Clip description
Menzies giving an election speech, demonstrating his oratorical skills. The title comes up as the first page in a book held by a presenter who turns around and faces the camera. The presenter comments on the amazing kind of person Menzies was – revered and criticised in equal measure as well as spending time in the political wilderness. Over archival stills, the narrator gives a compressed version of Menzies’s childhood, family, schooling and some of his achievements as a young man.
Curator’s notes
The three elements in the clip (archival footage of Menzies, a presenter to camera and the use of narration) are basically what are used throughout the film to tell the story. Menzies was an extraordinary raconteur and had a sense of humour, both of which are exhibited in the archival footage in the first section of the clip.
That the filmmaker used a book in this manner for disclosing the title would suggest that this film is based on a book of the same name, but there is no mention of such a book in the credits. It could be that it was thought a clever way to reveal the title.
Much is learned about Menzies, including his nickname at one time being ‘Judkins’, after a ‘social reformer of the day’. WH Judkins attacked social evils and has been described as having ‘a florid style in the pulpit and vigorous with the pen’ – a description which could well have fitted Menzies in speech and writing mode.