Australian
Screen

Teacher’s notes

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This clip shows Mr and Mrs McBride (Frank Bradley and Peggy Ross) and their daughter Eileen (Isabelle Mahon), English aristocrat Lord Hubert Montmorency Ralston (Frank Leighton) and Ralston’s manservant Thompson (Les Franklyn) at Sydney’s Mascot Airport where they have arrived to meet the 'flying parson’ (Eric Colman). They gather on the tarmac behind a biplane and when its propeller speed is increased their hats are blown off, making introductions difficult. The biplane eventually takes off and another plane, the Southern Cross, taxis across the landing field. The pilot is the aviator Sir Charles Kingsford Smith, who invites the group to take a joy-ride over Sydney. A humorous scene inside the plane and aerial shots of Sydney Harbour complete the clip, which is in black and white.

Educational value points

• Splendid Fellows was the final film of Beaumont Smith (c1881–1950), who was a pioneer of the Australian film industry. He began his film-directing career in 1917 with his Hayseed series, which caricatured a country family and included The Hayseeds’ Melbourne Cup in 1918 and Pre-Historic Hayseeds in 1923. He also directed Satan in Sydney (1918), which dealt with opium dens and gambling halls, and The Man from Snowy River (1920).

• Sir Hubert Montmorency Ralston is presented in the clip as the stereotypical aristocratic Englishman, complete with cane, monocle, spats and manservant. He has been sent out to the colonies by his family to keep him away from trouble in Britain. Beaumont Smith made a number of films portraying this stereotype, the opposite of the down-to-earth Australian Mr McBride, who was a direct descendant of the characters in the Hayseed series.

• The clip features Sir Charles Edward Kingsford Smith (1897–35), Australia’s most famous aviator. He flew for the Australian Flying Corps and the Royal Flying Corps during the First World War (1914–18) and received the Military Cross for conspicuous gallantry. After the War he piloted joy-flights and later mail services and established various flying businesses.

• In the film, the 'flying parson’ (Eric Colman, brother of Hollywood actor Ronald Colman) is a First World War flying ace who visits his parishioners by plane. This fictional pilot was probably based on the Reverend John Flynn (1880–1951), who in 1928 formed the Australian Inland Mission (AIM) medical service, which became the Royal Flying Doctor Service in 1954. This medical service is the largest aero-medical emergency and health care service in the world. The achievements of John Flynn and Charles Kingsford Smith are commemorated on the Australian $20 note.

• Air travel was new, adventurous and topical for Australians in the 1930s and Splendid Fellows was the third film made in 1934 that was about Australia and aeroplanes and also related to Kingsford Smith. The first was Secret of the Skies, directed by AR Harwood, which was based on the disappearance of the Southern Cloud on a flight from Sydney to Melbourne. The second was The Old Bus, directed by Jack Percival Jnr and based on the book by Kingsford Smith about his flights in the Southern Cross across the Pacific. Beaumont Smith’s Splendid Fellows highlighted the Centenary Air Race from London to Melbourne.

• Southern Cross is the name of the Fokker F.V11/3m three-engine monoplane aircraft that Kingsford Smith flew in the first-ever flight across the Pacific Ocean in 1928. Kingsford Smith referred to his plane as 'the old bus’ and the Southern Cross is now preserved in a glass hangar at Brisbane Airport in Queensland. The Lady Southern Cross, in which Kingsford Smith died, was a Lockheed Altair and has never been found.

• From 1927 to 1935 Kingsford Smith completed flights that set numerous records, including a round-Australia flight with Charles Ulm in 1927. He also made the first crossing of the Pacific Ocean, with Ulm and two Americans in 1928, and in the same year the first crossing of the Tasman Sea. In 1930 Kingsford Smith made the first east–west crossing of the Atlantic as well as completing a solo flight from England to Darwin in record time. 'Smithy’, as he was known, was knighted in 1932 and died when his plane Lady Southern Cross disappeared off the coast of Burma in 1935.

• Despite the many records he set and his conviction that air transport had great potential, Kingsford Smith was not successful in the business side of aviation and his air school, which appears in the background of the first scene, was sold at a loss in 1935. He earned money by conducting joy-flights above Sydney, with passengers paying 10 shillings a trip. The aerial footage of Sydney used in the film was taken from on board the Southern Cross. The appearance of Kingsford Smith’s plane and flying school in the film could be seen as an early example of product placement in films.

• Splendid Fellows was produced by JC Williamson Pictures. James Cassius Williamson (1845–1913) was a US theatrical entrepreneur who came to Australia in 1874 and founded JC Williamson Theatre in 1881. The company later formed a film production arm, JC Williamson Pictures. JC Williamson Pictures was known as 'the firm’ and was the dominant theatrical production company in Australia for many years until its demise in 1984.

A group of people approach an idling plane at an airport. Their hats blow off as the propellers speed up.
Mr McBride Hey, young fella, must you make all that wind?
Reverend Stanhope Hello there. Is this yours?
Mr McBride Oh, thanks.
Reverend How are you? Well, we’ve all got the wind up us.
Mr McBride I’ve got a surprise for you.
Reverend What?
Mr McBride A surprise!
Reverend Where?
Mr McBride Here! This is the Honourable…
Reverend The what?
Mr McBride The Honourable…
Reverend The who?
Mr McBride Ah, this is the Honourable Hugh Montmorency Ralston. The young chap from England you were looking for.
Reverend Well, well. How are you, Montmorency?
Monty Topping. But look here, call me Monty, will you? I never could bear Montmorency.
Reverend I haven’t seen him since he was a little kid.
Monty Really?
Thompson Don’t you think he’s improved, sir? I’ve broken him of the habit of biting his fingernails.
All laugh. Monty bites his fingernails.
Thompson Will you stop it, sir? I’m sorry.
Monty That’s alright, Thompson.

A plane pulls in to land nearby. Kingsford Smith alights.
Reverend Hello, Sir Charles. How are you?
Smith Splendid, thanks. How are you?
Reverend Let me introduce you. Mrs McBride.
Mrs McBride How do you do, Sir Charles.
Reverend Miss McBride.
Miss McBride How do you do.
Smith How do you do.
Reverend The Honourable Montmorency Ralston.
Monty How do you do, Mr Charles?
Smith How do you do, Mr Ralston.
Reverend Mr McBride and Mr Thompson.
Smith How do you do.
Mr McBride How do you do.
Smith Well, what about bringing your friends up in the old bus and we’ll have a look at Sydney from the air?
Reverend Oh, jolly good idea.
Mr McBride Now now, no funny business, you know. No … no looping the loop or flying across the Pacific or to England or up in the moon once you get us on board. I’ve heard about you, you know!
Smith Well, well. Come along anyway.
Monty Feels like home, Thommy.
Thompson Yes, rather.

Inside the plane.
Smith I’m afraid you can’t smoke in the machine, folks.
Monty Righto, Sir Charles.
Mr McBride Fancy that, hey? No cigarettes or pipes in the plane, eh.
Mrs McBride Funny, isn’t it!
Monty You know, they carry a lot of liquor aboard.
Mr McBride Hey?
Mrs McBride I don’t believe it!
Monty They do. Didn’t you read about Sir Charles flying blind across the Tasman?
Mrs McBride Well, that only goes to prove what a marvellous man he is.
All laugh. The sights of Sydney unfold below them.
Reverend There’s a bird’s-eye view of Sydney for you.
Mrs McBride Oh, what a marvellous sight birds have.
Monty Yes. Fancy a stork picking out a maternity home from this height. Sorry, sir.