by Stephen Vagg
An earlier piece in this series discussed Diggers, a 1931 film adaptation of the stage show by New Zealand comic Pat Hanna financed by FW Thring. The film did well at the box office, helped by Hanna having performed his show for years, and the time seemed ripe for a sequel.
The early Australian film industry was very keen to pump out sequels – for instance, On Our Selection (1920) was followed by Rudd’s New Selection (1921), The Sentimental Bloke (1919) by Ginger Mick (1921) and endless Hayseeds movies. However, Hanna and Thring clashed over the structure of Diggers, prompting Hanna to form his own company and raise money for a sequel, Diggers in Blighty. The success of Diggers was enough for this to be accomplished with relative ease.
The “divorce” between Thring and Hanna wasn’t completely hostile, as Hanna hired Thring’s studios to make the film and used many of FW’s crew, notably cinematographer Arthur Higgins. Hanna decided to direct the sequel himself but recognised that his inexperience making movies and thus hired Raymond Longford, Australia’s greatest director in the silent era, to be “associate director”. Longford’s career had gone into decline following the death of collaborator Lottie Lyell in 1925, but he was still hanging in here. He was doing a lot of “associate director” jobs around this time, on films such as The Hayseeds (1933) and Splendid Fellows (1934) with The Man They Could Not Hang (1934) as a solo credit; Longford also pops up in Diggers in Blighty as a German spy.
Diggers in Blighty tried to be more of a proper movie than Diggers – it was less episodic, had more scenes set outside, and tried to give an overall plot, about attempts to bust German spy rings before the Battle of Hamel. However, the result is a bit of a grab bag – the storylines come and go rather than build, and there’s a lot of talk of events off stage. So, we get shtick of Hanna and his mates falling in wells, stealing rum, dealing with blustering sergeants, and assisting romance, mixed up with more serious storylines of spies (the Germans are barely a threat here).
Hanna is supported in the comic antics by old stage co-stars George Moon and Joe Valli; the romance stuff is handled by names like John D’arcy (romantic lead in A Co respondent’s Course) and future Australian acting legend Thelma Scott. The photography and sets are first rate. Culturally, it’s invaluable, notably in its depiction of the diggers: dealing with petty tyrants, on the make, singing songs, farewelling ladies; there’s even an appearance from an Aboriginal soldier, Jacky.
Diggers in Blighty was quite popular at the box office but Hanna, like many filmmakers then as now, struggled to get a decent rate of return and repay his investors (setting the whole film in Europe and Britain didn’t seem to help the movie travel internationally). He made one more film, Waltzing Matilda, then eventually shut up shop. It’s a shame, as Hanna was popular and could easy have made several more comedies; in particular, it would have been great to see him get the chance to improve: the films of Ken G Hall and Charles Chauvel, for instance, didn’t really leap in quality until six films into their respective carers. Nonetheless, Diggers in Blighty had a very long tail – it was still screening in cinemas in the 1950s. For all its flaws, it tells us far more about Australia than Empire City or the sequel to Greyhound ever will.
