by Stephen Vagg
F.W. Thring is probably best remembered these days for being the father of actor son Frank Thring Jnr (Ben Hur, The Vikings, lots of ads), but back in the 1930s, he was one of the biggest names in Australian showbusiness. Among his achievements were helping set up Hoyts Cinemas and the radio station 3XY, and running his own production company, Efftee, which over a five-year period in the early 1930s pumped out seven features, one abandoned feature, scores of shorts (dramatic, comic and documentary) and a string of stage productions: his best known achievements included Diggers with Pat Hanna, the first three movies of George Wallace, the early shorts of Noel Monkman, and the musical Collits’ Inn.
Thring made Herculean efforts to support Australian films and theatre – he didn’t quite get there, and it cost him a reported £75,000 of his own fortune, but if he hadn’t have died so young (of cancer, in 1936, aged 53) maybe he could’ve helped sway the government to have enforced the 1935 quota which we discussed here. Or not, who knows, but Thring was a well-connected man – after all, Efftee was managed by Tom Holt, a prominent figure in Australian theatre and radio, besides being father of future PM Harold Holt.
Most of Thring’s movies were notoriously not that great, or at least not up to those of Ken G Hall at Cinesound – Thring’s true skill was as a producer rather than director. Still, practice makes perfect and if he’d lived another decade or so, he likely would’ve gotten better.
Today we’re discussing Clara Gibbings, a 1934 movie produced and directed by Thring… although the bulk of actual directing on-set may have been done by actor-writer-director Frank Harvey, credited as “associate” (Harvey later became Hall’s main screenwriter).
Clara Gibbings was made at a slightly odd time in Thring’s career – he’d been producing a slew of very Aussie features (Diggers, The Sentimental Boke, High Royal Highness, Harmony Row) but decided to vary his output as he expanded into theatre. In addition to his Aussie productions (Collits’ Inn on stage, Ticket in Tatts on film), Thring/Efftee decided to present some British stage plays which might also lend themselves to being movies – and, indeed, he filmed two of them, Clara Gibbings and The Streets of London (which wound up being his last two movies).
We’re not quite sure why Thring decided on this approach, but it may have been motivated in part by a desire to double dip on the material (i.e. he could make a play and a film) and also produce something that wasn’t too expensive (play adaptations typically only have a few sets) and might have more appeal to international audiences.
Clara Gibbings was based on a 1928 British play by the husband-and-wife team of Philip and Aimee Stuart (Aimee’s first husband was a World War One fighter ace who died in action). It offered a juicy role for a middle-aged female star, being about the eponymous character, an East End barmaid who discovers she’s actually the child of an aristocrat; she clashes with her toffy relatives but finds love with a black sheep aristocrat. Clara Gibbings was played on the West End by Violet Loraine and on Broadway (where it was known as Lady Clara) by Florence Nash; Thring brought the play to Australia and presented it on stage in 1933 with Ruby May, but when he filmed it the following year, he cast Dorothy Brunton.
Brunton isn’t very well known today, but in 1934 she was a famed Australian stage star, with a strong reputation in London as well as her home country, particularly among soldiers during World War One. Brunton had already appeared in one movie – the 1916 Australian version of Seven Keys to Baldpate – but Clara Gibbings would be her first sound movie. It would be her last, too – she retired not long after filming.
In all honesty, the days of Brunton’s great fame were probably behind her when she made Clara Gibbings, but her presence is presumably a main (if not the main) reason why Thring decided to film the material in the first place.
Most of the cast used in the film had appeared in Thring’s 1933 stage production, notably Campbell Copelin, who plays the romantic male lead. The movie of Clara Gibbings comes across as very much a filmed stage play but is quite well handled – nicely paced, appropriately acted, all that stuff. It’s about the same level of a decent British picture from this period. The play itself isn’t that crash hot, a sort of theatrical “programmer” that they made back in the day (it was rarely revived), and your enjoyment of it will probably depend on how much you engage with Dorothy Brunton as a star. There’s a lot of cockneys, snobby aristocrats, butlers, and chat.
We will say, though, that the love story between the characters of Brunton and Copelin is quite well done – she’s got a crush on him (he has some fame from being an amateur cricketer, a touch we really liked), indeed she offers to call off her claim on the estate if he’ll marry her (!), he considers it, she’s turned off him when she discovers that he’s seeing a married woman, and this show of principles makes him fall in love with her genuinely, and they emigrate to Australia together (though we’re cheated of seeing a final reunion). This story was more affecting than we were expecting. Furthermore, we get the sense that both characters would have enjoyed living in Australia – him playing cricket, her being able to run a pub. (A few Australian films referenced cricket around the mid-‘30s – there’s an extended cricket sequence in Grandad Rudd and a game featuring Don Bradman in The Flying Doctor.)
Frank Harvey, who originally came from England, adapted the play into script form as well as helping direct and it’s likely he brought a lot of ideas from Clara Gibbings when hired by Ken G Hall to write It Isn’t Done – another comedy about a lower-class person who discovers he’s an aristocrat. That one is about Australian farmer Cecil Kellaway rather than East End barmaid Dorothy Brunton but it features many of the same elements (likeable butlers, hurtful snobs, romance with an aristocrat who ultimately proves himself worthy of a non-aristocrat).
Unlike It Isn’t Done, however, Clara Gibbings wasn’t a big hit at the box office. It certainly wasn’t as entertaining, but, in fairness, Clara Gibbings never got a strong release outside Melbourne – even before filming, Thring announced that he was winding up Efftee out of frustration with a lack of quota in Victoria (he was planning on relocating to Sydney to take advantage of the quota there when he died). It can’t have helped that Brunton wasn’t around to push the film via publicity appearances, as she went to London after shooting wrapped. Mind you, the film does not appear to have been released in the UK, despite Brunton’s reputation. Clara Gibbings seems to have been one of those movies that was simply received with profound indifference.
Clara Gibbings is a totally adequate rendering of a 1928 British stage play about class, that contributed to a much better movie (It Isn’t Done) and captures a lead performance from a significant Australian stage star (Dorothy Brunton) and an engaging turn from one of Australia’s most likeable “lounge lizard” actors (Campbell Copelin). Those are faint virtues but they are still virtues.
You can watch the movie here
The author would like to thank Graham Shirley for his assistance with this article. Unless otherwise specified, all opinions are those of the author’s
