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Clip description
The single reel containing the almost three minutes that survive of Those Who Love consists of extracts from four scenes – dancers at a beach party, events surrounding Barry’s and Lola’s first meeting at a cabaret, and a romantic scene on a wharf between Barry (William Carter) and Lola (Isabel McDonagh billed as 'Marie Lorraine’).
Curator’s notes
Often called a trailer, the fragment that survives Those Who Love (which starts with the film’s opening title and ends with a ‘Finis’ title) is like a reel of highlights that may have been intended to raise funds for further McDonagh sisters films.
The reel’s four sequences are as follows:
Scene 1
At a beach party, Barry Manton is among a group of revellers who watch the entertainer Bébé Dorée (Sylvia Newland) perform the 1920s dance the Charleston before Barry, Bébé and the spectators divide into couples to dance.
The scene was shot at Sydney’s Tamarama Beach, a location for several other Australian silent films. The scene draws from the conventions of jazz age modernity as well as carefree bohemianism. Cameraman Jack Fletcher took two exposures to achieve the effect of a dissolve from a medium shot of Bébé dancing to a close-up that tilts down her legs to her feet. Fletcher contributed similar effects to the two other McDonagh silent features, The Far Paradise (1928) and The Cheaters (silent) (1929).
Scene 2
In a seedy bar, Lola Quayle takes her first look at Barry Manton, who sits in a state of drunken numbness. The intertitle introducing Lola is: ’Lola Quayle, solo dancer of the Pool – a delicate flower striving to preserve her fragrance in a world of sordid realities’.
Scene 3
Barry ushers Lola into the background before embarking on a wild fight with the cabaret boss (‘Big’ Bill Wilson), who has tried to force himself on Lola. The fight will cost Lola her job.
While most of Those Who Love was shot on Sydney locations including Drummoyne House, the cabaret sequence was filmed at the Australasian Films studio in Bondi Junction, a building that served as the Cinesound Productions studio from 1931 to 1951.
Scene 4
Early in their courtship, Lola visits Barry at his wharf workplace. As Barry gives Lola a kiss on the lips, they are watched by two wharf labourers trying hard to pretend they haven’t been watching.
