankie but Mabel winds up abducting them.

Five years later Cora discovers Mabel living in poverty with the children. She tries to poison Mabel and frame Jessie on a charge of theft but is unsuccessful. Howard and Mabel eventually reconcile and live with their children.

Cast

• Lottie Lyell as Mabel Wilson
• Raymond Longford as Howard Wilson
• Walter Vincent as Robert Curtis
• Tom Cosgrove as Toto
• Henry Saville as Peter Schwartz
• George Ellis as Constable O'Reilly
• Mr Henderson as Reverend Dr Lanceford
• Miss Clare as Cora Williams
• Helen Fergus as Bridget
• Elsie Rennie as Jessie
• Master Anson as Frankie

Original Play

Theodore Kremer's play had appeared on Broadway in 1901 and been popular in England and Australia.^[8]

Kremer later wrote a companion play in 1902, For Her Children's Sake.^[9]

The play was the subject of an unsuccessful plagiarism action.^[10]

Production

Although Longford had appeared in several films as an actor and helped make a documentary about the Burns–Johnson fight in 1908,^[11] this was his first feature as director. It was also Lottie Lyell's first movie.^[12]

Longford and Lyell had acted in the play when it toured around Australia under the management of entrepreneur Philip Lytton.^[13][14]

Shooting took place largely in an artist's studio in Bondi with a roof taken off and six foot reflectors used to improve the lighting.^[5] Longford claimed it was the "first interior picture taken in Australia."^[1]

According to contemporary reviews, the one departure from the stage show was the introduction of a motor car in the scene which shows little Jessie (Elsie Rennie) leaving Paradise Alley with a bodyguard of poor children.^[15]

Reception

Advertising claimed the film would "inaugurate a New Era in Motion Photography."^[16] It was previewed on 21 April 1911. The Sydney Morning Herald wrote that

The acting throughout is of a very high standard and all the great features and powerful scenes of the drama are most vividly and clearly portrayed. The film itself is unusually good the objectionable flicker being reduced to a minimum and all the figures and background standing out with great clearness and definition. The "Tin Can Band" is here wonderfully pictured, the Little Mother is all the time excellent and the adult characters are seen to great advantage throughout.^[17]

The critic from the Sydney Sunday Times said that:

Although the play is American, Mr. C. Spencer is justified in presenting the [movie]... as an example of Australian art. Everything about the play in its new form is Australian. A company which was formed in Sydney acted the melodrama for Mr. Spencer's operators, and one may recognise Bondi in the outdoor scenes — notably in the episode of the cliff house and the escape of the little heroine... After a cinematograph series of 'Australian Bushrangers,' it is a relief to see bright-faced and happy-hearted children representing the better, even if the poorer, side of life in this part of the world... Jessie, the little mother' with the Tin Can Band of youngsters, made The Fatal Wedding a success when it was first played here at the Criterion Theatre. And it is the kiddies who make the success of Mr. Spencer's reproduction under the direction of Mr. R. H. Longford. In the 'children's party' scene of the third act one song is cleverly counterfeited by a child behind the screen and 'hidden noises' lend an air of realism when the juvenile band shouts with joy or rattles the tin cans. To make up for the absence of songs at this point there is a good deal more dancing than one saw in the play itself.^[15]

The Perth Sunday Times said that " The lady who plays the she-villain... is without doubt the woodenest dolt that ever spoilt good celluloid."^[18]

The Fatal Wedding was a big success at the box office in Sydney – the Governor General even attended a screening.^[19] It then played Melbourne and the rest of Australia and was very popular, launching the cinema careers of Longford and Lyell, as well as enabling producer Charles Cozens Spencer to establish a film studio at Rushcutter's Bay in Sydney.^[6] It was still screening in cinemas in 1914.^[20]

Historical Significance

Longford later claimed the movie was the first domestic drama picture using interiors made in Australia.^[21]

Some have also argued this film was the first to introduce the close up.^[22] Arthur Higgin backed this claim in the 1960s, saying it was he who suggested it. He said he was taking the usual long shot when he mentioned to Longford, "Ray, I think we'll move in closer for this shot."^[23]

In 1933 Cinesound Productions announced plans to make a sound version of the play but this did not eventuate.^[24]

References

External links

• The Fatal Wedding at the Internet Broadway Database
• The Fatal Wedding at the Internet Movie Database
• The Fatal Wedding at National Film and Sound Archive
• The Fatal Wedding at AustLit