{{Short description|1911 film by Raymond Longford}} {{Use dmy dates|date=June 2021}} {{Use Australian English|date=February 2012}} {{Infobox play | name = The Fatal Wedding | image = The Fatal Wedding stage play.jpg | image_size = | caption = Poster from early Australian production of play | writer = Theodore Kremer | characters = | setting = | premiere = 1901 | place = | orig_lang = English | subject = | genre = melodrama }} '''''The Fatal Wedding''''' is a play by Theodore Kremer and a 1911 Australian silent film directed by Raymond Longford based on the melodrama, which he and Lottie Lyell toured around Australia.<ref name="Bio">[https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/longford-raymond-john-walter-hollis-7226 Raymond Longford] at Australian Dictionary of Biography</ref> It was Longford's debut feature as director and one of the most popular Australian movies of its day. It is considered a lost film.
==Original play== Theodore Kremer's play appeared on Broadway in 1901 and was popular in England, the US and Australia.<ref>[http://www.ibdb.com/production.php?id=5509 ''The Fatal Wedding'' 1901 production] at IBDB</ref>
Mary Pickford appeared in productions of the play early in her career.
Kremer later wrote a companion play in 1902, ''For Her Children's Sake''.<ref>[https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/var1993000060/PP/ ''For Her Children's Sake'' poster] Retrieved 17 September 2013</ref>
The play was the subject of an unsuccessful plagiarism action.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article90241498 |title=The Fatal Wedding |newspaper=Kalgoorlie Miner |location=WA |date=18 June 1907 |access-date=19 September 2013 |page=5 |publisher=National Library of Australia}}</ref>
==Synopsis== An adventuress, Cora Williams is in love with Howard Wilson, even though he is happily married to Mabel, and they have small children. Cora gets a man called Curtis to pretend to be in love with Mabel and engineers a situation where Howard walks in on them and gets the wrong impression. It works, Howard divorces Mabel and gets custody of their children Jessie and Frankie. Mabel winds up abducting them.
Five years later Cora discovers Mabel living in poverty with the children. She tries to poison Mabel and frame Jessie on a charge of theft but is unsuccessful. Howard and Mabel eventually reconcile and live with their children.
== Film == {{Infobox film | name = The Fatal Wedding | image = The_Fatal_Wedding_still.jpg | caption = Still from the film | director = Raymond Longford | producer = Cosens Spencer | writer = Raymond Longford<br />Lottie Lyell | based_on = play by Theodore Kremer <br />novel by R. M. Clay | narrator = | starring = Raymond Longford <br />Lottie Lyell | music = | cinematography = Arthur Higgins<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article263631215 |title=Production of Moving Pictures -- in America and Australia |newspaper=Australian Town and Country Journal |volume=XCVIII |issue=2555 |location=New South Wales, Australia |date=18 December 1918 |access-date=21 November 2023 |page=20 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref> | editing = Arthur Higgins<ref name="papers">"Raymond Longford", ''Cinema Papers'', January 1974 p51</ref> | distributor = Spencer's Pictures | studio = Spencer's Pictures | released = {{Film date|1911|04|24|df=yes|ref1=<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article15252805 |title=Advertising. |newspaper=The Sydney Morning Herald |date=24 April 1911 |access-date=20 September 2013 |page=2 |publisher=National Library of Australia}}</ref>}} | runtime = 3,500 feet | country = Australia | language = Silent film <br />English intertitles | budget = £360<ref name="perth">{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article83700337 |title=Australian Films |newspaper=The Daily News |location=Perth |date=18 December 1931 |access-date=25 July 2012 |page=11 |publisher=National Library of Australia}}</ref><ref name="hall">{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article98350463 |title=Research Bureau Holds an Autopsy |newspaper=Sunday Mail |location=Brisbane |date=17 February 1952 |access-date=28 April 2013 |page=11 |publisher=National Library of Australia}}</ref> or £600 (Longford estimate)<ref name="Pike">Andrew Pike and Ross Cooper, ''Australian Film 1900–1977: A Guide to Feature Film Production'', Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1998, 18.</ref><ref name="vol">{{cite web|website=National Archives of Australia|title=Bound printed copy of Minutes of Evidence of the Royal Commission on the Moving Picture Industry in Australia (one of two copies)|url=https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=3009445|page=145| publisher = NAA: A11636, 4/1}}</ref> or £4,000<ref name="Shirley">Graham Shirley and Brian Adams, ''Australian Cinema: The First Eighty Years'', Currency Press, 1989, p31</ref> | gross = £18,000 (est.)<ref name="perth"/><ref name="hall"/><ref name="Shirley"/> or £16,000<ref name="vol"/> }}
===Cast=== * Lottie Lyell as Mabel Wilson * Raymond Longford as Howard Wilson * Walter Vincent as Robert Curtis * Tom Cosgrove as Toto * Henry Saville as Peter Schwartz * George Ellis as Constable O'Reilly * Mr Henderson as Reverend Dr Lanceford * Miss Clare as Cora Williams * Helen Fergus as Bridget * Elsie Rennie as Jessie * Master Anson as Frankie
===Production=== Although Longford had appeared in several films as an actor and helped make a documentary about the Burns–Johnson fight in 1908,<ref>[http://aso.gov.au/titles/historical/boxing-1908-johnson-vs-burns/ ''Boxing 1908: Johnson vs Burns''] at Australian Screen Online</ref> this was his first feature as director. It was also Lottie Lyell's first movie.<ref>[https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/lyell-lottie-edith-7266 Lottie Lyell] at Australian Dictionary of Biography</ref>
Longford and Lyell had acted in the play when it toured around Australia under the management of entrepreneur Philip Lytton.<ref>[http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article53192626?searchTerm=%22the%20fatal%20wedding%22%20%20longford&searchLimits= Contemporary review from ''Morning Bulletin (Rockhampton)'' Tuesday 6 September 1910 p6]</ref><ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article108425892 |title="The Fatal Wedding". |newspaper=Kapunda Herald (SA : 1878–1951) |location=SA |date=4 November 1910 |access-date=1 September 2013 |page=5 |publisher=National Library of Australia}}</ref>
===Shooting=== Various figures have been given for the budget - the earliest report said it was more than £500.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article168738229 |title=The Lyceum |newspaper=Truth (Sydney, NSW : 1894 - 1954) |location=Sydney, NSW |date=23 April 1911 |access-date=30 June 2015 |page=2 |publisher=National Library of Australia}}</ref> Higgins said £2,000<ref>{{cite news|first=Jim|last=Hall|newspaper=The Sydney Morning Sun Herald|date=29 September 1963|page= 109|title=He raised the roof to make films}}</ref>
Shooting took place largely in an artist's studio in Bondi with a roof taken off and six-foot reflectors used to improve the lighting.<ref name="Pike"/> Longford claimed it was the "first interior picture taken in Australia."<ref name="papers"/>
===Differences from the play=== According to contemporary reviews, the one departure from the stage show was the introduction of a motor car in the scene which shows little Jessie (Elsie Rennie) leaving Paradise Alley with a bodyguard of poor children.<ref name="evening"/>
Another reviewer said the ending was changed; the play finished in the church but Longford "introduces for a finish the restoration of Mabel to her husband and family amidst the glow of glorious Australian scenery."<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article168580605 |title=The Lyceum |newspaper=Sydney Sportsman |location=Surry Hills, NSW |date=3 May 1911 |access-date=30 June 2015 |page=5 |publisher=National Library of Australia}}</ref>
The famous scene from the play involving the Tin Can Band was recreated. When the film was screened a real band played behind the screen.<ref>{{Citation | title=The bulletin | date=1880 | publisher=John Haynes and J. F. Archibald | url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-651292160 | access-date=29 March 2019 }}</ref>
===Reception=== Advertising claimed the film would "inaugurate a new era in motion photography".<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article15244788 |title=Advertising. |newspaper=The Sydney Morning Herald |date=21 April 1911 |access-date=20 September 2013 |page=2 |publisher=National Library of Australia}}</ref> It was previewed on 21 April 1911.
===Critical=== The ''Sydney Morning Herald'' wrote that <blockquote>The acting throughout is of a very high standard and all the great features and powerful scenes of the drama are most vividly and clearly portrayed. The film itself is unusually good the objectionable flicker being reduced to a minimum and all the figures and background standing out with great clearness and definition. The "Tin Can Band" is here wonderfully pictured, the Little Mother is all the time excellent and the adult characters are seen to great advantage throughout.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article15233426 |title=Fatal Wedding |newspaper=The Sydney Morning Herald |date=22 April 1911 |access-date=20 September 2013 |page=13 |publisher=National Library of Australia}}</ref></blockquote> The critic from the Sydney ''Sunday Times'' said that: <blockquote>Although the play is American, Mr. C. Spencer is justified in presenting the [movie]... as an example of Australian art. Everything about the play in its new form is Australian. A company which was formed in Sydney acted the melodrama for Mr. Spencer's operators, and one may recognise Bondi in the outdoor scenes – notably in the episode of the cliff house and the escape of the little heroine... After a cinematograph series of 'Australian Bushrangers,' it is a relief to see bright-faced and happy-hearted children representing the better, even if the poorer, side of life in this part of the world... Jessie, the little mother' with the Tin Can Band of youngsters, made ''The Fatal Wedding'' a success when it was first played here at the Criterion Theatre. And it is the kiddies who make the success of Mr. Spencer's reproduction under the direction of Mr. R. H. Longford. In the 'children's party' scene of the third act one song is cleverly counterfeited by a child behind the screen and 'hidden noises' lend an air of realism when the juvenile band shouts with joy or rattles the tin cans. To make up for the absence of songs at this point there is a good deal more dancing than one saw in the play itself.<ref name="evening">{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article120781221 |title=The Theatres |newspaper=The Sunday Times |location=Sydney |date=23 April 1911 |access-date=20 September 2013 |page=2 |publisher=National Library of Australia}}</ref></blockquote> The Perth ''Sunday Times'' said that " The lady who plays the she-villain... is without doubt the woodenest dolt that ever spoilt good celluloid."<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article57716696 |title=The Busker |newspaper=Sunday Times |location=Perth |date=23 July 1911 |access-date=20 September 2013 |page=21 |publisher=National Library of Australia}}</ref>
The ''Bulletin'' said the film "has been a howling success, just as it was in its drama form, and the measure of that success is a scathing commentary on the artistic taste of Sydney public — unless the Sydney public applauded it merely as a photographic masterpiece."<ref>{{Citation | title=The Bulletin | volume=32 | issue=1631 | date=18 May 1911 | publisher=John Haynes and J. F. Archibald | url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-646604110 | access-date=29 March 2019 }}</ref> The same magazine later said "the thing is spectacular, and some of the situations have thrills in them, while the drivel of the "book" is unheard. The result is that the picture-goer gets his money's worth, while the old theatre-goer got too much... the choice of light does the stripling [Higgins] credit."<ref>{{Citation | title=The Bulletin | volume=32 | issue=1628 | date=27 April 1911 | publisher=John Haynes and J. F. Archibald | url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-646604382 | access-date=29 March 2019 }}</ref>
===Box office=== ''The Fatal Wedding'' was a big success at the box office in Sydney – the Governor General even attended a screening.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article114139542 |title=The Fatal Wedding |newspaper=The Evening News|location=Sydney |date=29 April 1911 |access-date=20 September 2013 |page=10 |publisher=National Library of Australia}}</ref> It then played Melbourne and the rest of Australia and was very popular, launching the cinema careers of Longford and Lyell, as well as enabling producer Cosens Spencer to establish a film studio at Rushcutter's Bay in Sydney.<ref name="Shirley"/>
It was still screening in cinemas in 1914.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article75289471 |title=Advertising. |newspaper=The Dubbo Liberal and Macquarie Advocate |location=NSW |date=6 March 1914 |access-date=1 September 2013 |page=5 |publisher=National Library of Australia}}</ref>
Spencer sold the Queensland rights to E. J. Carroll for £5,000.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article175869026 |title=Music and Drama. |newspaper=The Telegraph |issue=12,128 |location=Queensland, Australia |date=30 September 1911 |accessdate=28 July 2024 |page=18 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref>
Spencer reportedly made £5,000 from it.<ref>{{Citation | title=The bulletin | date=1880 | publisher=John Haynes and J. F. Archibald | url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-651292306 | access-date=29 March 2019 }}</ref> In 1922 Longford claimed the film made a profit of £16,000.<ref>{{Citation | title=The Wild Cat Column | journal=The Bulletin | date=1 June 1922 | location=Sydney, N.S.W | publisher=John Haynes and J. F. Archibald | url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-632704908 | id=nla.obj-632704908 | access-date=24 April 2024 | via=Trove }}</ref>
===Historical significance=== Longford later claimed the movie was the first domestic drama picture using interiors made in Australia.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article43584794 |title=Australian Films "Killed Good and Hard" |newspaper=The Advertiser (Adelaide)date=17 June 1927 |page=14}}</ref>
Some have also argued this film was the first to introduce the close up.<ref>{{cite news|url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article11248345 |title=Australia Pioneered "Feature" Films |newspaper=The Argus (Melbourne) |date=21 October 1939 |page=2]}}</ref> Arthur Higgins backed this claim in the 1960s, saying it was he who suggested it. He said he was taking the usual long shot when he mentioned to Longford, "Ray, I think we'll move in closer for this shot."<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article43598139 |title=Worth Reporting |newspaper=The Australian Women's Weekly |date=27 June 1962 |access-date=26 November 2014 |page=12 |publisher=National Library of Australia}}</ref>
===Other versions=== The play was filmed in 1914 by Biograph Studios in the US.<ref>[https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0233707/ ''The Fatal Wedding'' (1914)] at IMDb</ref>
In November 1922 Longford announced he would remake the film but this did not happen.<ref>{{Citation | title=Everyones | date=1920 | publisher=Everyones Ltd | url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-549829337 | access-date=4 June 2018 }}</ref>
In 1933 Cinesound Productions announced plans to make a sound version of the play but this did not eventuate.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article33326415 |title=Australian Productions |newspaper=The West Australian | location=Perth|date=14 July 1933 |access-date=21 May 2012 |page=2 |publisher=National Library of Australia}}</ref>
==References== {{Reflist}}
==External links== *{{IBDB show|3489}} *{{IMDb title|0001604|The Fatal Wedding}} {{Raymond Longford}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Fatal Wedding, The}} Category:1911 films Category:1911 Australian films Category:1911 drama films Category:1911 English-language films Category:1911 lost films Category:1910s melodrama films Category:Australian black-and-white films Category:Australian films based on plays Category:Australian silent feature films Category:English-language drama films Category:Films directed by Raymond Longford Category:Lost Australian silent drama films