Four’s a Crowd (1957)
Synopsis
Four’s a Crowd is a short documentary that comically portrays four types of workers (all played by filmmaker Jock Levy) in the waterfront industry – Glass-arm Harry, Tiddly Pete, Nick-away Ned and Ron the Roaster. Each scenario illustrates the negative impact of their behaviour on fellow workmates and the union at large. All four characters, shown in a superimposed shot at the end, reluctantly agree with the narrator that wharfies need to stay focused on the job.
The film contains no synchronised sound or dialogue, but features a voice-over narration by Leonard Teale and a musical score.
Curator’s notes
The opening titles firmly establish this film’s slapstick tone: 'Any similarity between persons portrayed in this film and real persons … is no coincidence’. Waterside Workers’ Federation Film Unit director Jerome 'Jock’ Levy plays each of the four characters with the virtuosity and comic timing of a silent-era slapstick comedian. His pratfalls and facial expressions make each of the scenarios highly entertaining, but Four’s a Crowd is also intended as an allegory for what happens when idleness sneaks into the workplace. Each scenario ends in trouble, and trouble gives the union a bad name. The film emphasises the responsibility of the individual to the collective; in the long run, the delinquent behaviour of one wharfie has an impact on them all.
Fighting Films: A History of the WWF Film Unit (2003, Pluto Press) was written by academic Lisa Milner based on her PhD research into the WWF Film Unit. The book was jointly funded by the Maritime Union of Australia, the Construction Forestry Mining Energy Union (Mining and Construction Divisions) and the Australian Manufacturing Workers’ Union. To coincide with the publication, the MUA released a three-DVD compilation featuring 13 of the WWF Unit’s films as well as John Hughes’s documentary Film-work (1981).
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