Australian
Screen

Clip description

Philip (Boyd Irwin) brings Marjory (Lottie Lyell) home after a day’s outing, during which they have become lovers. Mrs Manton (Connie Martyn) sends her to her room for being so late home. The next section of the film is missing – during which Marjory realises she is pregnant and that Philip has probably abandoned her. According to the written scenario, lodged by Longford at the time, Marjory in despair buys medicine at the chemist, prays for help, and throws herself on the bed sobbing. Mrs Manton hears her sobs and enters the room. The extant footage begins again with the letter to ‘Jack’ – the fake name that Philip is using. Mrs Manton reads the letter and realises her daughter is pregnant. Their argument alerts Ralph, the brother, who demands to know the name of her lover. Marjory refuses to tell him.

Curator’s notes

Marilyn Dooley, who reconstructed the film in the early 1990s at the NFSA, believes that Longford never filmed the scene of Marjory buying, and taking, the medicine. This scene, described in the scenario that Longford and Lyell lodged for copyright purposes in 1918, has a clear implication – that Marjory was trying to abort her baby. The extant footage shows instead that Mrs Manton discovers her daughter’s pregnancy through the letter, rather than examining the medicine bottle (as described in the scenario). It’s possible that Longford, or Lyell, or both, decided this inference was going to give them censorship problems, so they dropped it. The film had fairly explosive content already and Australia’s censors were quick to ban such things, although the film was eventually passed uncut. Whether the content caused the later ban in New South Wales was open to question, since it occurred after the film had already been playing in Sydney for several months. The Chief Secretary of NSW never gave a reason for the ban, despite a public outcry and questions in Parliament.