The Story of the Kelly Gang (1906) - the world's first full-length narrative feature film

The film traces the exploits of 19th-century bushranger and outlaw Ned Kelly and his gang. Originally comprised in six sequences that provide a loose narrative based on the Kelly gang story:
Scene 1: Police discuss a warrant for Dan Kelly's (John Forde ) arrest. Later, Kate Kelly (Elizabeth Tait was the stunt double) rebuffs the attentions of a Trooper.
Scene 2: The killings of Kennedy, Scanlon and Lonigan at Stringybark Creek by the gang.
Scene 3: The hold-up at Younghusband's station and a bank hold-up.
Scene 4: Various gang members and supporters evade the police and the gang killing of Aaron Sherritt.
Scene 5: The attempt to derail a train and scenes at the Glenrowan Inn. The police surround the hotel, Dan Kelly and Steve Hart "die by each other's hands" after Joe Byrne is shot dead.
Scene 6: The closing scenes. Ned Kelly (Frank Mills) fights hard but is shot in the legs. "He begs the Troopers to spare his life, thus falls the last of the Kelly Gang…"
A 1906 Australian Bushranger crime drama film directed by Charles Tait, produced by William Gibson, Millard Johnson, John Tait and Nevin Tait, written by Charles Tait and John Tait, based on Arnold Denham's play "The Kelly Gang" (1899), cinematography by Millard Johnson, Orrie Perry and Reg Perry, starring John Forde, Frank Mills, J. (Jack) Ennis, Norman Campbell, Will Coyne, C.S. Marsdesh, John Tait, Frank Tait, Harriet Tait, and Elizabeth Tait.
Australian bushranger Ned Kelly had been executed only twenty-six years before this film was made, and Ned's mother Ellen and younger brother Jim were still alive at the time of its release. The film was made during an era when plays about bushrangers were extremely popular, and there were, by one estimate, six contemporaneous theatre companies giving performances of the Kelly gang story. Bushranger films are their own, uniquely Australian genre, deriving from local history and literary tradition rather than simply copying American tropes.
Much of the film was shot at Charterisville, a property leased by Lizzie Tait's family as a dairy farm and artists' colony near Heidelberg, now a suburb of Melbourne. Other scenes in the film may have been shot in the suburbs of St Kilda (indoor scenes), and possibly Eltham, Greensborough, Mitcham, and Rosanna. The Victoria Railways Department assisted by providing a train.
Sir Rupert Clarke loaned the suit of Kelly armour his family then owned for use in the film.
This was adapted from an Australian stage play, based on an Australian historical event, and featured many traditions and tropes that are grounded more in Australian than American literary traditions. Miscarriage of justice, Protestant-Catholic sectarianism, class warfare, feisty "squatter’s daughters", and the like.
This was made by a consortium of two partnerships involved in theatre. Entrepreneurs John Tait and Nevin Tait, and pioneering film exhibitors Millard Johnson and William Gibson. The Tait family owned the Melbourne Athenaeum Hall and part of their concert program often included short films. Melbourne film exhibitors Johnson and Gibson also had technical experience, including developing film stock. Credit for writing the film scenario is generally given to brothers Frank, John and sometimes Charles Tait. At a time when films were usually shorts of five to ten minutes duration, their inspiration for making a film of at least sixty minutes in length, and intended as a stand-alone feature, was undoubtedly based on the proven success of stage versions of the Kelly story.
In her memoirs, Viola Tait claimed the part of Ned was played by a Canadian stunt actor, who deserted the project partway through. Viola identifies Charles was the director because of his theatrical experience. She confirmed that many of the extended Tait family and their friends appeared in scenes
The original cut ran over an hour with a reel length of about 1,200 metres (4,000 ft), making it the longest narrative film yet seen in the world. A commercial and critical success, it is regarded as the origin point of the bushranging drama, a genre that dominated the early years of Australian film production. Since its release, many other films have been made about the Kelly legend. Approximately 17 minutes of the film are known to have survived, which, together with stills and other fragments, have undergone restoration.
In 2007, this was inscribed on the UNESCO Memory of the World Register for being the world's first full-length narrative feature film. Feature-length documentaries of boxing matches had been made before this, but this was the first dramatic full-length film.
The theatre critic for Melbourne Punch stated, "All the notable features of the story of the Kellys are reproduced, and with the dialogue make up a sensational and realistic series dealing with the murders, robberies and misdeeds which are not the air-created fancies of a penny-dreadful writer, but actual facts which are well within the memory of our citizens."

[@dalesnyder4831]

Thank you very much for the clear print, subtitles, and music! Fascinating to see early moviemaking and how the story is rendered in the flavor of backcountry Australia. A cinematic gem.

[@aadamtx]

Thanks for the upload of this major piece of film history. Even in its current condition, you can see the story development and the use of natural settings.

[@RetiredSchoolCook]

Thank you for sharing the interesting information and film 🥰👍

[@redtobertshateshandles]

Thanks.
After the Americans had their revolution, the British were very careful to keep control of Australia.
A bit of a Police state really where the Irish were granted land in the remotest places.
It was the English and Scots vs the Irish. Divide and conquer.
My wife has quite a few convict ancestors mostly Irish but with one Welshman.
Her relatives ran a rough drinking establishment and were aquainted with bushrangers. One female relative even married a bushranger and had a child.
I'm making no judgements here but the Police were firing into a pub with innocent people inside.
It seems strangely contemporary.
Thank God for American
freedom.
It's very precious.

[@Australian_Made]

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An absolutely HUGE amount of work went into restoring as much as could be RECOVERED. National Film & Sound Archive, Australia.