
In 1925, Paramount Pictures employed Australian film director Franklyn Barrett (The Breaking of the Drought, A Girl of the Bush) to manage the North Queensland tour of the silent film blockbuster The Ten Commandments (Cecil B DeMille, USA, 1923).
Barrett conducted the music and directed the live prologue that was performed on stage by local actors before the film commenced – pictured here.
He toured the film and stage show to towns and cities in Queensland including Brisbane, Cairns, Gladstone, Malanda, Rockhampton, Warwick and Barcaldine.
Notes by Stephen Groenewegen
The National Film and Sound Archive of Australia acknowledges Australia’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the Traditional Custodians of the land on which we work and live and gives respect to their Elders both past and present.