Frank Harvey (Australian screenwriter)

Harvey studied acting under Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree and played Shakespearean parts in the Lyceum Theatre in London. In 1914 he was engaged by J. C. Williamson to play in Australia with Nancye Stewart, and did not return to Britain until 1926.[2]

In 1922 and 1923 he played the leading man in a number of J & N Tait productions with the Emélie Polini troupe and toured Australia and New Zealand.[3]

When Harvey returned to Britain, it took him several months to re-establish himself there, but was cast in The Transit of Venus and then had little difficulty finding work, being particularly well regarded for a role in Jew Suss. While acting in this role, he had a nervous breakdown and was ordered to take three months off.[4]

Harvey also had two plays produced, The Last Enemy and Cape Forlorn.[5]

By 1931 he was back in Melbourne to appear in a series of plays for J. C. Williamson, including On the Spot and a production of his own Cape Forlorn.[6][7] Harvey said he preferred working on stage to screen:

An actor on the screen is not an actor at all, but a robot. In the days of the silent films, an actor could have a distinct screen personality; but now that speech has come, all that is ended. After the novelty has worn off, talking films will settle down here, as they have abroad, into a mere substitute for the silent films, and will not interfere in any way with the prosperity of the legitimate theatre. The screen should stick to the sphere in which it is really capable – the sphere of spectacular production, such as Iies outside the ambit of the legitimate stage. It is really a glorified sideshow.[8]

Harvey returned to London in October 1931,[9] but was back in Australia in 1933 to work for F. W. Thring at Efftee Productions as an actor and screenwriter.

In 1935 he moved to Sydney and began writing and acting for ABC radio. This involvement later led to full-time appointment as senior drama producer in 1944, directing such stars as Queenie Ashton (in early episodes of Blue Hills), Lyndall Barbour and Nigel Lovell. He appeared as Nestor the story-teller in the Argonauts Club for most of the '40s.[10] His play False Colours was staged by Doris Fitton's Independent Theatre.[11]

In 1936 he founded a school of voice production and dramatic art with Claude Flemming.

That year Harvey also went to work for Ken G. Hall at Cinesound Productions as a studio dialogue director and in-house screenwriter. Starting with It Isn't Done (1937), Harvey wrote or co-wrote nine produced feature film scripts for Cinesound over the next four years, often playing small roles in them as well.[12]

According to one observer, Harvey's work as an actor and writer showed his bias towards the theatrical: "his scripts tend towards fulsome dialogues with witty repartee and epigram-matical statements, and his acting, particularly in Tall Timbers (1937), tends to exploit dramatic gestures and facial expressions far more intensively than was then required for screen 'naturalism'. Under Hall's direction, Harvey's dialogues were simplified and images allowed to express more of the script's content; his acting too became increasingly restrained as he adjusted to the demands of the film medium."[13]

• musical version of Robbery Under Arms (1934)[43]
• film version of Collits' Inn (circa 1934)[43]