Frances of Fielding (Lee Hill, 1928) - a
community comedy: New Zealand's populist answer to
Hollywood
Uploaded 12 November 1999 | 2738 words
Forgotten silver (1995) by Costa Botes and Peter Jackson was described, after its screening, as "The greatest film hoax since the invention of movie pictures".(1) It purported to tell the story of a pioneer New Zealand film director, Colin McKenzie, and the production of his epic film, Salome, on the west coast of the South Island in the days of silent cinema. It took in so many people because events within it touched on memories of some things that really did happen - eggs are used to fix tempura paint; natural dyes were used in early colour film and, in New Zealand (and Australia and USA) quickie "community comedies" were made:
Extract 1: "Stan the Man" from Forgotten silver (Botes/Jackson, 1995, N.Z.)
(1) D. Mahoney, 'Forgotten silver: a delicious hoax' , Manawatu evening standard, 3 November 1995, p5.
The late twenties were years in which silent cinema was
coming to an end; it was a period of transition -
synchronised sound was on the way. This was the last chance
to make films cheaply and quickly. In the western states of
USA and in Australia enterprising film makers were producing
"community comedies". They were films which were quickly
made, in small towns, using local talent. They were shot
over a couple of days, involving principal "actors",
recruited with much fanfare, after well publicized
"auditions", and incorporating as many crowd scenes as
possible. Very quickly, whilst excitement was still hot, the
"world première" was organized in the local cinema.
This concept was a great success, both in entertainment and
business terms, and in 1928 it reached New Zealand.
At least twenty-seven such comedies were produced here between 1928 and 1930. The stories ran along similar lines. A beautiful new school-teacher arrives in town, is courted by two men, one decent, one a cad. The villain fakes a newspaper story which discredits his rival. The teacher believes the calumny and falls for the wrong man but at last sees the error of her ways and is rescued from the villain's clutches by the noble suitor. Along the way there is a race through the township, by a fire-engine, and a car chase along back roads. Schools are visited and the results of a civic election are declared enabling a cast of hundreds to be involved. Local business premises are featured to allow for collateral advertising revenue.
Rudall Hayward, the doyen of New Zealand film direction, made twenty-three of these Community Comedies, and a collaborator and later rival, Lee Hill, made four.
Rudall Hayward (1900-1974) was born in England and came to Dunedin, New Zealand, at the age of five with his father (also called Rudall), who was part of a family entertainment company that toured with moving pictures and a musical show. In 1918 young Rudall Hayward went to Australia to work with Raymond Longford on The sentimental bloke. When he came back he made his first feature film, The bloke from Freeman's Bay, in 1920. My lady of the cave followed in 1922 and the first Rewi's last stand in 1925, then Te Kooti Trail (1927) and The Bush Cinderella (1928). Then came the period in which he directed his twenty-three two-reel Community Comedies. His last feature film To love a Maori, New Zealand's first colour feature, was made in 1972. Rudall himself married Ramai Hayward, a maori, who directs the "Hayward Historical Film Trust".(2)
(2) From a pamphlet prepared by the Hayward Historical Film Trust, 1997.
Lee Hill (1908-1952) was born in Carterton, N.Z., and was
employed as a cameraman shortly after leaving school - a job
he did for Hayward on his first Community Comedies, such as
Natalie of Napier. In 1933, he produced New Zealand's
first talkie, Down on the farm (dir. Stewart Pitt),
and was the cinematographer for The wagon and the
star and Phar Lap's son, both filmed in 1936.
During World War II he was a photographer with the 2nd New
Zealand Expeditionary Force and was captured by the Germans
in 1941. In the prison camp he made a clandestine
photographic record of camp conditions. Back in NZ, he
formed a company called Television Films Ltd (before
television came to NZ!), and produced various commercial and
local interest films. He died at age 45, in the Vogue
Theatre, Brooklyn, which he had just taken
over.(3)
Photo #1: Lee Hill in the early days of World War (postcard, courtesy of New Zealand Film Archive)
In the Community Comedies, Rudall Hayward's filmic technique was better than Lee Hill's. He framed his pictures professionally and didn't expose expanses of sky or cut off the feet of his actors.
(3) Obituary, Dominion, 6 June 1952.
Still # 1: Rudall Hayward's mise-en-scene from Daughter of Christchurch ...(4)
(4) Video tape ex the Hayward Historical Film Trust, 14 Coates Road, Howick, Auckland, N.Z.
Still # 2: Lee Hill's crowd shot from Frances of Fielding ...(5)
(5) Video tape ex the New Zealand Film Archive, P.O. Box 11-449, Wellington, N.Z.
As an aside:- the American origins of the storyline are
apparent in this sequence. It shows the reactions of the
crowd to the announcement of the results of a school board
election from the balcony of the town hall. This is the way
that such school business was conducted in California, but
it has never been done like this in New Zealand.
Hayward made Patsy of Palmerston in early 1928. Newspaper advertising proclaimed that "Everyone has heard of this picture that set Palmerston alight", and the moonlit scenes in the Esplanade were critically acclaimed.
Unfortunately, nothing remains of this movie and so I came to use Hill's Frances of Fielding as a supporting film for Chaplin's City lights (1931) at the re-opening of the restored Regent Theatre, in Palmerston North, in May, 1999. The township of Feilding is close to Palmerston North and the selection of this film assured a boost to the audience on the opening night!
Although Hill had been a cameraman on Hayward's first Community Comedies, by the end of 1928 they were in tough competition in the Manawatu area. Hill used the Hayward script, almost verbatim, despite the copyright notice prominently displayed on the latter's prints. This annoyed Hayward, as Hill moved into towns near Palmerston North. As Christmas 1928 approached, Hill made Mary of Marton and Frances of Fielding: both Marton and Feilding are only twenty kilometres or so from Palmerston North. Hill misspelled the name of the latter town and the Film Archive, which has salvaged a print, insists on retaining the mistaken spelling. Hill's other two films were Nellie of Nelson and Betty of Blenheim. All four of his have survived whereas only five - A daughter of Dunedin, A daughter of lnvercargill, A daughter of Christchurch, A daughter of Masterton and Suzie of Stratford still exist of Hayward's twenty-three.
The Film Archive screened the surviving last half of Hill's Mary of Marton in Palmerston North as part of its "Last Picture Search" in 1997. To everyone's surprise and the delight of the audience, Elma Johnston (née Barratt), who played Mary as a seventeen-year-old, was still alive and living with her daughter in Auckland. She came down to the screening at Downtown Cinema 8 and gave several delightful interviews.
The heroine of Frances of Fielding, which Hill made next, was Meg Knyvett (pronounced "Nivett"), a nineteen year old dancing teacher at the time that she was discovered. She was only fifty-four when she died in 1963.
Photo #2: Meg Knyvett as Frances in Frances of Fielding
Paper #2: Auditions:- Feilding star, 22 November 1928
Still #3: Dale Austen: daughter of Dunedin as a "star"
At the time of the film-making in Feilding she was engaged to Nelson Ball, who became an All-Black four years later (playing very successfully in the period between 1932 and 1935). Meg and Nelson's son Murray (Ball), the creator of Wal, Cheeky Hobson and the Dog of the Footrot Flats cartoon, says that he had the impression that his father wasn't too pleased with his mother's involvement with the film people: this may have explained why this was her only excursion into the film medium, although amateur theatre and her dancing school were very much part of her life .(6)
(6) Interview, Murray Ball, Gisborne, 26 March 1998.
The review of the film in the Feilding star of Thursday 20 December 1928, said that it was:
A very fine picture! This was the verdict of the two large crowds that witnessed the screening of the locally produced melodrama "Frances of Feilding" at the Tivoli yesterday afternoon and last night. There are numerous snapshots of Feilding's street, and beauty spots and particularly interesting series shows the scholars at the Manchester Street school at play and in exercises. There were loud cries of recognition at yesterday's matinee from the children. In the drama the local principals do some exciting stunts and the Fire Brigade is seen in a smart turn out to a fire. The street scenes were well organized by Mr Groombridge. There is a motor car chase along Kimbolton Road, and the villain does some dirty work at the cross roads, but also in the Star printery. There is an excellent study of the sale in the Stockyards showing well known personages ... Producer Hill is to be congratulated on his work.
The son of the Mr Groombridge mentioned in the review said that in 1928 his father was the manager of the Tivoli. At the time that Frances was being filmed a Canadian touring company, "The Roughriders", was putting on a show there. One of the performers can be seen in full regalia in the Feilding street scene that opens the film.(7)
(7) Interview, Alan Groombridge, Feilding, 30 June 1998.
It was customary for the local taxi company to feature
largely in all the Community Comedies. In Dunedin, Gold Band
Taxis gets the credit, in Christchurch it was White Band
Taxis, and in Invercargill Red Band Taxis (is there some
sort of franchise here?). If there was, it didn't extend to
Feilding where Hayward Taxis (no relation to the film-maker)
are given thanks.
Other contra deals usually secured the costumes for the leading lady from the most fashionable store (Ballantyne's in Christchurch; Arthur Barnett's in Dunedin). In Hayward's movies these often included furs. Since the new school teacher also stayed in the "best" local hotel, the name of which was also prominently featured, she tended to look something of a dilettente rather than a relatively poor teacher in her first job. Apart from the commercial advantages that accrued to the producer this representation of the teacher as a sophisticate allowed the audience to see their local girl reconstructed in the iconic image of a Hollywood star.
Lee Hill didn't go this far with Meg Knyvett, his Frances of Feilding, but she did have a "presence" that makes her far more glamorous than Hill's other heroines. Most probably this stems from her poised body language, doubtless a product of her professional dancing background. The Tivoli brought the film back in January of 1929 and ran it against Mary of Marton so that comparisons could be made and the audience could decide "whether Marton has better artists that Feilding". Certainly, Frances was much more poised than Mary, who came across as somewhat gauche.
Hill and Hayward also differed in the way that they delineated their male characters. Hayward's villain was always named "Freddy Fishface" and he tended to be dressed in the manner of Harold Lloyd. By selecting an American stereotype for the villain, Hayward was challenging Hollywood. Ruth Vasey and Kristin Thompson have detailed the way in which American filmmakers created Italian or Mexican stereotypes for their villains and figures of fun and the difficulties that such a selection caused for the export of their films.(8) Hayward's chosen actor was usually an amateur of some local renown, directed in a slapstick manner. His hero was called "Bill Cowcocky" and was usually chosen for his height and handsome looks. Although the archetypal Anzac country boy, he also had a likeness to many a hero of American Westerns. As a result of this casting, it was always clear at once who should be cheered and who should be booed.
Still #4: The introduction of Freddy and Bill from A daughter of Dunedin.
In Lee's Frances the villain is called Ken and the hero Tom, but there is little to distinguish them: a modern audience, at least, tends to be confused.
Dialogue in silent films was provided by intertitles at suitable moments. Those for the Community Comedies were predictably corny, and some were surprisingly risqué. Hayward liked to use one that said that his villain (Freddy Fishface) "knew all about women; he had read 'Married Love'." This was a reference to Marie Stopes' book on marital technique and birth control which had been banned in New Zealand in 1926. At the end of Daughter of Christchurch he has the heroine afloat on the Avon river, with the caption "Christchurch girls would rather go for a row on the Avon than a motor drive. It's not so far to walk home".
In an era when beauty contests were fashionable both Hayward and Hill liked to recruit local beauties whom they would pose and scan with their cameras at some stage of the story: Hayward was the more blatant in satisfying the male gaze in this way. Dale Austen, as his daughter of Dunedin, was the popular Miss New Zealand of the time: she also starred in his 1928 feature film A bush Cinderella. It is noteworthy that in the "Daughter of" series the heroine was never named. She was portrayed as a "type": the "pretty school-teacher".
Hayward used several stock shots in his films: the school bell; the newspaper cutting. He also had a stock shot of a fat woman which he intercut in several of his films (an image that would be very non-PC today - unless in a gross teenpic).
Still #5: The fat girl; Daughter of Christchurch
The performance itself was given a spirited accompaniment usually by a pianist. In large towns there would even be a small orchestra, typically a quartet with much emphasis on the percussion section. Sound effects would also be provided. Unfortunately, the actual music played was even more ephemeral than the films which have so often disappeared. The pianist would play theme cords as appropriate interspersed with popular songs, especially love songs, of the day. A few big features were given an official score but most supporting pictures relied on the imagination of the local musician. Although the Tivoli offered musical accompaniment as routine no mention of the player is made in the reviews of Frances.
For the screening, at the re-opening festival of the Regent Theatre, in May 1998, a dedicated score was commissioned by the Palmerston North Film Society with the help of the Palmerston North Community Arts Trust. Dorothy Buchanan, who acts as resident composer for the Film Archive, designed music to reflect the time and the mood of the picture.
(8) K. Thompson, Exporting entertainment: America in the world film market 1907-1934 (B.F.I., London, 1985); R.Vasey, The world according to Hollywood, (University of Wisconsin Press, 1997).
The Community Comedies are reported to have originated in
California and reached New Zealand via
Australia.(9) With
such a genesis the New Zealand versions might have been
expected to have had a visibly American formula and it is
true that Hayward's screenplay owed much to the generic
codes of the Hollywood western. The final chase used horses
if the local hunt club could be induced to assist, and Bill
Cowcocky's friends would gallop to his assistance. But, he
was not averse to satirizing the genre with a chase on
bicycles in Christchurch after the villain had
co-opted a horse-drawn hansome cab.
Still #6: Bicycles to the rescue; Daughter of Christchurch...
Hill always used the more common car chase with its overtones of the Hollywood gangster movie.
Still #7: Cars to the rescue; Frances of Fielding...
There is no doubt that the Community Comedies showed their North American origins in terms of set pieces such as the fire-brigade diversion, the politicization of the school board election and the creation of a star persona for the heroine: but they were also recognizably local in tone. The humour had the traits of bathos, understatement, and litotes that has come to mark the comedies of Australasia. The finance was entirely local even if Hayward did call his company "Hollywood on Tour". The financial hegemony of the U.S. did not extend this far; their narrative formula was made indigenous.
(9) Clive Sowry, N.Z., Film Archive, April 1994.