- Collection Spotlights
- Australia's Prime Ministers
- Restoration of The Story of the Kelly Gang
- Mike and Stefani
- 1967 Referendum
- Australians in WWI
- For The Term of His Natural Life
- Jedda
- The Sentimental Bloke
- Kingsford-Smith
- Waltzing Matilda
- Theatre of the Mind
- Theatres & Cinemas
- Soldiers of the Cross
- Shirley Ann Richards
- Graham Kennedy
- A tribute to Charles Chauvel
- A tribute to Joan Long
- Lottie Lyell - Photo Play Artiste
The Sentimental Bloke
'An then o'course we 'as a ding dong row...'
On its publication in October 1915, CJ Dennis' verse poem The Songs of a Sentimental Bloke was embraced by a public depressed by the enormous toll of the First World War.
To the thousands of men in the Australian Imperial Force (AIF) to whom pocket editions were distributed, the simple
story of an Aussie larrikin courting and finally marrying the love of his life, must have rung true.
An intertitle from The Sentimental Bloke (1919)
Dennis sold the picture rights for the poem 'for a thousand' to director Raymond Longford and his film-making partner Lottie Lyell who filmed the poem as The Sentimental Bloke in 1918. On seeing the film, Dennis commented 'I went expecting, at best, a burlesque; at worst a fiasco. I came away believing in miracles.'
Over time, The Sentimental Bloke has come to be regarded as Longford Lyell Film Production's most admired and enduring work and a classic contribution to Australian cinema culture.
