Share
Clip description
Billy has been summoned to report for military training, which he does not want to do. At the army camp, Billy (Keith Gategood) feigns illness, with a bad cough. The medical officer assures him that he is in the best of health and that he might be a general one day, if he can learn to behave like a man. In his new uniform, Billy finds that his would-be school sweetheart Gladys (Marie Miller) now finds him much more attractive. He begins to get a taste for the discipline of army life, even at home, where he chops wood without complaint.
Curator’s notes
Billy provides us with a perfect picture of the kind of young man that became infamous during the dark days of the First World War – the shirker, or malingerer, the man who did not want to fight even as his mates were dying on the battlefields in France and Gallipoli. The fact that this is ten years later is not the point: the film was exploiting a commonly-held belief in Australia that not everyone had shared the weight.
An interesting part of this clip is that Billy is ordered to report for training by summons. How could this be, when the Australian people had voted twice during 1916 and 1917 against compulsory subscription? Actually, they had not quite done that. They voted against a proposal, supported by Prime Minister WM Hughes, that universal conscription powers be given to the government to send men overseas. Australia already had compulsory universal military training, from 1911. The system had been changed a few times, but it applied to all Australian men aged between 18 and 60. The difference was they could not be sent overseas to fight. That is what the government tried to change in the divisive debates of 1916 and 1917. By 1928, when this film was made, recruitment to civilian-based units, the Australian Military Forces, was struggling. Even the system of compulsory military training was to be abandoned the following year. Billy and his mates would have been amongst the last to receive those compulsory notices.
The film makes broad claims for the benefits of training. One of these is that the uniform attracts women. The girl who compliments Billy on his uniform is the former schoolgirl Gladys, that we saw in clip one, now grown up. Billy has also developed self-discipline. Before his training, he had to be forced to do his chores, including chopping wood. After a few months in camp, Billy does it willingly and cheerfully.
