For the Term of His Natural Life was a 1908 Australian silent film based on the 1874 novel of the same name by Marcus Clarke.

[5][6] The MacMahon brothers, James and Charles, had enjoyed success producing a version of the novel on stage since the 1880s.

)[9] The MacMahon brothers had made a popular version of Robbery Under Arms in 1907 and following that success decided to film For the Term of His Natural Life.

[10] The MacMahons allocated a considerable budget for the film, including a shooting schedule of eight weeks[11] and location work in Port Arthur.

To be sure, a modern film censor would order heavy cuts or would ban it altogether; some of the flogging scenes were grisly essays in sadism.

Claude Kingston wrote the Taits "had done tremendous business with it for a good many weeks, showing it in what was then the Athenaeum Hall in Collins Street.

"[20] Kingston thought he could be more successful so he secured the Victorian rights for the film from Charles MacMahon for £110.

He recalled the film "went on drawing audiences and earning money throughout Australia and New Zealand until some months after the first World War broke out.

Perhaps the cruelties depicted on the screen seemed mild compared with the atrocities which, according to the wartime propagandists, the Germans were perpetrating in France and Belgium.

[32][33] In June 1909, the Gippsland Times reported "The audience entered fully into the spirit of the drama, and there were numerous cheers for Rufus Dawes and groans for the villain, his cousin, Captain Frere, while Parson North, who ultimately enables the hero to escape, also came in for his share of appreciation, especially when he felled Frere in the torture chamber for his villainy.