Dan Barry and The Kelly Gang

Compiled by Michael Organ, with the assistance of Sally Jackson

Dan Barry is now running motion picture shows of the battle which preceded the capture of Ned Kelly. Where the camera man was at the date of the Glenrowan fight is a mere detail. Barry is arranging for bioscope pictures of the Battle of Waterloo, taken on the spot, expressly for Barry, and by arrangement with the late Napoleon! (Sydney Sportsman, 20 March 1907)

Contents

The Kelly Gang
Copyright claims
The mysterious footage
"Fake" Kelly film
Barry, Kelly & Bio-pictures
Fotheringham 1987
References
Acknowledgements

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1. Dan Barry's The Kelly Gang

On Boxing Day, 26 December 1906, actor and theatrical manager Dan Barry (1851-1908) presented his World-Wide Wonder Show at the Town Hall, Hobart. Included on the mixed program was a film entitled The Kelly Gang. On the same day, the world's first full length feature film - The Story of the Kelly Gang - premiered at the Atheneum Theatre, Melbourne. Both films were produced and directed by the firm of Johnson and Gibson. The Melbourne release was by the theatrical entrepreneurs J. & N. Tait. How Barry came to acquire the footage and release it at the same time as the Melbourne premiere is an interesting and somewhat mysterious story......

Dan Barry was born John Ringrose Atkins in Dublin on 29 May 1851. The only image we have of him is the picture above, which is dated 6 January 1898. From the 1870s Barry began acting and performing in travelling shows through eastern Australia. Eventually he can to manage his own theatrical production company and this brought him, at the end of 1906, to presenting The Kelly Gang film. Precious little information on the content and length of the film was provided by Barry in newspaper advertisements and puff pieces promoting the show during its run through into early 1907. It is therefore something of a mystery to historians of early Australian silent cinema who have traditionally declared that Millard Johnson and W. A. Gibson's production of The Story of the Kelly Gang (1906) was the first Ned Kelly film to be made in Australia, and the world's first full-length narrative feature presentation. That is all correct. However, where the Barry film fits into this story remains unclear.

The mystery regarding the Dan Barry film was discussed at length by Richard Fotheringham in his 1987 Cinema Papers article entitled The Man in the Iron Mask (reproduced in full below). Within that article, Fotheringham went so far as to suggest that Robert Hollyford - Dan Barry's colleague during this period, and subsequent manager of the Dan Barry Dramatic Company - was, in actual fact, the famous pioneer of Australian cinema, Raymond Longford (1878-1959). Just as John Ringrose Atkins could become Dan Barry, so Raymond Longford could become Robert Hollyford. Apart from this intriguing suggestion, Fotheringham and others have left us with a number of unanswered questions regarding Dan Barry's The Kelly Gang footage: Was this footage from The Story of the Kelly Gang (1906) or a different production? And if the latter, then what, and by whom? It may seem obvious that it was the Johnson and Gibson film, but a case for that needs to be put. Why obvious? Because Barry was not a film maker during this early pioneering era of cinema. He had no experience in the making of film, and had only included film presentation within his company's program early in 1906. However, due to a lack of information and clarity, over the years since then a number of theories have been put forward as to the origin of The Kelly Gang. For example, it had been suggested that is was the so-called "Perth Fragment" in the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia collection, as identified in 2006 by Australian cinema historian Ina Bertrand. Does all of such early Ned Kelly material derive from a single source? The present author tends towards Johnson & Gibson as the creators, and outlines arguments in support below. As regards the "Perth Fragment", this was subsequently identified by the National Film and Sound Archive as The Kelly Gang: The Battle of Glenrowan (1911), a British production by Alfred Ernest Neave.

There has been much debate over the years regarding Barry's involvement in the release of The Kelly Gang footage during December 1906 and through the early part of 1907. The jury definitely remains out as to its origins, and may never be recalled (Gaunson 2010). Was there any connection between the Johnson and Gibson produced footage and Barry's film? It would appear so, at least according to The Powerhouse Museum, Sydney. Its webpage Early Australian Cinema states the following in regard to Barry's involvement in this release, apparently based on information contained in Eric Reade's Early Australian Silent Film: A Pictorial History (1970):

In 1906 Dan Barry and Charles Tait of Melbourne produced and directed The Story of the Kelly Gang, a silent film that ran continuously for a breathtaking 80 minutes, definitely the world's first feature film. It wasn't until 1911 that other countries began to make feature films. By this time Australia had made 16 full length feature films.

Apart from the inaccuracy of the first line of this paragraph, a scan of Reade's book by the present author did not locate any specific connective reference, and no other such record is known which lists Barry as one of the producers of the 1906 Melbourne film. Stephen Gaunson, in his 2010 PhD theses on the various Ned Kelly movies released between 1906 and 2003, goes further, citing Ina Bertrand and others in attempting to unravel this early Australian cinematic who-dun-nit, though it nowhere references Barry and also opens with an since disproven statement concerning the "Perth Fragment":

Before Charles Tait's 1906 film, at least one other Kelly film had been produced. Bertrand entitled its remaining footage as "the Perth Fragment‟, as it seems to have been shot in Western Australia and was registered as the proprietors of copyright on December 14, 1906 (Fotheringham, 1987: 32). This footage can now be viewed at the National Film & Sound Archive in Canberra. The existing footage of "the Perth Fragment" includes Aaron Sherritt betraying the Kellys, and according to Routt, this film was based on either the play The Kelly Gang or the Career of Ned Kelly, the Ironclad Bushranger of Australia (1898) produced and written by Arnold Denham, or Hands Up! Or Ned Kelly and His Gang or The Iron-Clad Bushranger (1903) produced by E. I. Cole (Routt, 2003a). Eric Irvin writes that The Kelly Gang (1898) ran at the Opera House for a further twenty-eight performances making thirty-five for its first production. It had a repeat run of eleven performances at the same theatre in 1907, having in the meantime played all over Australia‟ (Irvin, 1981: 82). Indicated by reviews, the play represented the Kellys as typical avengers who "kill for killing sake‟ (Routt, 2003a). The Mitchell Library currently holds the original manuscript of The Kelly Gang (1898). Denham's play had led to other plays that celebrated the subject of "lawlessness‟, and certainly, he could have inspired Cole's own Kelly play (Irvin, 1981: 82). Routt states that "it would not have been out of the question for Cole's company to have been touring with this production in Western Australia in 1906 – just as it would not be out of the question for Barry to have been in Western Australia with his "cold-blooded‟ Kelly revival the year before ...‟ (Routt, 2003a). "The Perth Fragment" was most likely titled "The Kelly Gang‟ and probably it was not a feature film. Most possibly, it was a short in the tradition of other bushranging films like Joseph Perry's Bush ranging in North Queensland (1904) and the American Western The Great Train Robbery (Edwin Porter, 1903). Routt describes the Gang from "the Perth Fragment‟ as "vile fellows, not like heroes at all‟ (Routt, 2003a). On the same evening as the Taits Melbourne premiere, a film titled The Kelly Gang seems to have premiered at the Hobart Town Hall; however, it is not known whether this was another copy of the Taits film or perhaps "the Perth Fragment" (Ina Bertrand and Routt, 2007: 36). It was presented by Dan Barry and Robert Hollyford.

The so-called "Perth Fragment" has proven to be a red herring. This is not to say that there were not other film makers in Australia during 1906 using the Kelly gang story as the basis for a production, though that is highly unlikely. No evidence has been found, in comparison with that associated with the original Australian blockbuster that was The Story of the Kelly Gang (1906). Names such as contemporary producer and cameraman T. J. West and Charles Byers-Coates have been mentioned in connection with the production of a possible Barry film, though it would seem that the latter was more of a technician than a camera operator, and actually worked for Johnson & Gibson. For example, on 21 January 1907 the Bendigo Advertiser ran a story noting the employment of Byers-Coates in developing 20,000 feet of film for them in connection with the release of The Story of the Kelly Gang (1906).

Also of interest in the above Gaunson quote is the mention of the date of the supposed Western Australian copyright claim as 14 December 1906. This is the same date as the Barry and Hollyford The Kelly Gang letterpress poster copyright claim, entered at the Victorian Patents Office on that date and illustrated below. No such Western Australian copyright claim has been located.

Official copyright registration of a The Kelly Gang letterpress poster by Robert Hollyford and Dan Barry, 14 December 1906.

This circumstantial evidence would suggest a link between the two claims, i.e., film and poster, though the present author has not sighted any film copyright claim document. It is likely that there is only one such document, as illustrated above, as no films could be directly copyright claimed under the Australian Copyright Act 1905. Only adaptations were protection, giving rise to the plethora of early Australian cinematic productions adhering to this genre. Copyright at the time was managed by the states, with Victoria dealing with the Kelly film claims in 1906 (Gaunson 2016). Nevertheless, the aforesaid document would indicate that Barry and Hollyford were in Melbourne on 14 December 1906 and had likely obtained their The Kelly Gang footage earlier, perhaps during late November or early December. All of this was prior to the initial public announcement by J. & N. Tait on 19 December of the imminent release of The Story of the Kelly Gang on the upcoming Boxing Day.

Barry had been presenting films throughout 1906 and may have developed a working relationship with the Johnson and Gibson film exchange, which had been in operation since 1901, though he is also known to have imported films himself (refer the Barry, Kelly & Bio-pictures section below). Barry's own announcement regarding the premiere of his The Kelly Gang footage appeared in Hobart's The Mercury on 18 December 1906 (Article; Advertisement) and 20 December 1906. This took place in connection with the opening in Tasmania's capital of his World Wide Wonder Show, which had premiered in Colac near Melbourne on 5 October 1906 and been touring since.

Dan Barry's World-Wide Wonder Show.

On Boxing night, Wednesday, December 26, and three following nights, Dan Barry will present in the Town-hall, Hobart, a colossal, unique, and up-to-date entertainment, with the comprehensive title of World-wide Wonder Show" The name at once suggests that the presentation will be replete with novelties gathered from all the corners of the globe, and will, amongst other multifarious attractions, comprise the latest and greatest moving, living pictures, seemed for Dan Barry by his agents in Great Britain, America, and the Continent All are promised to be of infinite variety and magnetic charm, some intensely thrilling, some redolent of historical reminiscences, some full of touching pathos, some most sensational, some vital with stirring adventures, some replete with picturesque romance, some uproariously and irresistibly humorous and all calculated to awaken keenest human interest. Besides the great array of moving pictures to be shown, a number of most charming picture songs will he rendered by popular vocalists, illustrated by slides said to be of surpassing loveliness, so that there will be a feast of beauty to delight the ear. During the performance there will also be given songs, sketches, and specialty acts by several clever vaudeville artists, who are amongst the company travelling with the show. A special film, epic during Christmas pantomime and harlequinade is one of the striking for times This film shows beautiful coloured scenes from the old fairy tales, and should prove interesting to old and young alike. Scenes from the lives of the notorious bushrangers, the famous Kelly gang, will also be shown, and a life-like picture of the Melbourne Cup, 1906, will be reproduced.

The Mercury, Hobart, 18 December 1906.

A listing of the films presented by Barry between October 1906 and August 1907 as part of the World Wide Wonder Show is presented in the Barry, Kelly & Bio-pictures section below. According to Fotheringham (1987) this show had been copyrighted by Barry on 16 October, though no reference to The Kelly Gang footage is seen in those early advertisements (Fotheringham 1987). According to the Colac Herald, we know that on 8 August Barry was showing 2,000 feet of footage of the famous San Francisco earthquake, along with other film, at the Victoria Hall, Colac, south-west of Melbourne, and during September was presenting it at Kyogle in northern New South Wales.

* 3 October 1906 - the Colac Herald reported on the forthcoming World Wide Wonder Show as follows:

Dan Barry. World-Wide Wonder Show.

Next Friday and Saturday nights, in the Victoria Hall, Colac, Dan Barry, the well-known actor-manager, will present for the first time here his great "World-Wide Wonder Show." As the title suggests, the entertainment to be given is of a colossal nature, embracing features of the most novel and most attractive descriptions. Any class of entertainment presented under the chaperonage of Dan Barry may he relied on as up-to-date, of distinct originality, and replete with everything calculated to command the interest of a present-day audience. The show comprises, amongst other attractions, some of the latest and greatest bio-sensations, secured for Dan Barry by his agents in all parts of the globe. A number of the newest, most melodious and most charming picture songs, illustrated by slides of surpassing beauty, will be rendered during the evening by favorite artists. Amongst the multitude of moving pictures to be shown will be the latest American and English sensation bio-spectacle "Wrecking a Holiday Excursion Train" -which portrays with thrilling realism a dastardly attempt to derail an excursion train, thundering along with its human freight of happy holiday-makers; "The Vendetta," a highly dramatic picture of love, hatred and revenge; "The Steeplechase," a vivid picture of the hunting field; "A Collision between two 400-ton locomotives," as it actually took place on the American trans-continental railway, when two huge goods engines, specially provided for the occasion and driven from opposite directions at high speed, collided with an awful crash, will be amongst the many startling novelties to he shown. Other moving pictures will be - "Fight between Lion and Python," "Russians Raid on Jews in Odessa," "The Gambling Fever," "Fight in mid-ocean between two Huge Ironclads," and a host of others of a like striking and novel nature. Any amount of comic bio pictures, all of the sort which create roars of laughter, will be amongst the attractions of the show. Songs, sketches and specialty acts will also be given during the performance by several talented vaudeville artists, who are members of the company. Dan Barry, who is always first in the field with any entertainment novelty, is sure of bumper houses for his recent "World-Wide Wonder Show" next Friday and Saturday nights. Popular prices, viz., 2/ and 1/, are announced; children half-price. The box plan is on view at Parkinson's, where front seats may be reserved without extra charge, and back seats also may be purchased beforehand.

This promotional spiel, obviously written by Barry or a member of his company, would appear in newspapers across Australia, with slight variation, through to August 1907. On Friday 5 October his World Wide Wonder Show was on the program back at the Victoria Hall, Colac. As to a detailed description of what Kelly footage Barry presented - there is none. The nearest we have are the following two newspaper notices.

*29 December 1906 - Tasmanian News, Hobart.

Town Hall - Dan Barry's Worldwide Wonder Show.

.... To-night will be the last night on which this mammoth entertainment will be given. A special programme abounding with good things is promised. These will be new films of sensational or humorous order. The main film will depict scenes from the career of the most notorious bushrangers known in the annals of crime in Australasia - the Kelly Gang......

* 29 December 1906 - The Mercury, Hobart. This appears to suggest that an extended version of the film would be shown that night, in comparison to that which premiered three days earlier:

Dan Barry's World-Wide Wonder Show.

In our advertising columns will be seen the announcement of the last night of the above entertainment in the Town Hall. For this occasion the management have decided to produce a biograph picture of the lives and adventures of the notorious Kelly gang of bushrangers, who created such a reign of terror in Australia over twenty years ago. This picture should prove interesting, and judging by the excellence of the series fellow n during the season, should draw a crowded house.

The Mercury, Hobart, 29 December 1906.

From all of the above information the present author would suggest that, excluding Perry's 1904 production, the Johnson and Gibson film was associated in some way with the footage Barry was showing. Why? Because of the available evidentiary coincidence and the fact that nothing has been found to support any production of Ned Kelly film during the second half of 1906 by Barry and Hollyford, or anyone else for that matter. Until such information is found, the present author is left to assume that Barry and Johnson and Gibson, as original creators of the footage, had come to some sort of arrangement in regard to the December 1906 release of Kelly gang material to Barry. Or, taking on board Barry's somewhat colourful career up to that point it time, that he had acquired the film - perhaps a couple of reels only - in some underhand or non-official manner, and decided to release it in Tasmania, away from the Melbourne-based lawyers of J. & N. Tait who were the official distributors of The Story of the Kelly Gang (1906). It seems that Barry's actions eventually came to their notice, however. The following copyright demand statement by the Taits, which they requested appear in the Victorian Mount Alexander Mail on 29 December 1906, would support such a scenario, at least in part, for it may have been directed as someone or persons other than Dan Barry:

Items of News

Messrs J. and N. Tait, copyrighted proprietors of the great biograph film, "The Story of the Kelly Gang," now being produced at the Town Hall, Melbourne, request us state that they are the sole holders of the original pictures, recently taken for them at enormous expense and that unless submitted under their direction the same are not genuine. This intimation is necessary in consequence of moving pictures purporting to be genuine being advertised under Messrs Tait's title, selected by unauthorised persons.

This notice is rather strange, as it is unclear what the Taits are trying to say or imply. Is somebody using film that is not by Johnson and Gibson, and releasing it under the name of the Taits? Or, is somebody using footage by Johnson and Gibson but not referring to the Taits as copyright holders, and releasing it in part or whole? The "unless submitted under their direction" points to the fact that they are the only distributors to be presenting such a film during December 1906. It therefore seems to be directed at Barry who was the only person engaged in such activities at that time, though his actions were taking place not in Victoria, but in Tasmania. And the reference to "moving pictures .... being selected by unauthorised persons" perhaps suggests that Barry and/or others have been presenting elements of The Story of the Kelly Gang in a manner similar to what Barry did in Hobart, i.e., not in full as in the five reel production then on show at the Athenaeum Theatre, Melbourne, and once again without any reference to the Taits. The latter's claim to be the sole holders of the original pictures refers to the footage taken by Johnson and Gibson and as released in The Story of the Kelly Gang (1906). It is possible that other footage taken by Johnson and Gibson, and not included in the film, was claimed by them and therefore may have legitimately been passed on to Barry. Johnson and Gibson would, in fact, from May 1907 issue different cuts of The Story of the Kelly Gang with additional and often new footage filmed by them. This lead to the late 1910 release of a new version of The Story of the Kelly Gang under their name and with no reference to the Taits.

The Story of the Kelly Gang (1910) poster.

Further adding to the confusion, was the statement contained in the Tasmanian newspaper The North Western Advocate and Emu Bay Times of 28 January 1907, wherein Barry's business partner Robert Hollyford addresses questions raised around the presentation by them of the World-Wide Wonder Show and its The Kelly Gang footage:

Dan Barry's Wonder Show.

As will be seen in our advertising columns, the above sterling combination pays Burnie a return visit to-night in the Town Hall. A packed house greeted them on their last visit, and so favorable was the impression left that no doubt a full house will welcome them again tonight. A complete change of pictures will be presented, and none of those shown on the previous visit will be repeated, except the fight for the champion ship of Australia between Squires and Kling. Another fight picture has been added to the company's repertoire since their last visit, and that is the contest between Squires and Williams, which is said to be a fine picture, and which will be shown tonight. New songs, both comic and sentimental, will be submitted by the artists of the company, and Mr Jack O'Kane will render some of his charming pianoforte compositions.

It having come to the ear of Mr Robt. Hollyford, the manager, that certain persons have been casting aspersions on his show, he wishes it to be known publicly that Messrs Barry end Hollyford hold the copyright of the sole Australian and British rights to the moving picture of "The Kelly Gang." Anyone can see the copyright by applying to Mr Hollyford at the Town Hall to-night.

It is therefore clear that, as of 26 December 1906, there were two Kelly gang films being showing in Australia - The Kelly Gang by Barry and Hollyford in Hobart, and The Story of the Kelly Gang by J. & N. Tait in Melbourne and Adelaide. In addition, it seems likely to this author that the footage for both was made by the firm Johnson and Gibson of St. Kilda and Melbourne, and in 1906 the issue of copyright was, as it remains in 2024, subject to interpretation and recourse to legal action.

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2. Copyright Claims

So who owned copyright in the 1906 Kelly gang film material made by Johnson and Gibson? As W. A. Gibson had subsequently stated that around late June of 1906 he withdrew £400 from his savings to commence production of a film based on the activities of the Kelly gang, and that subsequent to that the theatrical production firm of J. & N. Tait added £1,000 to the production and release costs, it seems that copyright claims could be made by both firms. Judging by subsequent events, between 1906 and 1910 such claims were publically indeed made, or acted upon behind the scene, by both parties. As a result there was no public fight between the two over the film and all its footage, of which Gibson claimed that some 10,000 feet was shot and 6,500 feet used in the final cut, and as presented by the Taits through the premiere release season of 1906 and into 1907. There had been copyright fights over various Kelly gang theatre productions almost from the outset of the appearance of the first plays in Australia and New Zealand during July 1880. Known productions leading up, and contingent with, the release of the Kelly gang films in 1906 include the following, with playwright noted where known:

1879 - Catching the Kellys (Melbourne) - Joseph Pickersgill - short comedic sketch
1879 - Bail Up! or, An Hour with Ned Kelly (Wellington, NZ) - sketch
1880 - The Capture of the Kelly Gang (Sydney) - play - cancelled due to police intervention
1880 - Retribution; or, The Last of the Kellys (Wellington) - J. J. Utting
1880 - The Kellys (Invercargill, NZ) - J. T. M. Hornsby
1880 - Catching the Kellys (Auckland, NZ) - Unknown
1881 - The Kelly Gang, Ostracised! (Melbourne) - E. C. Martin
1882 - Ostracised! or, the Downfall of Crime (Sydney) - J. J. Utting. Different to his 1880 play
1893 - Ransom (Melbourne) - Dan Barry Dramatic Company
1896 - The Kelly Gang (Victoria) - Reg Rede. Producer Dan Barry. Based on the Utting 1880 play. Tours Australia constantly through to 1906.
1898 - The Australian Bushrangers (New South Wales) - E. I. Cole's Bohemian Dramatic Company
1899 - The Kelly Gang (Queensland) - John Henry Greene
1899 - Ned Kelly, Outlaw (Sydney) - Launcelot Booth
1899 - The Kelly Gang: or, the career of the outlaw Ned Kelly, the Ironclad Hero of Australia (Adelaide) - Arnold Denham
1900 - Hands Up! or, Ned Kelly and His Gang (New South Wales, Queensland) - E. I. Cole. Tours eastern Australia through to 1906.
1902 - Ned Kelly, the Bushranger (London) - Bernard Espinasse and Harry Leader

Reporting of, and commentary upon, these litigious actions is often presented in detail within local newspapers of the time. The following example comes from the Adelaide Critic of 11 January 1902:

[It is] difficult to understand why Mr. Arnold Denham should perpetually bring actions at law concerning infringements of the copyright of The Kelly Gang — an alleged drama. There is certainly a great similarity between it and Reg Rede's The Kelly Gang, Dora Mostyn's Ransomed, Dan Barry's Kelly Gang, Henry's Outlaw Kelly, Ostracised, and other versions of the same bloody and sordid story. In Sydney District Court when Denham sued the Messrs. Fuller of the Empire for £200, Judge Rogers got a lot of fun out of the case, and said it had a pleasing novelty. As far as it may be judged, from the evidence, the Judge gave Denham 20 guineas, with costs, mainly because some of the actors who had played in Denham's version padded their parts in Fuller's one act revival with gags from. it.

It would appear that Barry and Hollyford had a legitimate copyright claim to a The Kelly Gang poster and the film known as The Kelly Gang (1906). What the latter was precisely is not known, including who made the film and a description of its elements such as narrative content and length. As for The Story of the Kelly Gang (1906), we know precisely who was claiming copyright in all aspects of its presentation during December 1906, namely the firm of J. & N. Tait. They, like Barry and Hollyford, also claimed overseas copyright.

By the end of January 1907 Barry and Hollyford were no longer advertising The Kelly Gang as part of the World-Wide Wonder Show program of cinematic presentations in regional Tasmania. After that there is no record of Barry and Hollyford's The Kelly Gang being shown anywhere in Australia or overseas. Barry died just over a year later, at Hawksburn, South Yarra, Victoria, on 1 July 1908, aged 57. One of his last productions was a picture and concert show called Paradise, staged at St. Kilda Beach the previous year. His rascally nature is referred to in a number of articles following his death, including the following from the Sydney Daily Mirror of 21 August 1951, with a note therein concerning copyright theft:

Yesterday, by Jim Donald.

In a recent "Yesterday", stage and screen productions based on the career of the Kelly Gang were mentioned. My own knowledge in the dramatic field of Kelly Gang exploitation goes back to the old Alexander Theatre (Melbourne). The late Dan Barry had leased the old Iron Clad playhouse, and one of his blood and thunder offerings had to do with the Kelly saga. It was some time in the late nineties, and although the play did not bear the Kelly name stamp it presented the gang's principal achievements. Mr. Barry was a past master at pinching other playwrights' property....

Did this accusation of Barry's pinching other playwrights' property also extend to film footage?

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3. The mysterious footage

It would appear that the following series of events form a possible explanation as to the Kelly gang material included in Dan Barry's World-Wide Wonder show of 1906-7. From the late 1880s through to 1905 Dan Barry, an actor and theatre company manager, was heavily involved in touring his productions throughout Australia. This included a well-known and very successful The Kelly Gang play from 1896. Newspaper reports also note Barry as being interested in salacious, blood-and-thunder, controversial topics for his presentations. By 1905 he had tired of performance, but not necessarily of touring. As such, his company ventured away from only presenting plays and other actor and performer-based productions into the new arena of cinema. Being an experienced player in the field, he knew how to get jobs done, cut corners and put on a good show for the general public. Therefore, during 1906 he focussed on touring with a troupe of performers and collection of film - mostly shorts of all genres, including sport, news, documentary and drama. During that year he would have been aware of the success of his competitors in the field - namely the firm of J. & N. Tait with their Living London long form documentary film. He may also have been in contact, on a professional basis, with the firm of Johnson & Gibson who operated a film exchange based in Melbourne. Barry's touring company was likewise based in Melbourne and quickly acquired a collection of film and equipment which could be used to supplement their traditional theatre presentations with new, novel cinematic elements. As a result, with the creation of his World-Wide Wonder Show Barry secured material from Johnson and Gibson and others, readying his company for the premiere Tasmanian tour during December 1906 through to February 1970.

By some means he appears to have acquired some of the Johnson and Gibson The Story of the Kelly Gang (1906) material - perhaps a couple of reels of film or outtakes - and included it in his programme. He was either oblivious to, or legally able to ignore, the copyright claim on footage included in the released film as promoted by the Taits, and proceeded to present his own film after legitimately acquiring it from Johnson and Gibson, thereby claiming his own rights to the material whilst in Tasmania, just as J. & N. Tait would claim to the film material they release in theatres locally and overseas. The Barry and Hollyford claims were therefore likely to have been genuine, if they legitimately secured the film from Johnson and Gibson. This seems to be the case, and is reinforced by their official application to the Copyright Office of relevant copyright claims for a poster and the film. However, at the end of the day, and by the end of January 1907, Barry's show carried on without The Kelly Gang footage. Perhaps it had been damaged and could not be replaced, or the Taits had clamped down on Johnson and Gibson releasing footage to any other third parties.

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4. Fake Kelly film

One hiccup in the study of Kelly gang footage during this period is reference to "fake" material, as in the following:

* 1 January 1907, Sydney Sportsman.

Theatrical Tit Bits

The professional actors and actresses who were recently engaged for a fake film of The Kelly Gang, which was taken in the bush, with horses and cattle, etc., received 6s a day and their grub. The affair was quite a novelty to them.

It was common during this early period in cinema development for the term fake to be applied the biograph cinematographic presentations, whether they be documentary or fictional. It was an attempt on the part of the media to highlight to the public the fact that not all the footage they saw on the screen was real, and that footage of the Kelly gang was as fictional as the plays they had previously seen in the theatre. A fake reference was not, therefore, necessarily a reference to what would later be referred to as a bootleg or non-legal copy of a film or other piece of entertainment related media.

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5. Barry, Kelly and Bio-pictures

As early as November 1871, when aged just 20, Dan Barry was working in South Australia as an Irish comedian. By 1874 he had expanded this to legmanism(?) and Indian-rubber performance. 1878 saw him working as a straight actor in plays under the G. R. Ireland Dramatic Company and later Eloise Juno Company (1882). By 1883 the Ireland and Barry Comedy / Dramatic Company was playing in Victoria, and the following year we see the singular Dan Barry Grand Provincial Dramatic Company, with 22 actors and actresses. In 1886 he toured His Natural Life through Queensland and New South Wales. From 1890 he was advertising the use of limelight effects in his productions, and from the end of 1895 was based in the Alexandra Theatre, Melbourne, when not on tour. By May 1906 he had begun to include film footage in his program, under the headings Bio-pictures or Biograph Entertainment. These include the following:

San Francisco Earthquake, 2,000 feet, Town Hall, Bendigo, 30 May 1906. 'Direct from Frisco by Mail Steamer Sonoma. Barry apparently personally secured this film through his US agent. By 22 August there were "... no less than five 'Frisco pictures earthquake pictures travelling the colonies under his direction." At the 24 July 1906 Orange presentation, it was noted that: A special word of praise is due to Mr. Hoinville, the bio operator, who has been specially brought from London by the firm for this show. His masterly handling of the machine ensured the pictures being shown without a flaw....
The Dog Detective, Armidale, 11 August 1906. A short.
The Incendiaries, Armidale, 11 August 1906. A short.
Melbourne Cup 1906, Flemington Racecourse, Inverell, 29 September 1906.
The Vendetta (drama), Inverell, 29 September 1906.
Comic shorts, 29 November 1906.
A Collision between two 400 ton Locomotives, World Wide Wonder Show, premiere at Victoria Hall, Colac, Victoria, 5 October 1906.
Wrecking a Holiday Excursion Train, World Wide Wonder Show, 5 October 1906.
Grand National Steeplechase, Longchamps, United States, World Wide Wonder Show, 5 October 1906.
Fight between Lion and Python, World Wide Wonder Show, 5 October 1906.
Russians' Raid on Jews in Odessa, World Wide Wonder Show, 5 October 1906.
The Gambling Fever, World Wide Wonder Show, 5 October 1906.
Fight in mid-ocean between two hugh Ironclads, World Wide Wonder Show, 5 October 1906.
Living London, 6 November 1906.
Caulfield Cup, World Wide Wonder Show, World Wide Wonder Show, 24 November 1906.
The Kelly Gang, World Wide Wonder Show, 26 December 1906.
The Red Indian's Revenge, World Wide Wonder Show, 26 December 1906.
A grand presentation of a coloured film of a Drury Lane [London] Xmas Pantomime and Harlequinade, World Wide Wonder Show, 26 December 1906.
Squires v King fight, World Wide Wonder Show, 12 January 1907.
Squires v Williams fight, World Wide Wonder Show, 12 January 1907.
A Woman's Vengeance, World Wide Wonder Show, 16 January 1907.
Love, Jealousy, Revenge (comedy), World Wide Wonder Show, 16 January 1907.
The Bad Boy's Diary (comedy), World Wide Wonder Show, 16 January 1907.
A Voyage to the Moon, World Wide Wonder Show, 16 January 1907.

Le Voyage dans la Lune (1902) - Georges Méliès, France, duration: 12.53 minutes.

Bill Squires verses Peter Kling fight, World Wide Wonder Show, 19 January 1907.
Launch of the Dreadnought, World Wide Wonder Show, Beechworth, 4 August 1907. Farewell presentation.
A Chase for a Husband, World Wide Wonder Show, Beechworth, 4 August 1907.
The Frustrated Elopement, World Wide Wonder Show, Beechworth, 4 August 1907.
Behind the Scenes, World Wide Wonder Show, Beechworth, 4 August 1907.
That Awful Baby, World Wide Wonder Show, Beechworth, 4 August 1907.
The Inquisitive Doorkeeper, World Wide Wonder Show, Beechworth, 4 August 1907.
The Cat Came Back, World Wide Wonder Show, Beechworth, 4 August 1907.
An Unlucky Lover, World Wide Wonder Show, Beechworth, 4 August 1907.
A Life for a Life, World Wide Wonder Show, Beechworth, 4 August 1907.
Life of Nelson, World Wide Wonder Show, Beechworth, 4 August 1907.
The Deserter, World Wide Wonder Show, Beechworth, 4 August 1907.

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6. Plays

During the first half of 1906, Dan Barry's Dramatic Company presented the following plays: The Prisoner of War; A Gilded Sing; A Wife's Devotion; Callaghan and His Last Legs!; Facing the World; From June he concentrated on the presentation of film, starting with the San Francisco Earthquake.

In 1896 Dan Barry produced Reg Rede's play The Kelly Gang, which was based on the original J.J. Utting play of 1880 which ran in Wellington, New Zealand. An updated version opened in Melbourne on 12 March 1898.

Reg Rede, The Kelly Gang, The Lorgnette, 12 March 1898.

The Dan Barry Dramatic Company toured The Kelly Gang initially through New South Wales and South Australia. The following advertisement is from 1901.

The Dan Barry's Dramatic Company toured The Kelly Gang through Queensland 1902-3 and Tasmania. Late in 1903 the issue of the origins of The Kelly Gang play came up. The Tasmanian News of 30 October 1903 published the following interview with J. J. Utting describing the origins of the supposed first dramatic play to be presented about the Kelly Gang in 1880. There is some conflict with the statements made by a Mr. Hornsby who wrote and presented a similar play in New Zealand, and of a Sydney play that was banned by the police just prior to its initial performance around the same time as the New Zealand plays appeared. Dan Barry is one of the figures mentioned:

"The Kelly Gang."

Who Wrote It?

Interview With the Author.

During the last twenty years there have been several versions of "The Kelly Gang" drama produced at various Australian theatres. It has been pretty evident there has been a considerable amount of stealing or "pirating" from the first piece on that subject. The name of the author has never been given, but the different versions bear such a remarkable likeness to each other that there is little doubt they are all loosely related to the original Kelly Gang drama produced in New Zealand in 1880 - the first drama founded on the Kelly story, or to a drama played in 1882 in Sydney, which bore a different title, but was the work of the same author. There has been much litigation as to the authorship and ownership of "The Kelly Gang," or other pieces with a somewhat similar name, and it has occupied the attention of Supreme Court judges in nearly all the mainland capitals with varying results, including injunctions, while one poor "pirate" was sentenced to a term of gaol.

The theatrical manager who has played the piece without either let or hindrance is Dan Barry, against whom no proceedings have been taken, because "The Kelly Gang" is the property of one of his company, and has been duly registered and protected. This version of "The Kelly Gang" is the oldest of the lot, for it is the version that was written and played in New Zealand about the middle of the year 1880 - immediately after the break up and capture of the gang at Glenrowan and death of some of its members. Mr Barry being now about to reproduce this sensational piece in Hobart, a representative of this journal was told off to interview him on the subject of the first production of the drama in Maoriland.

"You want me to tell you something about 'The Kelly Gang," said he. "Well that is funny, seeing that the author of the original drama, and that which we produce to-morrow night, is connected with your own office."

"How do you mean? " asked our representative.

"You go and interview your Chief of Staff, and he will tell you all about it - if he feels inclined. He has never yet told the story in print I know, but he may tell it to you. If he does, that will set at rest the question of the authorship of the original 'Kelly Gang' - if you can get it out of him. You will find it interesting, I can tell you that much, any way."

Subsequently our representative waited on Mr J. J, Utting, the leader of our literary staff, and told him what had transpired with Dan Barry. After some pressing, Mr Utting told the story, some thing after the following fashion:

"Well, I had no intention of getting myself in print over 'The Kelly Gang.' In fact I have always studiously avoided it. Dan has come along and is going to give us this terrible drama, and as I am - and I confess it with shame - the author, I'll tell you about this 'Kelly Gang,' and also about the 'Kelly Gang' with a different name afterwards produced in Sydney, of which I was also the author.

It was in July, I think, of 1880, that I went one Saturday night into the Theatre Royal in Wellington, New Zealand. I was then on the literary staff of the 'New Zealand Times.' There was a dreadfully bad house, and I suggested to the lessee and manager that if he wanted to do anything like a 'business' he must give the public something novel instead of the old stuff he was playing. I forget now what it was, but something very old and out of date, even twenty-three years ago. The lessee at that time was a Jew who knew little about theatres, but had taken this for a short time on spec. I suggested a drama on the lines of 'The Kelly Gang,' whose deeds were then ringing through Australia and New Zealand. 'But,' said the lessee,' there is no such drama in existence.' 'Perhaps not, but make it a matter of business, and you shall have a Kelly gang piece by Monday.' 'Do you mean it,' asked Mr A---, who knew that I had written and produced in Wellington two or three dramas. The long and the short of it was that I agreed to write a Kelly gang piece, and deliver it by noon on Monday for the sum of £10, the money to be paid on delivery of the 'scrip.' I at once returned home and wrote all night, and until noon the next day - Sunday. Then slept till 8 o'clock, and wrote again till 8 o'clock in the morning. Slept till 6, when I was again called, and worked on till 11, by which time I had completed a three-act drama, and by noon it was delivered to Mr. A--- , whose face was wreathed in smiles as he gave me the promised cheque, for he knew 'there was money in it.'

It was immediately copied out, the parts distributed, and the piece put in rehearsal, and advertised by the title which I gave it, namely, 'Retribution - or, The Last of the Kelly's.' The name was changed later. On the following Friday I spoke to Captain Hamlyn, Chairman of Committees in the House of Representatives about the drama. I suggested to him that he should ask the Premier to stop the piece, as it was a class of drama that could not possibly improve the 'tone' of playgoers, being of the Jack Sheppard class, whose presentation had - so it was said - long ago been stopped in England, The gallant captain 'winked the other eye,' and said he had no intention of trying to stop the play which was to be produced on the following night, and he declined to ask the Government any question on the subject, adding that he and a 'mob' of the legislators intended going to see it. Poor fellows, they had no better way of putting in their time of a Saturday night - most of them being far away from home. Then I quietly told him I was the writer of it, and naturally, for the sake of the man who had paid me for the drama, wanted to see a good house.

I may say here that I had sold the piece out-and-out to Mr. A---, and made the stipulation that my name was not to be mentioned in connection with it as its author, for I was not proud of it, and as the writer of two or three other dramas which had been played throughout New Zealand with success, and in Wellington especially, I did not desire to have my reputation, such as it was, lowered by claiming the authorship of this 'sensation' on a subject which could not be looked upon by the highest stretch of imagination as a classical one.

As soon as Parliament opened on Monday afternoon, I was in the gallery of the House of Representatives and was parliamentary reporter on the 'New Zealand Times'. True to his promise, Captain Hamlyn asked the Premier, Mr (afterwards Sir) John Hall if he had seen the advertisements in the public press and the daring posters on the hoardings in the streets about the Kelly gang; and whether his Government intended to stop the presentation on the grounds of etc., etc. The Premier replied that he had seen the advertisement etc., etc., and regretted that the Government had no power to stop the presentation of this drama, but would, during the recess have a bill drawn up, etc., etc.

I took down in shorthand every word my friend the captain had said, and every word the Premier had said in reply. I had a colleague in the Upper House, and there (at my instigation) a similar question had been asked of the Minister representing the Government by (as well as I can remember), the Hon. Mr Waterhouse, and a pretty similar answer was given. In both Houses the questions had been asked without notice as being "urgent." The result was that next morning there was half a column and more in the journal I represented under the heading of 'The Kelly Gang,' and that night the theatre was packed to its utmost capacity. The first 'Ned Kelly' was 'Bob Love,' who within the past half-dozen years has married Mrs Harmston, and so become the bloated proprietor of Harmston's Circus. I met him in Ballarat five or six years ago, and I think that next to being the proprietor of this great equestrian combination, he took the most pride in being the first stage representative of Ned Kelly.

In the Company that played 'Retribution, or The last of the Kellys,' was R. W. Rede. This is the clever comedian who belongs to Dan Barry's Company, and is the gentleman who now owns the scrip - the original scrip - in my handwriting. He played the part of Joe Byrne, while his wife, Miss Lizzie Lawrence, also had a part in the piece and Kate Kelly was played by Miss Lizzie Morgan. The piece had a big run, and afterwards travelled through New Zealand with Clara Stephenson as the Kate Kelly, and with Mr Rede - Reg' Rede - in the company. I understand that Mr Rede afterwards purchased the drama from the gentleman who had commissioned me to write it."

"Have you ever seen the piece played since its original production in Wellington?" asked the "News" man.

"Yes. I saw it about three years ago at the Alexandra Theatre in Melbourne - now Her Majesty's, and occupied by Mr J. C. Williamson."

"Was it the same as when produced in New Zealand?"

"Well, practically it was; but there were some police comedy scenes introduced, much after the style of those which take place in 'Robbery Under Arms' between constables McGinnis and O'Hara. Now, Mr Rede played the small part (as it was at first) of McGinnis, and 'Jack' Caesar that of O'Hara in Dampier's 'Robbery Under Arms,' and they gradually worked up the comedy to its present level. Then, when Rede left Dampier he took with him (in his head) the parts of McGinnis and O'Hara, which he and Caesar had 'made,' and transferred them to 'The Kelly Gang.'"

"And with that exception was the piece you saw at the Alexandra the piece you wrote in Wellington, Mr Utting?"

"Well, I believe so - indeed, being behind with Rede - a friend of mine of many years' standing, dating from the old New Zealand days - he informed me that they played the piece from my original scrip, and asked me if I would like to have a look at it. But I expressed no desire that way, and when I afterwards came to see the drama from the front I certainly recognised many little 'bits' which I did not write, but which had probably been introduced in the way of effect. No, I am not talking about the comedy, but bits of trashy sentiment that had been put into the mouths of the bushrangers, of which I should be very sorry to be the author."

"Was it only played in Wellington - I mean so far as New Zealand is concerned?" asked our reporter.

"I believe it was played all over that colony, being invariably put up on the last night and packing the house. And coming down to recent times I know that only about four years ago it crowded the Ballarat theatre for two' last nights, old at it was - they couldn't get all the people in that wanted to see it in one night."

"I have beard, Mr Utting, that you were also the author of another Kelly Gang piece - this time in Australia?''

"Yes, that's quite true; but I was not so fortunate with that!"

"How so - tell us the story if you don't object."

"Not at all, for having acknowledged myself as the author of one 'Kelly Gang' atrocity, I may as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb. It was in Sydney, early in 1882, that I was approached by some theatrical people who had seen 'The Kelly Gang' in New Zealand. I told them I hadn't got the scrip, but that I would write them another drama on similar lines, but a very much better version. And so I did. My terms this time were different. Instead of selling the piece right out, I stipulated for a royalty of three guineas a night. This time I made it a four act drama on similar lines, but a very much better drama than the New Zealand one. I called it 'Ostracised, or the Downfall of Crime,' and so it was billed and advertised. It was produced at the Academy of Music in Castlereagh street - called then Victoria Hall, on Saturday, April 6th. The house was packed, and I got my three guineas all right, and looked forward to collecting between fifty and sixty guineas in royalties, for a three weeks' run seemed certain, But I had been too clever this time, and had far better have taken another tenner and done with it."

"And how was that, Mr Utting?"

"You shall hear. The theatre was packed, and the drama, which was really not such a blood and thunder affair as the other, went off splendidly. There was a very long cast of characters, consisting of no fewer that 24 speaking parts, including 17 men and 7 women. And there were some notable Australian actors in the cast. For instance, George Collier played Ned Kelly; C. H Burford, Steve Hart; "Jack" Sweeny, Joe Byrne; Alick Andrews, Constable Swipes; and Jack Thorpe, Constable Lonergan. Among the ladies were Miss Sally Browne, afterwards known as 'Pattie' Browne and now earning big money as a London comedienne of note. Miss Browne played the part of Topps, a Victorian larrikin, who held the police in derision. Kate Kelly was played by an elder sister of Miss Browne's - stage name Miss Alice Mowbray, wife of Jack Sweeney. Collier was stage manager; A. L. Barton, lessee and manager; and Sydney Hall, agent. Alas! of the above men, no fewer than five have passed away to the Great Unknown, namely, George Collier, Charley Burford, Jack Sweeney, Alick Andrews, and Jade Thorpe."

"And yon say the piece was a success?"

"It went like wildfire from the start and fairly knocked spots off 'The Last of the Kellys.'"

"Did yon have your name to this version?"

"No, I did not; and for the same reason. I had, shortly before, had my 'Great World of London' and 'The Colliery Girl,' produced at the Sydney Opera House, and did not care to risk it, so I again hid in my light under a bushel - more especially as I was at that time on the Sydney press, and did not wish to be pointed out either as the author of 'The Kelly Gang' or of 'Ostrascised.'

"And how long did ' Ostracised' run? Did you get your anticipated fifty or sixty guineas in royalties out of it?"

"No, worse luck. Everybody in the theatre was delighted with it on Saturday night, and a long run was predicted. Monday was Easter Monday, and both morning and evening papers gave 'Ostracised' real good notices. And that was the last 'good' it got. At night the theatre was packed, and at eight o'clock precisely the manager stepped before the curtain and announced to the audience that the police had interdicted any farther performances of 'Ostracised.'"

"That was hard lines. What was the reason?"

"I can only suppose," replied the author of these two bushranging dramas, "that the police were offended at the treatment they received from the low comedy people of the drama for their extraordinary, not to say pusillanimous conduct at times in connection with their endeavors to capture the bushrangers. The manager appealed to those of the audience who might have witnessed the piece on Saturday if there was anything wrong in it, and the reply was a perfect chorus and yell of 'nose!' He then announced that 'The Ticket of Leave Man ' (it was either that or 'Never too Late to Mend,' I am not quite certain which) had been hurriedly substituted for 'Ostracised,' and that their money would he returned to those who desired it. Only about a dozen persons left, for it was a holiday night, and by that time probably every other place of amusement in Sydney was crowded. So they stopped where they were."

"And was that the and, Mr Utting?"

"The end? Yes, and a pretty good end too, I think. Instead of getting all those guineas all I got was three, and I'm sure I might have had twenty if I'd asked for them right out, and no royalty. And worse than all, when I went to get my scrip I found somebody had 'nobbled' it, and I have never seen it from that day to this."

"But you don't think anybody connected with the theatre stole it, do you?"

"I don't think anything else. There are actors and actors. Some of them would steal anything in the way of a play - or the very teeth out of your head if they could be turned into a stage property?"

"But 'The Kelly Gang?'"

"Oh, as for that, it honestly belongs to Reg Rede. I have no claim to that whatever. I was sorry to lose 'Ostracised,' for I had taken a lot of pains with it, and it was really a most excellent drama, I could have re-written it, I suppose, as I had the plot or skeleton - quite different from the Kelly Gang - but was too disgusted to bother about it. But I may do so some day."

"Will you go and see your old friend tomorrow night?"

"Very likely, - but please don't call it my 'friend.' I may go just for the sake of old times, and to see how much of my stuff 'Reg' has knocked out of it, and how much more of his own put in."

"In conclusion, Mr Utting, may I ask you what you think of it as a literary production?"

"Well, I will answer that as I did a similar question put to me when I saw it at the Alexandra in Melbourne."

"And how was that, Mr Utting?"

"That the 'gifted' author ought to get six months."

And so the interview terminated.

Whilst touring Queensland in February 1904, Barry was interviewed and outlined some of his on-the-road Adventures. Barry's company took in Victoria and Queensland through to 1905. The following year he took up film presentation and continued through 1907. Barry, during his long career in the local theatre scene, developed a notorious reputation. One biographical notice highlights:

..... his self-advertisement as a man of education, and how .... his habit of passing lurid melodramas to bush audiences as the work of prominent philanthropists and politicians appears to have been the work of a well-read eccentric.

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7. Fotheringham 1987

The following article was published in Cinema Papers, 62, March 1987, 32-36. It discusses in depth the confusion over Dan Barry's The Kelly Gang footage.

The Man in the Iron Mask

Who shot Ned Kelly? Who Played Ned Kelly? The Hero of Australia’s First Feature Film in Still an Enigma

Richard Fotheringham, a Queensland Lecturer in Film and Theatre, has an intriguing theory that links Australia’s favourite outlaw with one of the country’s foremost film pioneers. About a decade ago film historians thought they'd finally caught at least some of the Kelly Gang. They'd tramped around the Melbourne suburb of Heidelberg where The Story of the Kelly Gang, Australia's and perhaps the world's first feature film, was supposed to have been shot in the second half of 1906. They’d tracked down posters, advertisements, and reviews in old newspapers, which supported this claim by showing that it ran for over an hour, more than three times longer than any previous filmed dramatic story. They'd located the memoirs of people who claimed to have been involved in making it, and even found a few minutes of the film itself. As an extra bonus, more of the film turned up in 1982 on a Melbourne rubbish tip. (See Cinema Papers, 36, February 1982.) In all about 200 feet (61 metres) has survived, though many frames are ruined by blotches in the decaying nitrate film. But clearly visible are Constable Fitzpatrick’s sexual advances to Kate Kelly and his fight with the avenging Ned at the start of the film, the Stringybark Creek massacre, the Glenrowan siege and Ned's capture at the end. Although there were inconsistencies, caused, it was assumed, by faulty memories, the story of how it came to be made seemed plausible enough.

The film was supposed to have been directed by Charles Tait, who wrote the script with his brother John. There were five Tait brothers, all of whom became theatrical entrepreneurs. In later life they ran, some say strangled, the great entertainment empire of J.C. Williamson’s. Two St. Kilda chemists who had moved into film processing, Millard Johnson and William Gibson, had worked the cameras, developed the film and perhaps edited it. All this was based on later memoirs. The contemporary evidence was less clear. Certainly Johnson and Gibson did the photographic work, certainly “J & N Tait” marketed the film during its first Melbourne screenings, beginning on 26 December 1906.

But in the last of the seven large leather-bound Books of Registration of Copyright Holders in Literary, Dramatic, and Musical Works which the Victorian Patents Office kept between 1870 and 1907, there is a mystery. On 14 December 1906 the copyright officer dipped his pen and wrote the numbers ‘11,449’, then ”A sheet of letterpress entitled Advertisement of the set of moving pictures entitled ‘The Kelly Gang’,” and then, in the column for the names of the copyright holders, "Robert Hollyford and Dan Barry” - names that no one has ever connected with the world’s first feature film.

It is at least plausible that Dan Barry, the outback actor-manager whose theatre company was known in every bush town between North Queensland and Tasmania, was involved in making the film. Born in Dublin in 1851, Barry, like most actors of his day, knocked a few years off his age and claimed in the Hobart Mercury on 17 October 1903 to have been born in Melbourne in 1859. From 1886, when he registered a play Snared; or, Alone in London, he was well known to the Victorian copyright office, dropping in at regular intervals to enter the names of the dramas he had presented throughout Eastern Australia. Many of these plays he wrote himself, like Black Thursday; or, The Fury of the Flames, a melodrama about the disastrous Victorian bushfires of 1851 that had darkened the skies in Tasmania. Dan Barry also presented plays by other Melburnians; these included The Carpenter by ”A.J. Byrne of Richmond”, a controversial piece which showed Christ returning to Earth in the middle of the American Civil War, and The Kelly Gang by ”Reg Rede of Fitzroy”, first staged on 12 February 1898 in Melbourne.

Reg Rede is relatively easy to pin down. There had been a number of plays based around the exploits of the Kellys while the gang was on the run between 1878 and 1880, and more after the Glenrowan siege and Ned’s capture. Some had died a natural death, unlike Ned; at least one, like him, had been suppressed by the authorities. Kelly plays — and films — usually claimed to teach a great moral lesson about honesty being the best policy and crime not paying etc., but audiences had an unfortunate habit of cheering every time the Terror of the North-East appeared, and howling with laughter at the efforts of the police to catch him.

ln 1890 one of the major actor-managers of the time, Alfred Dampier, got together with the Melbourne journalist Garnet Walch and obtained Rolf Boldrewood's permission to dramatise his very moral novel about bushranging, Robbery Under Arms. However, they took some liberties with the story. They had a corrupt policeman molesting Aileen Marston, which everyone recognised as a reference to Constable Fitzpatrick and Kate Kelly, and the fourth act ended with a siege at a farmhouse which the police set on fire, just as had happened at the Glenrowan Hotel. Dampier and Walch also invented two comic Irish Coppers, McGinnis and O’Hara, who displayed a distinct lack of devotion to duty. Audiences loved the play to the extent of 41 performances at Melbourne’s Alexandra Theatre, and a particular favourite was Trooper O’Hara, played by Mr Reg Rede. It is not surprising therefore that when Dan Barry turned up at the same theatre eight years later with The Kelly Gang - in which Mr Reg Rede played Trooper Mulvaney, one of two Irish constables "Who Don’t Relish Their Duty" — The Age commented that “there were scenes which bore a resemblance to the dramatisation of Rolf Boldrewood’s book Robbery Under Arms. However, this was guesswork, for Rede's authorship was never publicly acknowledged.

A more formidable pursuer of Dan Barry as Ned Kelly was Sergeant Steele, the brave policeman who eventually captured him at Glenrowan. Steele was played by one Harry Stoneham who had also been in Robbery Under Arms, though on the other side of the law. Stoneham was Dan Moran, Boldrewood’s thinly disguised portrait of Mad Dog Morgan, whose "Eyes Glittered like a Black Snake's”. Both Rede and Stoneham were still with Barry in 1903 when The Kelly Gang was performed on the last Saturday night of a two-week season in Hobart. As always it drew a huge audience. It was still a play after which it was advisable to leave town in a hurry, and by the time the Hobart Mercury thundered its disapproval, Barry, Rede, Stoneham and company were in Devonport.

Where Dan Barry had gone, others quickly followed, and Kelly plays sprang up all over the continent. Some of the other Kelly Gang plays (before 1906) were: Edward lrham (‘Bohemian’) Cole's Hands Up! first staged in Glen Innes on 27 September 1898; John Henry Greene’s The Career of the Kelly Gang on 6 May 1899 at Charters Towers; Arnold Denham’s The Kelly Gang on 22 July 1899 in Sydney; and Lancelot Booth’s Outlaw Kelly three weeks later and also in Sydney, but probably only a copyright reading before a New South Wales country tour.

Rede had stolen from Dampier and Walch, and some of these other Kelly plays were clearly leased, borrowed or stolen from Rede. Arnold Denham’s Sydney version even had two more ’Bould(?) Sons of Erin’, this time called Moloney and Murphy. The respectable theatre managers and producers were dismayed, but the authorities took no action, and while these strolling subversives wandered around the country for the next decade killing stage policemen, real policemen controlled the crowds trying to get in.

Which brings us to Melbourne, the second half of 1906, and the film The Story of the Kelly Gang. ‘Bohemian’ Cole was in town with his Australian Bushranging Drama King of the Road, but this was a story about Ben Hall. Messrs Johnson and Gibson were giving a ‘Picture Panorama’ at the People's Concerts in the Temperance Hall. J & N Tait were screening pictures at the Town Hall and also promoting various theatrical and concert ventures. Dan Barry was also around Melbourne; on 16 October he copyrighted his ‘World Wide Wonder Show’ which had opened in Birregurra 12 days earlier. Barry had often experimented with film as well as theatre - as early as May 1897 he had been promoting his ”Famous English Cinematographe” at the Brisbane Theatre Royal.

Here the clues stop, and the questions begin. Was Barry a con-man, trying to cheat Gibson and the Taits? Unlikely, since he faced a two-year jail sentence if he was caught. And in any case, why didn’t the Taits apply for copyright registration of the film, before or after Hollyford and Barry did? They knew about the copyright office — they had registered four pictures earlier that year. Only registered works were entitled to the benefits of the legislation — an unregistered film could be pirated at will.

[MO comment 25.6.24: Barry and Hollyford only copyrighted a poster, not The Kelly Gang film itself, or the original footage therein and beyond, which was owned by Johnson and Gibson.]

The only possible conclusion on the evidence available is that Robert Hollyford and Dan Barry had a legitimate and unchallenged claim to the copyright, whatever fingers Gibson, Millard, and the Taits had in the developing tank. If that is the case, then what control did Dan Barry have over the making of The Story of The Kelly Gang? His name is not mentioned by any subsequent commentator, unless he is “Sam Crew”, mentioned by Lady Viola Tait in her history of the Taits, A Family of Brothers, as the assistant director and a former actor in one of the stage productions. Unfortunately, her book is based on distant memories rather than a study of the contemporary evidence, and is riddled with errors.

Did Barry and his Kelly Gang play actors perform in the film? Probably, but there is only one poor photograph of Barry himself, published in Melbourne Punch after his death, and no known illustrations of any member of his company. None of the actors in the film has been positively identified. There are other puzzles as well.

Films and plays had to be first presented in public and then registered for copyright, often by submitting an advertising poster as an exhibit (the "sheet of letterpress”). The date of the Register entry is 14 December, nearly two weeks before the Tait’s Boxing Day premiere. Viola Tait mentions a week of country try-outs. Did Barry screen the film out in country Victoria, his favourite stamping ground, before leasing it to the Taits for its Melbourne season? And what happened afterwards? Some subsequent seasons were “Direction of J & N Tait”, most weren’t.

Clutching at straws, we might note that in 1903, in Hobart, Barry had with him ’an excellent orchestra led by Miss Stewart’ and a ‘Ladies Orchestra’ accompanied the film in a season at the Oxford Theatre in George Street, Sydney at the end of 1907.

Dan Barry died intestate at his Hawksburn home on 1 July 1908. The police report on his assets makes no mention of royalties or returns from any of his many theatrical investments, but established that he was moderately wealthy. He owned a house and land, about £270 in various bank accounts, and his famous performing pet bulldog, valued at one pound. And there, until more clues come to light, that part of the story stops.

But there is one more unsolved mystery - who was Robert Hollyford, whose name appeared before Barry's in the Register entry? He is first heard of in Soldiers of the Queen, a Boer War drama of Barry’s which can be traced through various copyright entries from its premiere in Ballarat on 9 November 1899, to Yass on 17 January 1900, and to Warwick in Queensland on 15 February. A playbill which Barry forwarded to the Brisbane Copyright Office has a Mr R. Holyford as "Claude Devereux, A Young Soldier Known as the ‘Dare Devil’.” For five years R. Holyford or Hollyford was the juvenile leading actor in Barry’s company, last noticed when Barry passed through Maitland in January 1905. In the same period Lila Byford was the company's leading lady, supported by an older actor, Rita Aslin. Dan Barry himself was getting too old to be Ned Kelly and other dashing young heroes, and often played comic Irishmen, or, in drag, Irishwomen. Reg Rede and Harry Stoneham sometimes rated a brief mention in the reviews as well.

After he copyrighted the Kelly Gang film, Robert Hollyford is never heard of again. But there is one other possibility, recently suggested by Les Blake, author of a forthcoming biography of Australia's most famous early filmmaker and director of the international|y acclaimed 1918 silent classic The Sentimental Bloke. Was Robert Hollyford the early stage name of Raymond Hollis Longford?

The early years of Raymond Longford’s career have always been shrouded in mystery. All we know for certain is that he was born in 1878, was a seaman in 1896, was married in 1900, and started acting and directing in plays and films as Raymond Hollis Longford between 1908 and 1911. He claimed to have been with a touring theatre company acting as Raymond Hollis during the early years of the century, but a search of the Argus and the Sydney Morning Herald by the staff of the Australian Dictionary of Biography failed to find any trace of Raymond Hollis, or Raymond Longford, until the end of the decade.

The connection between Robert Hollyford and Raymond Hollis Longford is the first possible clue to Longford’s lost years. Most actors used assumed names — Dan Barry himself was really John Ringrose Atkins. It helped when debt-collectors and angry fathers came looking for your fixed address. Longford had been born John Walter, Hollis was his mother’s maiden name, and Raymond either a childhood invention to distinguish him from John Walter his father, or a later adoption when he left home as a teenager for a life on the ocean wave. He was Raymond John Walter Longford, seaman, when he married the already pregnant Melina Keen in Sydney on Monday 5 February 1900. On Saturday 3 February [1900] Robert Hollyford, actor, had an engagement in Uncle Tom’s Cabin in Tamworth, and is next heard of in Soldiers of the Queen in Warwick 12 days later. Did he have a few days rest and a hurried matrimonial engagement in Sydney, or did he continue up the north road?

If Robert Hollyford was Raymond Hollis Longford, then two other mysteries still have to be solved. The first is why Longford failed to mention that he'd worked with Dan Barry, that his stage name was Hollyford and not Hollis, and that he had worked on the film about the Kelly Gang. Was there a skeleton, along with the failed marriage, in Longford’s film can? Or did his early filmmaking seem crude and unimportant compared to his major films?

Bushranging films were banned and condemned during most of Longford’s creative years; it was certainly not wise for the great moving picture pioneer, who was still hoping to find backers for his next project, to boast about having been associated with a scurrilous film about policemen being shot and ridiculed to the cheers of a packed house. In old age, Longford did vaguely remember starting his career making bushranging films, but in Sydney, not Melbourne. Longford briefly mentioned The Story of The Kelly Gang in his testimony to the 1927 Royal Commission into the Moving Picture Industry in Australia; he said William Gibson had ”produced” it. This was a calculated insult.

William Gibson the young chemist was indeed the same W.A. Gibson who as head of Australasian Films was doing his best to kill Australian film production, Longford’s films in particular. He was also the Gibson who, as John Tulloch points out in Legends on the Screen, was complaining that ”crude bushranging films kept the decent class of patrons away from the cinemas”.

The final mystery is the one we started with — who did what in making The Story of The Kelly Gang? It's long been suspected that the Taits may have overstated their contribution, though they probably had a partial financial involvement. Perhaps they also shot supplementary footage such as a better version of Kate Kelly’s ride which was later added to some prints of the film. William Gibson seems to have had the role closest to what we would now consider the film director’s job: organising the film schedule, choosing locations, planning the shots with the cameraman who was also his business partner, Millard Johnson, and supervising the editing.

But copyright was claimed by writers, and assigned to financial producers, not stage or film directors. The column where assigned rights were noted is blank. What the Register entry probably indicates therefore is that Robert Hollyford and Dan Barry wrote the screenplay, put up some of the money and negotiated with Gibson and the Taits for the rest, organised and rehearsed the principal actors, and played parts themselves.

Barry's leading actress Lila Byford is the most likely candidate for Kate Kelly, with Rita Aslin as the outlaws’ mother, though this is merely to give little-known names to unknown faces. The lecherous and rather comic Constable Fitzpatrick in the first surviving scene of the film has a large hooked nose suspiciously similar to that in the blurred and underlit photograph of Dan Barry himself. Reg Rede and Harry Stoneham are probably there too, though why Rede was not part of the writing team is a mystery.

There is a tiny surviving scene in the film, just before Stringybark Creek, where two comic Coppers Lonergan and Maclntyre practise shooting, quite unaware that the Kellys are nearby. Sergeant Steele brings down Ned at the end, though it takes six policemen to subdue him. Then what about Ned Kelly himself? It is hard to see him clearly; the actor had a very full beard and the end of the film where his helmet is removed by the police is in parts badly blotched. He is also made up — in fact he looks remarkably like Ned Kelly in the photograph taken shortly before he was hanged, with his curly hair parted on the right. The actor was a very tall, strong, broad faced young man, and could well have been the leading young actor in Dan Barry's Dramatic Company — Robert Hollyford. Did Raymond Hollis Longford, who parted his straight hair on the left like most men but who was certainly tall, strong and broad faced, start his long career in Australian film as Ned Kelly, the Terror of the North-East, the Iron-Clad Bushranger of Australia?

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8. References

Dan Barry Makes His Exit - A Notability of the Back Blocks, Gadfly, Adelaide, 8 July 1908.

Fotheringham, Richard, The Man in the Iron Mask, Cinema Papers, 62, 1987, 32-36.

Gaunson, Stephen, Lost adaptations: piracy, 'Rip Offs', and the Australian Copyright Act 1905, Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, 2016.

Van der Poorten, Helen M., John Ringrose Atkins, Australian Dictionary of Biography, volume 3, 1969, University of Melbourne, 1969.

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9. Acknowledgements

The above has been compiled with the assistance of Sally Jackson, formerly of the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia and involved in its 2006 restoration of The Story of the Kelly Gang (1906).

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Last updated: 30 June 2024

Michael Organ, Australia (Home)

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