Fraser Film Release and Photographic Company was an Australian film company formed in 1912 by two brothers, Archie and Colin Fraser. It operated as a film exchange, importing movies from overseas, and production house, making shorts, features and documentaries.[1][2][3]
Early financial support came from Giuseppe Borsalino, an Italian businessman who invested in Italian films and used Fraser Films as an Australia outlet for his company.[4] Among the filmmakers who worked for them were Franklyn Barrett, Raymond Longford and Alfred Rolfe.[5]
Despite some early successes, the company suffered from pressure exerted by the "combine" of Australasian Films and decline of production from Europe due to World War I where Fraser brought many of their films. The company had a bankruptcy hearing in 1918.[6][7][8]
It was wound up in 1922.[9] The company was formally liquidated in 1938.[10]
Select credits
edit- Whale Hunting in Jarvis Bay (1913) – documentary
- A Blue Gum Romance (1913) – feature
- The Life of a Jackeroo (1913) – feature
- The Silence of Dean Maitland (1914) – feature
- We'll Take her Children in amongst our own (1915) – short
- The Day (1914) – feature
- Ma Hogan's New Boarder (1915) – short
- The Unknown (1915)
- The Sunny South or The Whirlwind of Fate (1915) – feature
- Murphy of Anzac (1916) – feature
- film of Eugene Aram[11]
References
edit- ^ "Advertising". The West Australian. Perth: National Library of Australia. 16 May 1914. p. 2. Retrieved 10 April 2012.
- ^ "Fraser Film Exchange". The Referee. Sydney: National Library of Australia. 23 December 1914. p. 15. Retrieved 9 November 2014.
- ^ "WHO'S WHO IN THE MOVIES". Table Talk. No. 3179. Victoria, Australia. 11 April 1929. p. 28. Retrieved 1 May 2024 – via National Library of Australia.
- ^ Graham Shirley and Brian Adams, Australian Cinema: The First Eighty Years, Currency Press 1989 p 34-35
- ^ "The Lure of the Movies—A Mammoth Enterprise". The Sunday Times. Sydney: National Library of Australia. 1 March 1914. p. 2 Supplement: SUNDAY TIMES GLOBE PICTORIAL. Retrieved 10 December 2014.
- ^ Andrew Pike and Ross Cooper, Australian Film 1900–1977: A Guide to Feature Film Production, Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1998, p 39
- ^ "IN BANKRUPTCY". The Sydney Morning Herald. No. 25, 261. New South Wales, Australia. 21 December 1918. p. 9. Retrieved 1 May 2024 – via National Library of Australia.
- ^ "TUESDAY, JANUARY 7". The Sydney Morning Herald. No. 25, 273. New South Wales, Australia. 6 January 1919. p. 5. Retrieved 1 May 2024 – via National Library of Australia.
- ^ "EXTRAORDINARY RESOLUTION". Government Gazette Of The State Of New South Wales. No. 151. New South Wales, Australia. 27 October 1922. p. 5801. Retrieved 1 May 2024 – via National Library of Australia.
- ^ "COMPANIES ACT, 1936 (SECTION 323 (4))". Government Gazette Of The State Of New South Wales. No. 171. New South Wales, Australia. 25 November 1938. p. 4510. Retrieved 1 May 2024 – via National Library of Australia.
- ^ "Production Of Moving Pictures--In America And Australia". Australian Town and Country Journal. Vol. XCVIII, no. 2555. New South Wales, Australia. 18 December 1918. p. 20. Retrieved 21 November 2023 – via National Library of Australia.