THE KID STAKES
Australia, 1927, 75 minutes, Black and white.
Robin 'Pop' Ordell, Charles Roberts, Ray Salmon, Frank Boyd.
Directed by Tal Ordell.
The Kid Stakes is based on Sid Nicholls' famous and long-lasting cartoon strip Fatty Finn. The film, directed by actor (On Our Selection, 1922) Tal Ordell, has become something of a silent classic. His 6-year-old son Robin ('Pop') is excellent in the main role. He later became a '30s radio announcer and was killed during World War Two.
The film captures to atmosphere of Woolloomooloo and life in the inner city. The larrikin touch is quite evident. There are some humorous adventures including jokes at the expense of the rich. The climax is a goat race - prohibited in New South Wales, but staged in January 1927 in Rockhampton.
The acting is very good, the humour of acting and captions still very funny - in fact a lasting film. There was a colourful remake in the early '80s by Maurice Murphy with a screenplay resembling the original in many instances.
1. An entertaining film? Humorous? Insight into Australian cities? Character? A classic silent film?
2. The popularity of the comic strip? The transfer of a comic strip to dramatisation for the screen? Silent film style relating to the comic strip? The introduction to Sid Nicholls and his sketching of Fatty Finn? The transfer of comic strip humour to the screen?
3. The quality of silent film-making techniques? Visuals, black and white photography, use of Sydney locations, atmosphere of Woolloomooloo, the inner city? The mansion? The flying sequences? The goat race? Pace, editing? Captions and their humour?
4. The style of Australian humour: the city, irony, sentiment? Types and stereotypes? Larrikin humour?
5. The film's presentation of the kids and the feel for the children's world? Fatty in himself, the members of his gang, age, size? Seasy and his humour? Kitty and the feminine touch? The children's world mirroring the adult world? Or more sensible? Bruiser Murphy as the villain? Their manner, talk? Aping adults? Competitiveness, fighting, friendship, games? Heroics?
6. Fatty as hero - an attractive boy, the introduction, his parents, home, the streets of Woolloomooloo, his friends, the cricket match, the breaking of the window, the chase? Cultivating the goats for the race? The traitor and Bruiser Murphy? Friendship with Kitty? Seasy? The arrival of Algy and the slinging off at the wealthy boy? The fist fight? Kitty's reaction? Looking for the goat? The mansion, the swim, the rescue? The tied-up policeman? The flight, the race? The happy ending? A pleasing comic strip Australian hero?
7. The sketch of the other children in the group? Kitty? Her influence on Fatty - especially with Algy?
8. Bruiser and his goat, the villains? The reasons for their villainy? Oneupmanship?
9. Goats, the inner city, the race and the commentator, the 2FC radio broadcast?
10. The adult story - the wealthy girl and her fiance, the eloping, the father, the mixing up of messages by the gardener, locking the fiance in, the goat eating the flowers, the headlines, the escape, the flying, the goat falling from the sky etc.?
11. The policeman and his benign watching of the kids, the cricket and the breaking of the window, the policeman being tied up during the escape of the goat?
12. The fruiterer and the other characters around the city - the captions with his broken English?
13 A sketch of city life in the '20s? Australian values and humour?
