Dad Rudd, M.P.

It was the last feature film directed by Hall prior to the war and the last made by Cinesound Productions, Bert Bailey and Frank Harvey.

A major flood traps workers on the wrong side of the dam and the Rudds and Jim Webster team up to save the day.

The last six films made by Cinesound Productions were all comedies as producer Ken G. Hall sought to ensure guaranteed box office successes.

He elected to make another Dad and Dave film instead of two other long-planned projects, an adaptation of Robbery Under Arms[5] and a story about the Overland Telegraph.

[6] Hall said in 1939 that: Though we were entertaining the idea of other types of stories, the amazing enthusiasm for Dad and Dave Come to Town makes another Bailey picture the wisest commercial choice.

[10] The romantic leads were played by Yvonne East and Grant Taylor, both graduates of the Cinesound Talent School making their first film.

[12] The cast had more continuity than usual for a Cinesound Rudd film, with Alec Kellaway, Connie Martyn, Ossie Wenban, Valerie Scanlan and Marshall Crosby all reprising their roles from Dad and Dave Come to Town (1938).

[13] American actor Barbara Weeks, who was visiting Australia at the time of shooting with her husband, played a small role at the behest of Ken G.

[16] Cinesound hired space on the lot of the closed-down Pagewood studios for building a scale reproduction of the dam for the climax.

[3] Hall thought this was due in part to the fact that it was released "when Britain was standing alone under the blitz and all of Europe was aflame.

Smith's Weekly declared "A good time is had by all; the humor Is richly Australian; class-distinctions are turned upside down in truly heartening style, and the Rudds emerge noisily triumphant.

It's a slice of Australian back-block life as discovered by Steele Rudd long years ago; and one must con gratulate Cinesound for having copied the American model so cleverly.