Australian
Screen

an NFSA website

The Sailors (1927)

Your version of Flash is out of date. Upgrade now if you'd like to access our high quality videos.
Email a link to this page
To:
CC:
Subject:
Body:
clip
  • 1
  • 2
The sailors part two

Clip description

The Sailors is a recorded version of a theatrical comedy routine by vaudeville performers Stiffy (Nat Phillips) and Mo (Roy Rene). You can listen to part two of The Sailors here in its entirety. Part two is the second side of a two-sided disc.

Curator’s notes

by Graham McDonald

Part two of Stiffy and Mo’s comedy routine is mostly a long joke about a cow and a calf. Recorded in 1927, The Sailors is one of the earliest pressings recorded and made in Australia. The Columbia pressing factory at Homebush in western Sydney had only opened the year before. Parlophone was a subsidiary of Columbia, but operated independently, mostly releasing overseas recordings. The Stiffy and Mo discs were two of only a few local recordings that were issued on Parlophone at that time.

As variety performance such as vaudeville or music hall shows were a major part of live public entertainment of the early years of last century, the early record industry in both Europe and the US drew on many of those performers to make recordings. Short comedy routines were common in early catalogues of record companies but there is little else of this style recorded locally in the early years of the Australian industry.

We know little about how well the records sold. There were no record charts at that time, and the surviving financial information about the record companies doesn’t include information about individual sales.

Thanks to the generosity of the rights holders, we are able to offer The sailors part two from the spoken word The Sailors as a download.

You must read and agree to the following terms and conditions before downloading the clip:

australianscreen is produced by the National Film and Sound Archive. By using the website you agree to comply with the terms and conditions described elsewhere on this site. The NFSA may amend the 'Conditions of Use’ from time to time without notice.

All materials on the site, including but not limited to text, video clips, audio clips, designs, logos, illustrations and still images, are protected by the Copyright Laws of Australia and international conventions.

When you access australianscreen you agree that:

  • You may retrieve materials for information only.
  • You may download materials for your personal use or for non-commercial educational purposes, but you must not publish them elsewhere or redistribute clips in any way.
  • You may embed the clip for non-commercial educational purposes including for use on a school intranet site or a school resource catalogue.
  • The National Film and Sound Archive’s permission must be sought to amend any information in the materials, unless otherwise stated in notices throughout the Site.

All other rights reserved.

ANY UNAUTHORISED USE OF MATERIAL ON THIS SITE MAY RESULT IN CIVIL AND CRIMINAL LIABILITY.

Right click on the link below to download the audio file:

sailors2_bb.mp3

Thanks to the generosity of the rights holders, we are able to offer this clip in an embeddable format for personal or non-commercial educational use in full form on your own website or your own blog.

You must read and agree to the following terms and conditions before embedding the clip:

australianscreen is produced by the National Film and Sound Archive. By using the website you agree to comply with the terms and conditions described elsewhere on this site. The NFSA may amend the 'Conditions of Use’ from time to time without notice.

All materials on the site, including but not limited to text, video clips, audio clips, designs, logos, illustrations and still images, are protected by the Copyright Laws of Australia and international conventions.

When you access australianscreen you agree that:

  • You may retrieve materials for information only.
  • You may download materials for your personal use or for non-commercial educational purposes, but you must not publish them elsewhere or redistribute clips in any way.
  • You may embed the clip for non-commercial educational purposes including for use on a school intranet site or a school resource catalogue.
  • The National Film and Sound Archive’s permission must be sought to amend any information in the materials, unless otherwise stated in notices throughout the Site.

All other rights reserved.

ANY UNAUTHORISED USE OF MATERIAL ON THIS SITE MAY RESULT IN CIVIL AND CRIMINAL LIABILITY.

Copy and paste the following code into your own web page to embed this clip: