NFSA Restores: Newsfront – Redex Trials

A superb sequence, with editing and music establishing a sense of adventure and sheer fun, before raising the serious question about the ethics of journalism – specifically the question of non-interference.

Newsfront synopsis

In Australia in the late 1940s, before the coming of television, Len Maguire (Bill Hunter) and his young sidekick Chris (Chris Haywood) cover the big news stories for the Cinetone newsreel company. An old-school cameraman, Len is loyal to the company, the Australian Labor party and the Catholic church, but times are changing. He struggles to maintain his principles in turbulent times.

Newsfront curator's notes

Newsfront is a classic, a contender for the best film ever made in Australia. It documents a period of intense social and political turmoil, personalising the propaganda wars of the late 1940s, the rise of Robert Menzies and a politicised Catholic church, and the beginnings of feminism in the workplace – all with extensive use of real newsreels.

The film’s most original technique is the way it integrates new and old footage, shifting effortlessly between black-and-white and colour, sometimes in the same scene. This gives the film great immediacy, a sense that history is alive in the present.

Off-screen, the production is famous for behind-the-scenes arguments between writer Bob Ellis, writer–director Phillip Noyce and producer David Elfick. After they made extensive cuts, Ellis removed his name from the credits, a decision he later regretted. A restored DVD release now includes commentary from all three, in which Ellis says he now recognises it as amongst the best work he has done.

Notes by Paul Byrnes

Education notes

This clip shows the first round of the Redex Reliability Car Trials held in Australia in 1953. The clip opens with black-and-white archival newsreel footage that shows cars leaving Moore Park in Sydney at the beginning of the race. The clip then cuts to the fictional film story and shows Cinetone’s camera operators, Len Maguire (Bill Hunter) and Christopher Hewitt (Chris Haywood), on the road covering the course. McGuire chooses a rugged stretch of road as the location to set up his camera to record footage and is soon rewarded when a car rounds a bend too quickly and rolls over.

Educational value points

• Newsreels were a chief source of news prior to the introduction of television in 1956 and were shown in cinemas before the feature film. In the 1950s, Australian cinemas screened two newsreels before the feature film. One was either the locally produced Cinesound Review or Australian Movietone News and the other, an international edition of a British or American newsreel. In 1970, Cinesound and Movietone merged and began producing Australian Movie Magazine, the last edition of which was made in 1975.
• A scene in the clip illustrates an ethical dilemma faced by the media. So that he can obtain dramatic footage, Maguire chooses not to warn the Redex competitors about the bend in the road. 'Codding’ was the term given to the practice of creating or enhancing news to get a good story. The practice was unethical, but newsreel companies were more interested in entertaining audiences than being strictly accurate. While today the media is seen to have a responsibility to be fair and accurate, the extent to which it manipulates news to shape the public’s view of the world is evidenced in the number of complaints made to regulating bodies.
• The voice of a newsreel narrator is re-created by actor John Dease, playing the part of Cinetone’s narrator. His style of narration is closely based on Movietone and Cinesound narrations. Newsreel narrators and radio newsreaders and announcers were expected to adopt a 'cultivated’ Australian–English or English accent, based on the accent of announcers working for the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). Dease’s narration is used to great effect in this clip to make a seamless transition from the archival newsreel footage to the fictional story.
• The Redex Reliability Car Trials are shown through archival and re-created film footage. The Redex trials, which ran from 1953 to 1955, were an around-Australia marathon designed to test standard cars driven at high velocity over some of the roughest terrain in the world. The 1953 trial shown in this clip covered 6,500 miles (10,460 km) and took the competitors from Sydney to Townsville, Alice Springs, Darwin, Adelaide, Melbourne and back to Sydney. The Redex company produced car motor products.
• The first Redex trial, which lasted 14 days, has gone down in the annals of automotive history as one of the harshest long-distance motoring events ever run. The event was intended to be a reliability trial but soon turned into a road race when organisers decided that if cars finished on equal points then times would be used to determine placings. The trials were given wide media coverage through the print media and radio and they captured the public’s imagination. The participation of 'celebrities’ such as Jack 'Gelignite’ Murray and the inclusion of women contributed to the popularity of the trials.
• The clip vividly illustrates how archival newsreel footage was seamlessly integrated into Newsfront. The film stands as a tribute to, and a historical record of, Australian newsreels and the people involved in their production. The restoration of Newsfront in the late 1990s inspired a collaboration between the National Film and Sound Archive (NFSA), Kodak Entertainment Imaging Group and Atlab Australia and they then embarked on a project to restore a further 50 high-quality release prints of Australian films produced during 1955–92.
• Newsreels have great historical significance. They provide the only audiovisual depiction of major events prior to the introduction of television. In 1988 the National Film and Sound Archive (NFSA) launched 'Operation Newsreel’, a 5-year project designed to collect and preserve Cinesound and Movietone newsreels. The NFSA currently has 20,000 newsreel stories in its collection, which cover all major events in Australian history, entertainment and sport from 1929 to 1975.
• Newsfront launched the career of director Phillip Noyce, who directed and co-wrote this his second feature film in 1978. It was a commercial and critical success. An acclaimed filmmaker, Noyce has worked both in Australia and overseas, and among the films to his credit are Rabbit-Proof Fence (2002), Patriot Games (1992), Dead Calm (1989) and Heatwave (1982). Newsfront also helped establish actors such as Bill Hunter, Bryan Brown, Wendy Hughes and Chris Haywood.

Education notes provided by The Learning Federation and Education Services Australia