It was based on a script by Melbourne journalist Keith Manzie, with Rupert Kathner as assistant director.
[3] Football star Bob Chitty, who was coaching in the region, was cast as Ned Kelly.
[8] Kathner returned in December 1947 with finance from a new company, Australian Action Pictures, intending to make his own Ned Kelly film, based on his own script.
He used Bob Chitty to play the lead but recast all the other roles, including Carlton footballer Ben Crone.
[8] The critic for the Sun Herald stated that: This near-unendurable stretch of laboured, amateurish film-making is something that the developing Australian film industry will wish to forget-swiftly and finally... A film made on a shoe-string (as this obviously was) could still achieve a little crude vitality.
[15] Australian film critic Michael Adams later included The Glenrowan Affair on his list of the worst ever Australian films, along with Phantom Gold, The Pirate Movie, Houseboat Horror, Welcome to Woop Woop, Les Patterson Saves the World and Pandemonium.