YEAR: 1906

DIRECTOR: Charles Tait

STARRING: Frank Mills

In the history of cinema, there is much dispute about various firsts, but there are very few who take issue with The Story of the Kelly Gang’s status as the first feature-length film ever made. The film is historically truthful, being a telling of some of the major events in the last three years of the life of Ned Kelly, the most famous and most mythologised of the Australian bushrangers. Kelly was executed at the age of 25, in 1880, 26 years before the production of the film. 

The film is, partially, a lost film. Its original run-time was over an hour, but only fragments of the film survive, some 296m of film, running for just under 15 minutes (at 18 frames per second). The Story of the Kelly Gang was thought to be completely lost until the late 70’s, when the first fragment was found. Various further fragments emerged over the years, the last in 2006, 100 years after the film’s release. That year, the Australian National Film and Sound Archive pieced together the surviving fragments. 

NED KELLY

Ned Kelly was an Australian bushranger, a term translated in much of the English-speaking world as outlaw. Kelly was born in the British colony of Victoria (present-day Australia) to Irish-born parents, his father having been transported to Australia as a convict for stealing two pigs. Central to Kelly turning to crime was family poverty and a perception of oppression as members of an Irish ethnic minority.

Kelly was imprisoned multiple times for petty crimes in his earlier years, but his life as a true outlaw began in 1878, when he retreated with his brother and two other men into the bush, having been charged with the attempted murder of a police officer. Later that year, Kelly and his gang murdered three police officers who had been sent to apprehend them. Only a fragment of the shootout survives from the original film.

The gang would survive two more years in the bush, surviving by robbing banks, sluicing gold, and distilling whisky. The gang were famous in their time, and their ability to elude capture was helped greatly by relying on a large network of sympathisers.

Aiding the growing legend of Ned Kelly and his gang was the publication of a letter Kelly gave to a bank clerk to have published during the gang’s raid on a bank in Jerilderie. The letter is remarkable for its poetics, famously ending with the imperative:

Neglect this and abide by the consequences, which shall be worse than the rust in the wheat of Victoria or the druth of a dry season to the grasshoppers in New South Wales I do not wish to give the order full force without giving timely warning. But I am a widow’s son outlawed and my orders must be obeyed.

These last words are oddly similar to Maximus’ words upon confronting Commodus in Ridley Scott’s Gladiator:

My name is Maximus Decimus’ Meridius, commander of the Armies of the North, General of the Felix Legions and loyal servant to the true emperor, Marcus Aurelius. Father to a murdered son. Husband to a murdered wife. And I will have my vengeance, in this life or the next.

Maximus is played by Australian Russell Crowe, who is reported to have had a hand in the script of Gladiator, having declared the original script ‘garbage’. Crowe notably also played the role of Harry Power, a bushranger confederate of Kelly’s, in Justin Kurzel’s 2019 The True History of the Kelly Gang. 

Aside from achieving great sympathy and acclaim as a downtrodden outlaw persecuted unfairly by British police, Kelly’s legend endures, in part, for devising a set bullet-proof iron armour to be worn during shootouts with police. Kelly wore the armour in his last stand, a siege and shootout with police at Glenrowan. The armour did not cover his lower legs, and he was shot and captured.

Kelly was tried and convicted later that year. Upon delivering a sentence of death to Kelly, judge Redmond Barry said to Kelly, ‘May God have mercy on your soul’ — Kelly responded: ‘I will see you there where I go’.

Kelly was executed by hanging on 11 November 1880, despite thousands rallying in the streets of Melbourne, petitioning a reprieve. Dispute remains about Kelly’s final words, but the enduring legend is that he simply said, ‘Such is life’.

THE FILM

The film captures several episodes from Kelly’s final years as a bushranger, beginning with the alleged attempted murder of a police officer and culminating in his final shootout at Glenrowan. This final scene was a particularly dazzling spectacle for the contemporary public. Kelly, wearing his suit of armour and armed with two pistols, advances slowly upon several police firing at him.

The film was astoundingly popular upon its release, spawning a number of further bushranging films and contributing heavily to state governments placing bans on the genre in 1912.

Although already having been depicted in literature, The Story of the Kelly Gang was the first representation of the outlaw in film. Kelly has continually been portrayed ever since, some noteworthy actors cast as the outlaw including Mick Jagger and Heath Ledger.

The film is also testament to the enormous popularity of the Western genre in early filmmaking.