Australian
Screen

Teacher’s notes

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This black-and-white clip taken from the 1935 feature Grandad Rudd shows 34 runs being scored off the last ball to give the Rudd family victory in a cricket match against the Regan family. Set on a country cricket ground, the clip opens with Grandad Rudd hitting the ball into a well. As the excited crowd in the pavilion cheer and the commentator describes the action, the Regan team try frantically to retrieve the ball while Grandad runs until he can run no more. The Rudd team then use a wheelbarrow to push Grandad across the crease for the winning run.

Educational value points

• This clip shows the type of slapstick sight gags – the comic running styles, the members of the Regan team tumbling into the well, the runner’s pants falling down, Grandad in the wheelbarrow – that were popular with Australian audiences during the 1930s. This style of humour, reminiscent of exaggerated silent movie comedy, was intended to ensure Grandad Rudd was a commercial success. The first ‘Dad and Dave’ talkie, On Our Selection, had been a huge hit.

• The clip illustrates some of the defining characteristics of the ‘Dad and Dave’ variety of Australian imaginative texts – the triumph of the ‘Dad’ character (in winning the match) and the revelation that he is lot more astute than he first appears (in this case about the rules of cricket). The ‘Dad and Dave’ genre dates back to a sketch by Steele Rudd that appeared in the Bulletin on 14 December 1895 and includes stories, radio serials, stage productions and films.

• Grandad Rudd is a fairly early example of an Australian ‘talkie’ (Australia’s first successful ‘talkie’ movie, Diggers, was made in 1931) and it reveals that the director and scriptwriters had yet to completely relinquish the silent film approach to movie making. None of the dialogue is critical to the action, and even the device of the comic commentator derives from silent films where cuts to the commentator and intertitles of the call were used to explain sports action.

• The plot of the clip derives from Regan waiving the lost ball rule – according to Law 20 of the game of cricket any fielder can call ‘lost ball’ and the batting team gets as many runs as they have scored or six runs, whichever is greater. Waiving the rule advantages the team with big hitters in situations where the ball is easily lost beyond the boundary. Scores in the 30s or even in the 60s off a single ball are not unknown when the lost ball rule is not played.

• Renowned Australian cinematographer James Francis (‘Frank’) Hurley (1885–1962) was the lead cameraman for Grandad Rudd and the clip exemplifies his skill in location work. The outdoor scenes are beautifully composed, particularly the shots of the flight of the ball against the massed clouds. In the 1930s Hurley made four features with Cinesound, but after Grandad Rudd his outdoor expertise was no longer needed once Cinesound turned to back projection.

• Cricket was a very popular sport in the 1930s and social matches played between impromptu teams were common. Such matches were often played on a single-innings, limited-over basis with the rules agreed beforehand by the two teams. Many Australian men of the time, like the players in the clip, owned elements of cricket equipment and dress including caps and white flannel trousers that they used for social matches.

It’s Grandad Rudd’s turn to bat in the cricket game. He belts the ball high and it lands in a well off-field. He and his teammate make run after run, stopping in the middle of one run to do a silly dance. They are cheered on by a loud group of supporters standing off-field in a shelter who yell and throw their hats into the air. The other team is clearly worried. Men gather around the well, lying down to try and reach the ball.
Mr Regan Hurry up, hurry up. Go there, get it. Hurry up and get it! They’re running.

Commentator Mr Rudd just made a wonderful drive and he’s running like a two-year-old. The score is creeping up because the ball’s in the well and the blokes in the field are well in the soup.
Mr Regan runs after Grandad on the pitch.
Mr Regan Hey, you can’t do this. You can’t run more than six.
Grandad keeps making runs.
Grandad Rudd You said no boundaries, no lost balls. Run and like it. Well, I’m liking.
Mr Regan stands in front of Grandad and puts his foot out, trying to trip him up. Grandad hops neatly over the foot and then brings his cricket bat down on Mr Regan’s toes, causing him to jump with pain.

At the well a man falls in trying to retrieve the ball. Mr Regan comes over to the well.
Mr Regan Here, leave this to me. Come on, let me, lower me down in the bucket.
Mr Regan puts his foot into the bucket, the man at the handle of the well loses control and Mr Regan also falls in.

On the pitch Grandad and his teammate continue to make runs in a comic bow-legged running style but Grandad has slowed down.
Commentator Grandad is still running but I don’t think he can stay the distance. His legs are beginning to warp. The score now stands the Rudds 36 and the Regan mob 51.
Grandad’s teammate falls over mid-run. He gets up again but is obviously tired. Grandad is exhausted, wobbling all over the pitch.
Teammate Keep going, keep going.
Grandad I’m going.

Mr Regan is pulled from the well.

Commentator 48! Four more runs to go and Rudd’s still going strong. Oh, oh, Grandad’s collapsed.
Grandad’s teammate tries to pull him up but Grandad is too exhausted.
Commentator They can’t win now.

Two men fall into the well again.

Commentator I reckon they’re not done yet. Look! Look!
A man has got a wheelbarrow and is pushing Grandad up and down the pitch. Grandad touches his bat to the crease at the end of every run. The crowd continues to cheer.
Commentator Two more runs to get. Can they do it?

The ball has been found in the well.
Mr Regan Come on, get.
Mr Regan pushes a man out of the way and catches the ball as it is tossed up from the well. The men at the well all run back on-field.

Commentator 51! And they’re in the straight!

Mr Regan throws the ball to the wicket-keeper who catches it just as Grandad touches his bat down on the crease. The man pushing the wheelbarrow wobbles and Grandad tumbles out onto the pitch. The commentator stands up, throwing his hands into the air.
Commentator 52! And the Rudd family wins!

Rudd family supporters run onto the pitch, cheering and waving their arms. Grandad and his fellow runners lie on the ground, too tired to get up.