The ancestral beings of the Australian film industry are well known and revered, from Lotte Lyall to the Chauvels , Damien Parer and Ken G. Hall. Monkman and Gelhor are forgotten today, though their work on microscopic photography was both pretty wonderful and enchanted audiences. Dr O’D explains why he is about to write their biography.
The Australian screen production industry is entering a new mature phase: the pioneers of the renaissance of the 1970s like Sue Millikan and Gil Brealey are writing and publishing their autobiographies. It is a scary moment especially for historians. But recently I’ve been exploring a much earlier film industry autobiography, ‘Quest of the Curly-Tailed Horses’, by Noel Monkman. (The creatures are sea-horses).
