Australian
Screen

Teacher’s notes

provided by

This clip shows a black-and-white excerpt from an Australian propaganda film made in 1941. It includes scenes re-creating the spreading of rumour and gossip and the passing on of specific information by people in Australia during the Second World War. The melodramatic voice-over warns that such information could be picked up, broadcast and used by the enemy. Scenes of Darwin and a map of Australia are used to show that fifth columnists might have infiltrated the remotest parts of Australia. The clip also shows Canberra, soldiers firing field guns, battleships in Sydney Harbour, posters warning of the danger of 'careless talk’, and examples of official forms that every 'alien’ person was required to complete. Music by the 19th-century German composer Richard Wagner is used.

Educational value points

• The clip is from the newsreel series Australia Today, made by Rupert Kathner (1904–54) and his filmmaking partner Alma Brooks (?–1988), at a time when the newsreel companies Cinesound News and the foreign-owned Movietone News dominated the market. The couple made newsreels to finance their feature films as well as to provide an alternative current affairs product that presented a wide range of Australian social issues to Australian audiences.

• Features common to propaganda films of the period are evident. The clip conveys urgency through the dramatic soundtrack, both in the selection of music and in the tone and emotive language of the voice-over. Black-and-white re-creations of scenes and careful use of light and shadow evoke fear of the shadowy threat represented by the 'enemy within’. A series of extreme close-ups of people on the telephone suggests secrecy, and the juxtaposition of images, such as a scene depicting warships followed by a scene of children playing, contrasts the freedom enjoyed in Australia with the chaos and destruction of war.

• In his book Mein Kampf (My Struggle), Hitler said of propaganda that it should be restricted to a few points repeated often and punctuated with slogans. He also said that it must never be objective and must never concede anything whatsoever to the opposition, and that above all, it should be designed to influence people’s feelings rather than their understanding.

• Wartime public information posters from the series 'Careless talk costs lives’, designed by the English artist Cyril Kenneth Bird (1887–1965), are shown. They were published by the British Ministry of Information in 1939 and consolidated Bird’s reputation, already established by his poster designs for London Transport and his contributions to and editorship of Punch magazine. In 1939, at the outbreak of war, he offered his services free to the government, suggesting that humour might be a successful vehicle for publicising government programs.

• The claim made in this clip that some people in Australia supported the enemy was borne out to some extent by the Australia First movement. This short-lived organisation, which attracted a few hundred members, ended when its leaders and some of its members were secretly interned in 1942. Its roots were in strong Australian nationalism and anti-British and anti-imperialist sentiment. Sympathetic to the Japanese Government and the anticommunist German and Italian governments during the Second World War, it became, through its obscure journal The Publicist, a vehicle for the anti-Semitism of some of its members.

• To direct attention to the 'enemy within’, the clip refers to aliens and the restrictions imposed on them in wartime Australia. The Aliens Registration Act 1939 and the National Security (Aliens Control) Regulations 1939 spelt out the rights and obligations of 'enemy aliens’, those nationals of countries at war with Australia, and others deemed to be a threat to national security. They were required to register, and to report to their local police station to obtain leave to travel. Thousands of German, Italian and Japanese nationals were interned in Australian camps during the War and at its conclusion were offered the choice of returning to their country of origin or remaining in Australia.

• The music of Richard Wagner (1813–83), a German composer who is claimed by some to have been Hitler’s favourite composer and his ideological forerunner, provides the background soundtrack for the clip. Hitler, born six years after Wagner’s death, was an enthusiast of his music, and the overture from Die meistersinger was used at the 1933 Nuremberg rally. However, links between Wagner’s philosophies and political beliefs and those of the Nazis, who came to power 50 years after his death, are much more difficult to substantiate.