by Stephen Vagg
Ken G. Hall isn’t known as a personal filmmaker – he himself regularly downplayed such notions in interviews, instead extolling virtues of the box office, publicity, and giving the public “what they want”. But you can’t make as many movies as he did from a position of power such as he enjoyed without some aspects of your personality leaking through, and we would argue that his oeuvre included two very personal movies – 1946’s Smithy and 1938’s Dad and Dave Come to Town.
For those unaware, Dad and Dave Come to Town was the third movie in the Dad and Dave franchise for Cinesound Productions, based on Steele Rudd’s short stories – or rather, the play adaptation of those stories by Bert Bailey (who played Dad); Cinesound had already made On Our Selection (1932) and Grandad Rudd (1935).
The Australian film industry of the 1930s – never robust – was hit by a series of crises around 1937, due to (a) a failure to enforce the New South Wales quota act out of fear of offending distributors, exhibitors and snarky newspaper columnists (discussed here) and (b) the amendment of quota legislation in Britain which meant that Australian films were no longer considered British and thereby made it harder for Australia to sell its movies there.
Cinesound thus needed to make films that would recoup locally at the box office and decided to switch to an all-comedy program – films with Cecil Kellaway, George Wallace, Will Mahoney … and two Dad and Dave films, the first of which was Dad and Dave Come to Town (the fourth and last would be Dad Rudd MP).
Dad and Dave Come to Town starts with Dad (Bert Bailey) engaged in various comic shenanigans at his farm, including bickering with his neighbour Ryan (Marshall Crosby) whose dopey son Bill (Peter Finch making his feature film debut) wants to marry one of Dad’s daughters Sally (Valerie Scanlan). Dad learns that his brother has died and left Dad a house and woman’s fashion store in the city. He travels there to investigate, taking his wife (Connie Martyn) and two eldest children, dopey Dave (Fred MacDonald) and attractive/smart Jill (Shirley Ann Richards).
The house, Bellavista, is under the regime of the housekeeper, Miss Quince (Marie D’Alton) while the store, Cecille’s, is being deliberately run into the ground by the treacherous manager, Rawlins (Cecil Perry), who is secretly in cahoots with Pierre (Sidney Wheeler), the owner of a rival store. (Pierre is coded as Jewish, a fact that is spelt out more in the script which you can read here… – this casual anti-Semitism, typical of the era, even in English-speaking countries, is easily the most unfortunate thing about this movie).
Dad installs Jill as manager, and she updates the stock, gets rid of Rawlins, gives a second chance to dodgy model Sonya (Leila Steppe) who was working for Rawlins, promotes the gay floorwalker Entwistle (Alec Kellaway), and hires a new publicity agent, Jim Bradley (Billy Rayes). Jill decides to completely refurbish Cecille’s and host a major fashion show; Dad agrees to finance it all but has to mortgage his farm to cover the costs. Pierre then reveals that he lent Dad’s brother a thousand pounds and sends in the bailiffs to repossess the store during the fashion show, but Dave fights them off with the help of Entwistle and his new girlfriend Myrtle (Muriel Ford). The show is a big success, Pierre arrives to call in the debt – only for Dad to be bailed out at the last minute by his neighbour from back home, Ryan, and all ends happily.
The script was credited to Frank Harvey and Bert Bailey, and Hall said that comic set pieces were provided by Cinesound’s gag team. It is a superb piece of work, well structured, funny (for the most part), juggling several subplots which all pay off at the end. It’s probably Harvey’s best screenplay.
Why do we think this film is so personal to Ken Hall? Well, it’s about Dad Rudd entering the world of fashion – which we took as a metaphor for the film industry. Dad encounters a place full of glamour, art, oddballs and financial uncertainty, but he’s not overwhelmed: he brushes up, instals people with talent, sacks second-raters and traitors, publicises his wares, gambles his own money, has a big premiere.
Every type that Dad encounters in the city is a recognisable film industry type – gay fashionistas, treacherous managers, ruthless competitors, desperate models who were bad but only to pay the rent, sexually harassing morons who go ga-ga at the sight of pretty women (NB this is Dad’s own son), smart talking press agents, clever women who do the bulk of the organising. Under the management of Dad Rudd, the fashion store Cecille’s becomes a broad church welcoming all different types, favouring talent, hard work and kindness, just as the film industry does (at its best, anyway): Entwistle is comically camp and clearly coded as gay (there are jokes made in the film about his lack of attraction towards women) but also loyal, brave, smart, kind, tasteful, witty and clever (considering the era, it’s a remarkably positive depiction of a gay man); the whole operation is run by a woman, Jill; Sonya the model starts off treacherous but turns good because someone shows her kindness; Myrtle is dumb but loyal.
Most of all, there is the character of Jim Bradley the press agent. He’s full of wisecracks and is very pleased with himself, but he also has ethics, charm and gets the girl, and it’s his publicity that helps save the day. It’s possibly the most positive depiction of a press agent in cinematic history and was surely steered by Ken Hall, who worked in publicity for a decade before turning film director, and was good mates with many publicists of the time (eg Gayne Dexter).
The whole story of Dad and Dave Come to Town is about putting on a show, just like making a movie – designing, planning, getting materials together, raising finance, dealing with the banks and competitors, managing crazy artists and performers, publicising it, balancing the books, building up to a big launch, and having a big celebratory after party where everyone goes off to have sex with each other (it’s true – Dad busts all his kids having nookie with their partners but doesn’t get upset; indeed; he and Mum decide to go off and have a bonk themselves).
Through this film, it seems that Ken Hall was really able to demonstrate his love of making movies, and the people he collaborated with while making them: performers, publicists, designers, and so on (as well as pay back the people he disliked – ruthless competitors, back stabbers). Hall displayed a great deal of affection for show folk in other movies that he made (eg the nice circus performers in Orphan in the Wilderness, the vaudevillians in Let George Do It and Come Up Smiling) but never so much as in Dad and Dave Come to Town.
Furthermore, you can get a sense of Ken G. Hall the manager from Dad and Dave Come to Town, i.e. firm but kind, running his business like a family operation: Jill lets Rawlins resign even after his duplicity has been exposed to make it easier for him to get a new job; Jim criticises Pierre for trying to crush “the little guy” in business; Jill lets Sonya keep her job despite knowing she’s a thief because she’s basically a good person; Dad goes into debt to expand the business when he thinks it’s worth it (but he still checks the books and works hard).
Dad and Dave Come to Town is a really warm, affectionate, loving movie that shows the personality of its producer-director at its sunniest. Sorry, Ken – you were more of an auteur than you pretended to be.
You can see a copy here
The author would like to thank Graham Shirley and the National Film and Sound Archive for its assistance with this article. Unless otherwise mentioned, all opinions are those of the author’s.
