Home | Movies By Year | Movies from 1916


A Maori Maid's Love

Buy A Maori Maid's Love now from Amazon

First, read the Wikipedia article. Then, scroll down to see what other TopShelfReviews readers thought about the movie. And once you've experienced the movie, tell everyone what you thought about it.

Wikipedia article




'A Maori Maid's Love' (Originally titled 'The Surveyor's Daughter') is a 1916 Australian silent film directed by Raymond Longford about an interracial romance between a white man and a Mori girl. It is considered a lost film as there are no known copies.[http://www.filmarchive.org.nz/AV-Heritage/Missing-Films.html 'New Zealand's Missing Film History' at The Film Archive]

Plot



Graham, an unhappily married surveyor, goes on a job to New Zealand where he falls in love with a Maori woman. She becomes pregnant and dies in childbirth. Graham puts his daughter in the care of Maori Jack, who later kills Graham. However his daughter (Lottie Lyell) inherits his property and falls in love with a jackeroo called Jim.

Cast



*Lottie Lyell

*Raymond Longford

*Kenneth Carlisle

*Rawdon Blandford

Production



The film was shot on location in Rotorua and Auckland from August 1915, with finance from a Sydney company, Vita Film Corporation. It was the first of two films Longford and Lyell made in New Zealand, the other being 'The Mutiny of the Bounty' (1916).Andrew Pike and Ross Cooper, 'Australian Film 19001977: A Guide to Feature Film Production', Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1998, 57

Release



Distribution difficulties

Longford was unable to secure a release for the film in New Zealand. He blamed this on the influence of "the Combine" of Australasian Films and Union Theatres, who dominated distribution and exhibition at the time. The film was given a limited release in Sydney at a cinema owned by Hubert and Caroline Pugliese.[http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/pugliese-caroline-frances-13160 Crowley, Bill, 'Pugliese, Caroline Frances (18651940)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, accessed 7 January 2012.]

Critical reception

The critic from the 'Sydney Sun' called it "unquestionably the best moving picture produced up to date at this end of the world... there would be little need for importing films while Australia can make her own of such a standard."[http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bin/paperspast?a=d&d=AG19160205.2.18&cl=search&srpos=2&e=-------10--1----0%22a+maori+maid%27s+love%22--&st=1 LOCAL AND GENERAL]. 'Ashburton Guardian', Volume XXXV, Issue 8366, 5 February 1916, Page 4, accessed 11 September 2013

The 'Motion Picture News' said the film "certainly could not be classed as a masterpiece. Reduced to three reels it would make a good, pleasing feature. The subtitles in their present state are crude and need revision. Director Raymond Longford had a hard task when he posed the Maori maids before the camera and deserves credit for the results obtained."[https://archive.org/stream/motionpicturenew132unse#page/1446/mode/2up/search/australia "Film News from Foreign Parts", 'Motion Picture News' 11 March 1916] accessed 23 November 1916

Lottie Lyell edited the film for its British release.[http://teaching.austlit.edu.au/?q=node/110768 Lottie Lyell] at AustLit

Significance



The movie is generally agreed to be the first full-length New Zealand feature film.Helen Martin and Sam Edwards, 'New Zealand Film: 19121996', Oxford Uni Press, 1997 p 25

References




Buy A Maori Maid's Love now from Amazon

<-- Return to movies from 1916



This work is released under CC-BY-SA. Some or all of this content attributed to http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=1108758715.