In this excerpt from the premiere episode of This Fabulous Century, Peter Luck’s hugely successful nostalgic trawl through Australia’s recent past, a 1978 location visit to Dame Nellie Mel

This clip features imagery of the film For the Term of his Natural Life (originally released in 1927, but restored by the NFSA in 1981).

Excerpt from a silent comedy short directed by Stan Laurel and starring Australian comic Clyde Cook, James Finlayson, Tyler Brooke and an 18-year-old Fay Wray, of King Kong (1933

A copy of the novel For the Term of His Natural Life (Marcus Clarke, 1874) signed by the cast of the 1927 film adaptation. 

Restoring 'The Cheaters', a 1929 silent film by the pioneering McDonagh sisters.

Glass negative of Stuart Booty with his wife in a garden.

Stuart Booty standing next to his invention, the Vitavox Gramophone.

This silent advertisement promotes the new ‘Touring Talkie Show’ truck operated by Hoyts – with sponsorship from Studebaker Car Corporation and the Shell Oil Company.

This clip shows an entire Maxonol Gramophone cinema advertisement from 1925 in which a couple decide to buy a gramophone to keep their daughter at home.

This film was the first venture by the McDonagh sisters: Paulette, director and principal writer; Phyllis (the youngest), business manager, publicist and art director; and