The Story of the Kelly Gang

Sometimes history treats researchers with frustration with little or no physical evidence to shine further light on known pivot-points. This is exactly the trouble with the 1906 The Kelly Gang movie. Every movie buff knows that the Australian one-hour-long film broke new ground when it was released. Films released prior to late 1906 were 3 to 10 minute pieces of work, with producers figuring that's about the normal attention span movie audiences could sustain without getting restless. Besides an occasional long boxing match production, no dramatic film was ever financed and produced with that length of over 15 minutes.

So when the Aussies put forth a 65-minute film recreating the exploits of the Kelly Gang running amok in the late 1800's, audiences were applauding the movie throughout. Several situational scenes were reportedly contained in the movie, although alas, as every historian has experienced , the forensics are not quite all there in this movie.

The edition I watched was compiled by the National Film & Sound Archive, which was 31 minutes long. About 13 minutes, mostly front ended, was viewable. Modern titles detailing the movie's plot unveiled a series of events where the gang robbed and then were chased before its members robbed again. Towards the end, where the last of the members were cornered, several minutes of basically an unwatchable, damaged string of celluloid were played.

So today's viewers will only get a glimpse of what can only be appreciated by long gone generations. But we do know the importance of this film, even though feature, long-running movies wouldn't be in vogue until the mid-teens.