Below the Surface (1938 film)

Below the Surface is a 1938 adventure film set in the coal region of Newcastle, Australia. Only part of the movie survives.

Below the Surface
Directed byRupert Kathner
Screenplay byRupert Kathner
Story byStan Tolhurst
Produced byRupert Kathner
StarringStan Tolhurst
CinematographyTasman Higgins
Edited byStan Tolhurst
Production
company
Australian Cinema Entertainments
Release date
1938
Running time
55 minutes
CountryAustralia
LanguageEnglish

Plot

Two miners compete for an important coal contract. One of them attempts to sabotage the other but fails.

Cast
  • Stan Tolhurst
  • Phyllis Reilly
  • Neil Carlton
  • Jimmy McMahon
  • Lawrence Taylor
  • Reg King
  • Billy Baker
  • Leonard Clarke
  • Frank Baker
  • Billy Crooks

Production

The main investor in the movie was a prominent music house in Sydney. The film was shot on location in Cronulla, Sydney and Newcastle, with studio work done at Pagewood Studios.[1][2] Kather and Tolhurt built a mine set themselves. Shooting took place from November 1937 to February 1938.[3]

Release

Like Kathner's first movie, Phantom Gold (1937), it was refused to be considered eligible for registration under the New South Wales Film Quota Act on the grounds of poor quality.[3]

The film was never released to cinemas, the only one of Kather's movies to suffer this fate.[4]

In February 1938 Australian Cinema Entertainments announced plans to make four more features that year for £40,000, the first which was to be Diamonds in the Rough.[5] This did not eventuate. Tolhurst did revive the name with his company, ACE Films, in the late 1940s.[6]

References
  1. "MINERS' SONS". The Sydney Morning Herald. 10 January 1938. p. 11. Retrieved 15 August 2012 – via National Library of Australia.
  2. "AUSTRALIAN FILM". The Sydney Morning Herald. 1 December 1937. p. 9. Retrieved 15 August 2012 – via National Library of Australia.
  3. Andrew Pike and Ross Cooper, Australian Film 1900–1977: A Guide to Feature Film Production, Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1998, 184
  4. Graham Shirley and Brian Adams, Australian Cinema: The First Eighty Years, Currency Press, 1989, p151
  5. "AUSTRALIAN FILMS". The Sydney Morning Herald. 3 February 1938. p. 8. Retrieved 15 August 2012 – via National Library of Australia.
  6. "Ambitious film project by Australians". The Australian Women's Weekly. 27 September 1947. p. 40. Retrieved 15 August 2012 – via National Library of Australia.


This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.