Australian
Screen

Clip description

Customs officers try in vain to stop the illegal importation of various contraband goods which come in to the country by sea. ‘Men of the underworld’ – shady drug dealers and crime bosses – are shown under ‘cover of darkness’ conducting an illegal exchange. A range of contraband items is shown before moving on to the effects on the street where addicts and dealers swap money for drugs.

Curator’s notes

In the opening frames of this segment (not seen here), filmmaker Rupert Kathner adds an element to position the audience where he wants them. He plays the Australian national anthem over his Australia Today title card to stir patriotism and national pride before the newsreel proper begins. In the clip that we see here, Kathner constructs this sensational story of criminal behaviour and its social consequences by working through the chain of supply – from the importers who dodge customs, to the shady underworld figures who pay for the goods, to the packaging and distribution of the drugs by the dealers to the addicts. Kathner also employs a dramatic voice-over to build the narrative and create a sense of fear and suspicion about the importation of illegal goods into the country.

The opening credits cite the voice-over commentator as the ‘masked critic’ and may have been provided by Kathner himself. That social commentary such as this needs to be given by an anonymous or ‘masked’ voice is of interest. Is Kathner’s aim to make the masked critic a kind of whistleblower, revealing the dark underworld of smuggled goods? Or is it simply a cheap trick, indicative of Kathner’s flair for the sensational? Either way, the device of using the ‘masked critic’ lends itself well to creating the segment’s murky mood and tone.

Overall, this newsreel segment is a strong example of the power of the audiovisual medium to convey a message – be it truth or propaganda. The links between the style of current affairs sensationalism seen on commercial broadcasters today and Kathner’s extravagant methods of storytelling cannot be denied.