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The Birth of White Australia (1928)

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clip The Chinamen must go!

This clip chosen to be PG

Clip description

After several violent confrontations, John Davis (Bert Trawley) incites his fellow miners to run the Chinese miners out of the diggings. The frightened Chinese rush to the protection of the troopers, who fire off a cannon to disperse the crowd.

Curator’s notes

by Paul Byrnes

The film has quite a few speeches like this one, but the actual depiction of the riot is a farce – basically one shot of the frightened Chinese miners rushing to the troopers. Note the proximity of one of these actors to the cannon when it goes off – he is virtually hugging the barrel, but he falls down in the smoke as soon as it goes off. Whether he was hurt, or just deafened, is not clear, but it does not look like the scene went strictly according to plan. Note also the hats of some of the miners in the earlier meeting – a number of them are in the 1920s style, not the 1860s. The film would be hilarious were it not so full of racist sentiment.

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