MOVIES AT ROSEVILLE - 29 March 2025 Film Heritage Double.

 81 minutes.
Tickets: $25/$20  
General seating - not reserved or numbered
(T 0419 267 318)

Kokoda Front Line (1942)
With soundtrack 10 minutes.
Australia’s first Oscar winner, Damien Parer’s 1942 sound era Kokoda Front Line.
Presented with the assistance of Cinesound Movietone Productions and Glenn Eley.

Iconic Cinesound newsreel, the Voice of Australia, shows Australian troops on the Kokoda track in the jungles of New Guinea during the Second World War as they faced insurmountable odds in the most rugged and inhospitable terrain in the world. It features footage shot by legendary war correspondent, Parer, amid great hardship and danger. He provides an opening address to the camera. First screened in 1942, commentators praised his genuine sincerity and first person account of events unfolding just outside Australia’s door at such a dark hour in history. The short newsreel item deservedly won Australia’s first Oscar. The inscription on the award reads, “To Kokoda Front Line! for its effectiveness in portraying simply yet forcefully the scene of war in New Guinea and for its moving presentation of the bravery and fortitude of our Australian comrades in arms.

Steamboat Bill, Jr. (1924)
71 minutes
With live music. (Graeme Costin) Restored silent comedy.
“No doubt the most recognized name and face of silent comedy next to Charlie Chaplin is Buster Keaton, whose films are still cherished and admired by fans and film critics alike down to this day. Affectionately nicknamed ‘The Great Stone Face’ because of his world-famous trademark deadpan expression, many modern-day scholars of film history believe Keaton was the greatest comedy master of them all.

Raised in a family of vaudeville performers, Buster quickly rose to fame when he entered the world of moving pictures in 1917 doing slapstick comedies with other established stars like Roscoe ‘Fatty’ Arbuckle.

Steamboat Bill, Jr., a classic included in '1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die', ranks as one of his most outstanding and successful films and rates as one of the best loved and respected comic masterpieces overall.

One of the many reasons why Steamboat Bill, Jr. is so highly acclaimed today is that it features one of the most famous and breathtaking stunts in film history. Keaton always carefully calculated and choreographed his stunts and physical gags, and a shining example of his skills is a moment during the astounding scenes of the windstorm tearing through the town, blowing cars, furniture and houses around. When the side of a house is blown over, Buster is standing at the exact spot where an open window of the falling façade passes over him, leaving him untouched, with his usual deadpan expression.

Besides astonishing action and stunts, Steamboat Bill, Jr. also has great charm in its setting along the Mississippi River, and colourful characters such as the father and son who are complete opposites of each other. Buster, who plays the sensitive college boy son, Bill Jr, reluctantly learns the river boating trade from his tough and grouchy father, but is more interested in the daughter of his father’s riverboat rival, which leads to escalating antics, culminating in the amazing windstorm scenes.”

Barbara Underwood

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