Bushranger ban

[5][6] The ban was still in effect in the 1930s and hurt efforts to make a number of Australian movies, including an adaptation of Robbery Under Arms from director Ken G.

[9] The Hollywood bushranging film Stingaree (1934) was screened in every state of Australia except for New South Wales because of the ban.

Bushrangers were outlaws, most active in the 19th century, and remembered in Australian folklore for their acts of robbery and violent crime, including murder.

[11] The genre showed how the bushrangers' intimate connection with the bush allowed them to skirt the law and engage in outlaw activity.

[15] Like the majority of the bushranger films that would follow it, The Story of the Kelly Gang was relatively sympathetic to the outlaws whose lives it fictionalized.

In 1912, New South Wales's Theatres and Public Halls Act was amended to directly target the content of films.

The government worried that the international release of any films that portrayed Australia negatively would damage the country's global image.

That year, the Minister of Customs was placed in charge of regulating the export of films from Australia to other parts of the world.

After the ban, film production in Australia decreased as creators lost their most popular genre and the audiences it drew to the theatres.

H.M. Hawkins, the managing director of Spencer's Pictures, argued that censorship would limit the industry's ability to grow, since depictions of crime were essential to the creation of a successful drama.

[16] However, because of the stigma that had developed around the genre, few directors were willing to risk making bushranger films, especially if they had established reputations to uphold.

In 1920, the director Raymond Longford avoided adapting Robbery Under Arms in order to preserve his status within the Australian film industry.

"[24] After When the Kellys Rode, the Theatres and Public Halls Act was invoked again by Chief Secretary Baddeley to ban the violent British film Brighton Rock.