The Silence of Dean Maitland (1934), a fruity period melodrama

#australia #melodrama #period #murder #romance #religion

Unfortunately this is a highly shortened version, but it's better than nothing. There's still essence of fruity period melodrama, featuring pregnancy, and a guilty Dean confessing his sins.

Ken G. Hall made only one flop during his prolific 1930s year and this wasn't it. Australian moviegoers had a taste for Victorian melodrama and silent movie histrionics. This delivered the goods.

The fruitiness is explained by the source. The Silence of Dean Maitland started as an 1886 novel by Maxwell Gray (pen name for English novelist Mary Gleed Tuttiet), then became a play, then in Australia became a 1914 Raymond Longford silent film, which became extremely popular despite distribution difficulties.

Hall knew how to create a fuss with the help of the censor. The censor insisted - just before the film was due for release - that a number of cuts be made in an opening scene where the Dean's lover Alma (Charlotte Francis) goes for a swim on a deserted beach, as well as cuts in a crucial scene where she seduces the willing Dean (John Longden).

Ken Hall and Cinesound fought a prolonged public battle denouncing the cuts and the censor, with newspapers observing the battle with the morbid fascination reserved for matters of sex. 

Eventually on May 16th 1934, it was announced that the Federal Appeal Censor (Brigadier-General Mackay) had reversed the ruling of the Chief Censor (Mr. Creswell O'Reilly) on the most important of the three cuts which O'Reilly had demanded, with the love scene between the Dean and the girl - "the dramatic pivot of the play"  - allowed to pass as requested.

Hall crowed in his memoir Directed by Ken Hall: "That row went on for days with the Press, even then, sending up censorship. We lost very little in the cutting - the censor reduced the length of the kiss somewhat - and we got cartloads of free publicity. Dean Maitland really rang the bell. It was a tremendous hit, and Cinesound could not have had a more fortunate start. Three major successes right off the bat ..."

Director Hall learned his lesson after spending 18 weeks on The Squatter's Daughter, and whipped through filming in ten weeks.

Hall complained that there were too few experienced actors in Australia capable of handling the main role. John Longden arrived in Australia touring for J. C. Williamson. Ken Hall immediately engaged him, together with his stage co-star Charlotte Francis, who was also touring down under. Longden had starred in Hitchcock's  Blackmail (1930), and was considered a major star relative to the local scene.

More here:

https://web.archive.org/web/20140522063517/
http://www.ozmovies.com.au/movie/
about/silence-of-dean-maitland#about

Details
Production company: Cinesound Productions
Budget: £10,000
Locations: Cinesound's No. 1 Bondi Junction studio, Sydney and Camden locations, St Thomas church, North Sydney. Hall shot the Camden scenes to imply that the story was set in England. A long shot of the town, with its beautifully spired church on a hilltop, appears in the film as Belminster, a very English name. (Hall's mother had been born in the region, and he loved filming in the area).
Filmed: shooting was completed in "record time" by March 1934.
Australian distributor: B.E.F.
Australian release: 12th May 1934 Strand Theatre, Hobart
Rating: originally rated by Commonwealth censor as suitable for adults only
35mm nitrate black and white
Running time: 97 mins (Oxford*)
VHS time: shortened version 59'56"
Box office: the film moved into profit in Australia as one of Cinesound's "most popular productions with both critics and the general public". Profitability was also helped by an early 1935 release in England by R.K.O., which also saw "healthy returns" (Oxford*). Returns were estimated as being in the vicinity of £30,000 in Australia and £40,000 in the UK.
Following in the footsteps of F. W. Thring, producer director Hall produced a vaudeville-inspired short Cinesound Varieties to form a double bill, ensuring that more of the rentals returned to Cinesound. It received poor notices, but that was beside the point.
Award: The Silence of Dean Maitland won second prize in the first 1934 Commonwealth Government Film Competition.
According to the judges, the film had well acted passages of strong drama. The continuity was workmanlike, the music was judiciously used, and some of the outdoor scenes were very pleasant. The story was the film's weakest point, because of the old-fashioned melodrama, bristling with improbabilities and often over-sentimental.
The film was awarded 63 points out of a possible 100, three points ahead of FW Thring's Clara Gibbings, but well short of Charles Chauvel's Heritage's 70 points. Second prize received a cash prize of £1,250.

Pike, Andrew and Cooper, Ross, Oxford Australian Film 1900-1977, OUP, revised edition 1998