Cinesound Productions

Cinesound Productions Pty Ltd was one of Australia's first feature film production companies. Established in June 1932, Cinesound developed out of a group of companies centred around Greater Union Theatres, that covered all facets of the film process, from production, to distribution and exhibition.

Cinesound Productions established a film studio as a subsidiary of Greater Union Theatres Pty Ltd based on the Hollywood model. The first production was On Our Selection (1932), which was an enormous financial success.

Establishment

Stuart F. Doyle and Ken Hall were the major figures involved in the establishment of Cinesound in 1931.^[1][2] Stuart Doyle was the Managing Director of Greater Union Theatres, and it was his desire to encourage an Australian film industry that provided the impetus for Cinesound to develop. Doyle appointed his then personal assistant, Ken Hall, to the position of General Manager of Cinesound, and also put him in charge as supervisor of production. In this role, Ken Hall directed all but one of the seventeen films that Cinesound produced and also handled the business affairs of the company. Hall continued to lead Cinesound until 1956.^[2]

Both Doyle and Hall were very committed to the notion of showmanship, which encompassed ideas relating to the type of entertainment the public would want to enjoy, and how to effectively publicise that entertainment to the masses. The publicity campaign for The Squatter's Daughter, and its star Jocelyn Howarth, was particularly imbued with this concept. They were also interested in creating a star system along Hollywood lines promoting the idea that Cinesound was a "little Hollywood". It was this dedication to showmanship that led to all but one of Cinesound's feature films making a profit from the first release, and all of the films eventually at least broke even. In 1939 Hall said that the budgets of Cinesound films were usually between ₤10,000 and ₤20,000, and estimated that his first fourteen films had earned ₤350,000 at the box office.^[3]

Corporate History

The success of On Our Selection and The Squatter's Daughter, along with the proposed introduction of quotas for Australian films in the mid 1930s, saw Cinesound become bullish about expansion. They increased the size of their studio to make Strike Me Lucky, and announced a series of future productions, including Grandad Rudd and an adaptation of Robbery Under Arms, as well as several films produced in Queensland over the next two years, one set in the cattle industry, another in the cane fields and a third on the Great Barrier Reef. It was proposed Cinesound would make 12 movies a year in the first year of the quota: four "super productions", four "quota specials", and four independent Cinesound productions.^[4] There was also talk of establishing a studio in Melbourne at St Kilda.^[5] In the end the quotas did not prove effective enough to support such a program, although Cinesound kept making movies until 1940.

Profitability

In 1933 Cinesound reported profits of ₤4,010 and in 1934 these reached ₤8,800. In the financial year ending 1935, the studio stopped production for six months out of the uncertainty within the Australian film industry, and allowing Hall to visit Hollywood. This saw profits drop to ₤4,220 for that year.^[6]

On June 30, 1937 Cinesound reported a loss of £5,254^[7] but soon recovered - in the six month period ending December 31, 1937 the company earned a profit of £2,788.^[8]

For the financial year ended July 2, 1938, the company made a profit of £7,647. However, the feature division was affected by an amendment to British film legislation which meant that Australian films no longer counted as "British" under the local quota. This saw the loss of a guaranteed market for Cinesound films, which normally sold for £6,500 - £7,500 to Britain, and forced the studio to make more broad-based comedies.^[9]

In February 1939 a company was registered, Cinesound Features Pty. Ltd., a subsidiary of Cinesound Productions Pty. Ltd, to produce the feature productions of the parent company. The directors of the new company were the same as Cinesound Productions: Norman Rydge, Edwin Geach, and John Goulston.^[10]

Profits for later years were as follows: 1940 - ₤2,821 1941 - ₤1,242 1942 - ₤5,018^[11]

Talent School

Cinesound established a talent school for young actors in 1938. Run by George Cross and Alec Kellaway (who acted in many Cinesound films), it offered training in "deportment, enunciation, miming, microphone technique and limbering." By 1940 the school had had over 200 students, including Grant Taylor and Yvonne East, who featured in Dad Rudd, MP (1940), plus Valerie Scanlon, Lorna Westbrook, Natalie Raine, and Mary Sinclair.^[12]

1940s

Cinesound Productions produced feature films until the Second World War, when it was considered that feature films were too great a financial risk to undertake. Cinesound then concentrated on producing the Cinesound Review, a newsreel that they had been generating to exhibit alongside their feature films.

After the war, a British producer and exhibitor named J. Arthur Rank bought a controlling interest in Greater Union, and used the theatre chain primarily to exhibit British films, whilst discouraging local feature production. Hence Cinesound never regained its place as a major local film producer, and Australian film production was almost non-existent for the next two decades.

In 1940 the Australian Government decided to channel news footage to the public through the existing newsreel companies, Cinesound and Movietone. In the same year Cinesound abandoned feature production for the duration of the war.^[13] By this stage it was estimated Cinesound films had earned ₤400,000 at the box office.^[14]

In 1942 Cinesound provided the operational base for the film unit of the US Signal Corps to prepare newsreels for viewing to American troops in the South West Pacific theatre of the war.

In 1946 arrangements were made with the commercial film distribution companies to distribute selected Commonwealth Film Unit productions in Australian cinemas on a commercial basis. Similar arrangements existed for the release of general sponsored documentaries produced by Movietone and Cinesound.

Other Australian producers were almost totally deprived of access to commercial cinema screens.

Despite the success of Ken G Hall's last feature, Smithy, which was backed by Columbia Pictures as a means of repatriating frozen currency held in Australia due to wartime restrictions, Greater Union Theatres decided not to resume post-war production through Cinesound.

Feature Films

• On Our Selection (1932)
• The Squatter's Daughter (1933)
• The Silence of Dean Maitland (1934)
• Strike Me Lucky (1934)
• Grandad Rudd (1935)
• Thoroughbred (1936)
• Orphan of the Wilderness (1936)
• It Isn't Done (1937)
• Tall Timbers (1937)
• Lovers and Luggers (1937)
• The Broken Melody (1938)
• Let George Do It (1938)
• Dad and Dave Come to Town (1938)
• Gone to the Dogs (1939)
• Come Up Smiling (1939)
• Mr. Chedworth Steps Out (1939)
• Dad Rudd, MP (1940)

Short Films

• Thar She Blows! (1931)
• That's Cricket (1931)
• Cinesound Review (weekly newsreel) (1931-1975)
• Cinesound Varieties (1934)
• 100,000 Cobbers (1942)
• South West Pacific (1943)

Unmade Films

Various films were announced for production by Cinesound that were not made, including adaptations of the novels Overland Telegraph and Robbery Under Arms, as well as a version of the Eureka Stockade story.^[15] In 1939 American producer Jack Lester was brought to Australia by Cinesound to produce Life of Melba, a biopic about opera singer Nellie Melba, but this was interrupted by the war.^[16]

Of all these an adaptation of Robbery Under Arms was the most frequently discussed - Ken G. Hall later described it as "the film I wanted to make more than any other".^[17] Film rights were bought from Raymond Longford and a script prepared with the movie meant to go into production in winter 1934 after making Cinesound Varieties, but it was originally postponed because of a desire to make the film in summer time.^[18] Plans to make the film the next year were held up because Cinesound were unsure whether the ban against bushranging films still applied.^[19]

Footnotes

1. ^ UNESCO HONOURS CINESOUND MOVIETONE PRODUCTIONS – Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (Australia Section)
2. ^ ^{a b} Ken G Hall Award goes to the late Tom Nurse – Australian Film Commission News & Events. 27 November 2003.
3. ^ 'KEN HALL SAYS A WORD FOR AUSTRALIAN FILMS', The Courier-Mail (Brisbane) Thursday 13 July 1939 Section: Second Section. p 6
4. ^ 'QUEENSLAND FILMS Production Planned', The Courier-Mail (Brisbane), Monday 6 August 1934 p 20
5. ^ 'AUSTRALIAN FILMS Company Increases Equipment', Barrier Miner (Broken Hill), Thursday 9 August 1934 Edition: HOME EDITION p 5
6. ^ 'UNION THEATRES PROFITS AND PROSPECTS DETAILS OF ORGANISATION', The Argus (Melbourne), Saturday 6 July 1935 p 20
7. ^ 'FILM FINANCES', Townsville Daily Bulletin (Qld), Thursday 6 January 1938 p 3
8. ^ 'AMALGAMATED PICTURES. Results of Operating Companies', The Sydney Morning Herald, Thursday 28 July 1938 p 8
9. ^ 'GREATER UNION GROUP Half-year's Profit', The Sydney Morning Herald, Wednesday 4 January 1939 p 10
10. ^ 'Cinesound Features', The Sydney Morning Herald, Tuesday 14 February 1939 p8
11. ^ 'GREATER UNION Net Profit Increase', The Sydney Morning Herald, Wednesday 25 August 1943 p 5
12. ^ 'Australians Seek Fame, 200 in Starlet School' Sunday Times (Perth), Sunday 30 June 1940 p6
13. ^ 'NO MORE FEATURE FILMS. Cinesound Decision', The Sydney Morning Herald, Friday 28 June 1940 p 9
14. ^ 'THE TRAGEDY OF CINESOUND'S STRUGGLE A Brave Rearguard Action-Fought Over 10 Years Has Ended Because the Odds Were Too Great', The Argus (Melbourne), Saturday 13 July 1940 Supplement: The Argus Week-end Magazine p 2
15. ^ 'Cinesound Starts Production On Mahoney Film', The Mercury (Hobart), Saturday 1 July 1939 p 5
16. ^ 'Jack Lester Plans New Perth Show', Sunday Times (Perth), Sunday 5 November 1939 p 5
17. ^ Ken G. Hall, Directed by Ken G. Hall, Lansdowne Press, 1977 p93
18. ^ 'CINESOUND'S PLANS. A Musical-comedy Revue', The West Australian, Thursday 29 March 1934 p 3
19. ^ 'BONUSES FOR FILMS. Mr. Stuart Doyle's Suggestion. QUOTA PROPOSAL DISCUSSED', The Sydney Morning Herald, Saturday 20 October 1934 p 20

External links

• Cinesound Productions - partial filmography – Australian Screen, an Australian Film Commission resource
• Cinesound Productions at IMDB
• Cinesound Productions at National Film and Sound Archive