Australia Calls (1913)

Directed by

Raymond Longford

Genre

silent film

Country

Australia

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

This silent film imagines an invasion of Australia by an Asian power. It tells a story of national defense and survival using crowd scenes and early special effects.

patrioticpropagandisticmelodramaticearnestdatedgrandiosesensationalisthistorical curiosity

What happens

Australia Calls is a 1913 Australian silent film directed by Raymond Longford about the fictitious invasion of Australia by an unnamed Asian country. The movie is not to be confused with Longford's 1923 picture Australia Calls, which is considered a lost film. Longford later claimed the film was the first Australian movie to have mass extras (from Sydney's Chinatown) and feature model photography, as well as being the first film in the world to show wireless communication. Film historians have said "the scale and blatant propaganda of [the film]... made it the least typical of Longford's thirty narrative films". (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

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