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Browne, George: Our movie memories 1928–1934 (1928)

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Good Queen Bess

Original classification rating: not rated. This clip chosen to be G

Clip description

As the Spanish Armada’s flotilla of ships creeps towards England’s shores, Queen Elizabeth (George Browne) reviews her land troops assembled at Tilbury. The troops stand proudly in line. Once the Spanish come ashore, a fight with the English ensues. Finally the Spanish are defeated and retreat. Later, the Queen and her servants celebrate.

Curator’s notes

by Poppy De Souza

The beginning of this scene (not curated in this clip) gives the viewers the background to the story: Queen Elizabeth I (played by filmmaker George Browne in drag; he also plays Juliet in clip one) receives a letter (explained in intertitles) which tells her that the Spanish King Philip II is sending an Armada to England to wipe her ‘off the map’. Forewarned, she prepares her troops for the Armada’s arrival…

The use of correspondence or letters as the basis for the intertitles in the prelude is a clever way for Browne to create a sense of period to the 1588 story. Another brief intertitle, visible in the beginning of the beach scenes, indicates that the weather was bad when these scenes were filmed, and they had to make do with the time they had. The beach scenes were possibly shot at Clifton Gardens, or another beach close to the Browne family residence at Cremorne on Sydney’s lower north shore.

The Browne family staged Good Queen Bess, their final recorded play in this home movie, in 1934.

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  • You may embed the clip for non-commercial educational purposes including for use on a school intranet site or a school resource catalogue.
  • The National Film and Sound Archive’s permission must be sought to amend any information in the materials, unless otherwise stated in notices throughout the Site.

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