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Soon after arriving on Thursday Island, Daubenny (Lloyd Hughes) pays Mendoza (Ronald Whelan) 1,000 pounds for his boat and his house on the island. While the crowd follows Mendoza to the nearest hotel to knock down his cheque, Daubenny meets his new ‘diver’s handler’, Kishimuni (Charlie Chan) who sails aboard the ‘Dugong’. He also meets a mysterious woman who dresses in men’s clothes. Lorna Quidley (Shirley Ann Richards) joins him on the top step for an introduction.
Curator’s notes
The white suits are perhaps a movie exaggeration, although it was certainly a fashion in parts of the British Empire to wear white in the tropics, and to maintain a certain degree of formal attire, in order to show the natives the ‘superiority’ of British standards. Shirley Ann Richards in the men’s attire is certainly a nod towards a fashion in Hollywood in the early 1930s for androgyny. Stars such as Greta Garbo, Marlene Dietrich and Katharine Hepburn had all challenged the image of women by appearing in public – and in their films – in men’s clothes. The lesbian overtones do not appear to be a part of the meaning in this scene, however, which is intended to set up the basis for a romance between Lorna and Daubenny.
