Captain Thunderbolt 1951
Contents
- Abstract
- Film details
- Versions of the film
- Belated release, or political intervention?
- Artefacts
- Archival records
- References
- Acknowledgements
Abstract: Captain Thunderbolt is a black and white Australian bushranger film produced by Associated Television Pty Ltd (ATV) of Sydney during 1951. It premiered at a prestigious Czechoslovakian international film festival in 1952 and was subsequently, though belatedly, released locally in Australia during 1955 and internationally in New Zealand and Great Britain between 1956-60, both in the cinema and on television. It was Australia's first dual made-for-cinema (69 minute running time) and made-for-television (53 minute running time) release film. Captain Thunderbolt featured noted male actors Grant Taylor and Charles "Bud" Tingwell, and female actresses Loretta Boutmy and Rosemary Miller, though the latter two were largely excised from the television edit. It has been praised for the innovative cinematography of Ross Wood, expert editing by the English Margaret Cardin, and a lively script by Sydney radio playwright Creswick Jenkinson. After an initial preview screening for the actors and production crew at the State Theatre, Sydney, during late 1951 or early 1952, it received a Special Commendation in the Jubilee Film Competition announced at the Olinda Film Festival in Victoria at the end of January 1952. The director then took the film to the 7th Karlovy Vary International Film Festival in Prague, Czechoslovakia, where it was screened during July - August 1952. It had a limited Australian release from July 1955 through to November 1958, an extended release in the United Kingdom from December 1956 through to April 1960, and in New Zealand between December 1956 and January 1960. It was also apparently released for television around the world, though precise details remain unknown. From the point of completion of the film during the second half of 1951, it was subject to censorship and cutting. No copy of the original 35mm, 69 minute long theatrical version was known until to have survived until the discovery of a print in the Czech Film Archive by Michael Organ on 12 December 2023. A copy of the lower grade, 16mm, 53 minute television version can be found in the collection of the National Film and Sound Archive, Canberra, along with a short, original 35mm trailer. The film has never been made available commercially and does not feature in listings of local feature productions, though it is mentioned in some. The last known public screenings took place at the National Library of Australia in 1986 and the Cinematique in Melbourne during 2022. The life and times of Fred Ward aka Captain Thunderbolt has been a well-known element of Australian colonial-period history since the early 1900s, and the character has been variously eulogized through a play, a statue in Uralla, a Bicentennial operetta, YouTube videos, numerous books, and articles. The restoration and re-release of the Captain Thunderbolt film though physical media and streaming, with a corresponding 'making of' documentary, commentary track and associated digitised artefacts, is therefore long overdue. The fact that Captain Thunderbolt is on the National Film and Sound Archive's "lost" and Most Wanted list is testament to its true, as yet not fully recognised, significance in the history of Australian film production.
[NB: The following article contain a brief history of the film. Please also refer to the accompanying Captain Thunderbolt Historical References article for additional information on the shooting and release, and the Legal issues article for an outline of its evolving status and ongoing access restrictions due to copyright claims.]
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Captain Thunderbolt, 1955, original release trailer, National Film and Sound Archive, Canberra. YouTube, duration: 2.20 minutes.
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1. Film details
Title: Captain Thunderbolt.
Summary: Australian bushranger film depicting Captain Thunderbolt as a folk hero. Adventurer Fred Ward is sentenced to hard labour for horse stealing. He and his friend Alan Blake escape from prison on Cockatoo Island, Sydney Harbour, and Ward subsequently becomes a bushranger under the name of Captain Thunderbolt. Stealing mainly from squatters, he quickly attains notoriety. Trooper Mannix, a former warder on Cockatoo Island, is assigned to capture him dead or alive. Eventually he traps him and after a long gun-fight, Mannix finds he has killed Thunderbolt's friend Alan Blake, and that Thunderbolt has escaped. Mannix passes off Blake's body as Thunderbolt's, but the legend that Thunderbolt still roams free persists (Pike and Cooper 1981).
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| Ross Wood & Cecil Holmes. Source: NFSA. |
* Production personnel
Producer: John Wiltshire.
Script writer: Creswick Jenkinson.
Director: Cecil Holmes. [Biographies: Labour Australia, Australian Screen.]
Director of Photography: Ross Wood (IMDb).
Art direction / Production designer: Keith Christie.
Assistant director: Rodric Adamson.
Recording engineer / Sound recordist: Robert Allen.
Cast:
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| Ward and Joan in the garden. |
- Grant Taylor (Frederick Ward aka. Captain Thunderbolt)
- Charles "Bud" Tingwell (Alan Blake)
- Harp McGuire (Trooper Mannix)
- Jean Blue (Mrs Ward)
- Loretta Boutmy (Maggie)
- Rosemary Miller (Joan)
- John Fegan (Jack Dalton)
- John Fernside (Colonel)
- Ron Whelan (Hogstone)
- John Brunskill (Judge)
- Patricia Hill (Belle)
- Charles Tasman (Colonial Secretary)
- Harvey Adams (Member of Parliament)
- Sydney Loder
- Frank Bradley
- John Unicomb
- James Doogle / Jim Doogue
- Dennis Glenny
- William Collins
- Phillip Hawkes (young Captain Thunderbolt) - refer interview below.
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| Group of children playing at being bushrangers, including 11 year old Phillip Hawkes on the far right. Left to right: Jack Dalton (holding toy rifle), Joan Blake, Maggie, Alan Blake (back) and Fred Ward. |
* Production details
Production company: (1) Associated TV [Television] Pty Ltd. / Associated T.V. Programmes / Associated T.V Productions Ltd. / ATV, Sydney.
Chairman and Company Director of ATV: Colin Graham Scrimgeour.
Budget: £10,000 / £15,000. The film was financed entirely by Benjamin Fuller, son of the theatrical entrepreneur Sir Benjamin Fuller (OzMovies). In February 1955 Colin Graham Scrimgeour told a Broadcasting Control Board inquiry that he had placed £30,000 into the production company Associated T.V. Pty Ltd for the production of the film (OzMovies).
Filming: Took place during the first half of 1951, commencing in March.
Locations: New England area, around Uralla and Armidale, New South Wales - Armidale Court House for Thunderbolt's trial; interiors in the studio of Supreme Sound System North Sydney; interior in the New South Wales Parliament Legislative Assembly, Sydney; location filming in Sydney - bush dance staged in Pyrmont woolshed, Hero of Waterloo pub Millers Point, cave in the Oxford Falls National Parks area, Royal National Park, etc. (OzMovies).
* Post-production details
Music: Sydney John Kay.
Editor: Margaret Cardin. Work on the film was completed in December 1951. Cardin apparently cut two versions - one for the cinema (69 minutes long, 35mm) and another for television (53 minutes long, 16mm). Cardin was British and had previously worked for BBC Television.
Length: 35mm black and white, 69 minutes (theatre) / 16mm black and white, 53 minutes (television).
* Release information
Distribution:
- Ray Films, Australia, from 1955 until their bankruptcy circa 1960.
- Archway Films in the United Kingdom, during 1956-60.
- Unknown New Zealand distributor, 1956-60.
Screenings:
- December 1951 - private screening by the Australian film censor during assessment prior to release.
- Late 1951 / early 1952 - Cast and crew preview screening at the State Theatre, Sydney.
- Late 1951 - private screening for judges of the Australian Jubilee Film Competition.
- January 1952 - cinematographer Ross Wood takes a copy of the film to England for presentation on television.
- 12 July 1952 - International premiere at the 7th Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, Prague, Czechoslovakia.
- January 1953 - Preview for local and overseas distributors, Rose Bay, Sydney.
- 22 June 1955 - Australian cinema premiere at the Capitol Theatre, Armidale, New South Wales.
- July 1955 to 1963: Australian cinema release season. Sydney for a week at the Lyric, a 'blood house' reserved for action movies.
- August 1955 - Victorian premiere at the Plaza Theatre, Northcote (OzMovies). Followed by Melbourne and a short run in suburban theatres.
- March 1956 to 1960 - British cinema release.
- December 1956 to 30 January 1960 - New Zealand cinema release.
- 1964 - Australian television screening, ABC.
- 1972 - Kino Ponrepo screening, Czech Film Archive, Prague.
- 1975 - Sydney Film Festival screening.
- 1986 - National Library of Australia screening.
- 2010 - Sydney Film Festival screening of original trailer.
- 2022 - Cinematique, Melbourne screening. With associated talk by David Donaldson.
Earnings: £30,000. Mostly from overseas cinema release, though no precise details are known, or whether that figure included television sales prior to 1960.
For more detailed summary information see also the OzMovies, Wikipedia and IMDb pages.
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| Trooper Mannix (Harp McGuire). |
2. Belated release, or political intervention?
Captain Thunderbolt was an Australian bushranger film made during 1951, by the end of which year and early 1952 cuts were available for cinematic release. Unfortunately no Australian distributor could be found at the time. It received its international premiere at the prestigious, though controversial, 7th Karlovy Vary International Film Festival in Czechoslovakia, during July-August 1952. It later previewed to distributors in Sydney during January 1953, but was not released locally in theatres until July 1955. It had been reviewed by the Australian censor in December 1951, and passed with only a single censorial edit related to the firing of a gun. For reasons unknown to the present author it was held over for local release during the intervening four years, though sales to overseas television networks were possibly made, perhaps limiting any theatrical release which would be seen to interfere with that.
The film dealt with the exploits between 1856 and 1870 of Frederick Wordsworth Ward (1835-1870) in New England region of northern New South Wales (New England area), Australia. Ward went by the name Captain Thunderbolt. It is likely he took this colourful alias from the famous Irish highwayman Martin Doherty who used it between 1815-21, alongside a friend known as Captain Lightfoot (Michael Martin). Both operated in the New England region of the north-eastern United States (Butler 2017). However, in the cinematic version and alternate, local derivation is suggested.
Captain Thunderbolt ran for 69 minutes upon initial theatrical release, screened on 35 mm black and white film. A 53 minute, 16 mm cut was apparently made available to overseas television stations from 1953, supposedly being edited to accommodate a one hour time slot and local censorship restrictions. Australian TV broadcasts did not begin until 1956, and the earliest reference to a local screening of Captain Thunderbolt was on the ABC, Canberra, in 1964. A copy of the 16mm black and white shortened version survives in the collection of the National Film and Sound Archive, Canberra, along with a 35mm print of the movie's trailer (linked below). No surviving copy of the original 35mm theatre release print was known until the discovery of one in the Czech Film Archive on 12 December 2023. That copy arrived at the National Film and Sound Archive, Canberra, late in March 2024. It is envisaged that it will be restore and made available for public screenings in the near future.
Captain Thunderbolt was an independent production by the Sydney-based Associated Television Pty Ltd. It was cited during its production early in 1951 as both a made-for-television and made-for-cinema film, which was a first for Australia. However, in regards to quality, it was state-of-the art, with experienced cinematographer Ross Wood at the helm and in many ways a co-director alongside New Zealand born director Cecil Holmes.
Australian film historian David Donaldson saw the film upon its initial release in the 1950s and has been its champion ever since, researching and promoting it in recent years, with a view to encouraging its restoration and re-release (Lambert 2011, Donaldson 2014). The three occasions during his twenties and early thirties in which he saw it were as follows:
- 1955 - at the Lyric Theatre, Sydney, upon its premiere release season.
- 1958 - at the University of Sydney Film Society screening.
- 1964 - in Port Moresby.
During January 2024 Donaldson commented on the following aspects of the film and its initial presentation:
I first saw it at the Lyric Theatre in Sydney, near Railway Square. It was second feature on a double bill with an English melodrama main. I later saw it at a University of Sydney Film Society screening and then in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea, during 1964. I noted the outstanding cinematography of Ross Wood. The music was non-descript and it was a shame this was before the rise of the Australian folk music scene. The narration throughout by Constable Mannix was also distracting. I came to know the director Cecil Holmes and realise that this was for many of the cast and crew their first effort at a cinematic film production. The script was by a writer who had previously written for radio.
In developing the script, the production team could look to previous biographies of Captain Thunderbolt by Ambrose Pratt (1903) and Annie Rixon (1948), along with a play simply titled Thunderbolt which had been performed by the William Anderson Company in New Zealand in January 1903 and May 1906, and during 1905 at Sydney's Lyric Theatre (Pratt 1905, Pratt & Josephs 1905, Rixon 1948). The production company and crew may also have been motivated by the newspaper reports during 1950 of cattle thieves operating in the New England region of New South Wales. These activities drew a striking similarity with those of Captain Thunderbolt almost a century earlier.
Bushrangers were a popular subject of Australian films during its earliest years of development in the first half of the twentieth century and extending through to the 1970s with films such as Ned Kelly, starring British rock star Mick Jagger, and Mad Dog Morgan, starring American actor Dennis Hopper, of Easy Rider fame. Recent examples include 2003's Ned Kelly and the 2020 True History of the Kelly Gang. Numerous cinematic productions and later television series have featured accounts of Ned Kelly and his gang in Victoria, and Ben Hall in New South Wales, among others. Books on Australian bushrangers have proliferated, with the present author remembering receiving one in his youth at Christmas time, 1968. Interestingly, at one point there was a forty year ban on bushranger film production in New South Wales, with accounts of the early colonial era convict period (1788-1840) similarly steered away from. It could be said that the fictional Mad Max series follows in this Australian bushranger tradition, though that character in roaming the Outback wastelands seeking mere survival, is more hero than villain.
Captain Thunderbolt was not a success in Australia upon its release in 1955, most likely due to its limited run in metropolitan and country theatres, and possibly due to censorship of elements such as the marriage of Ward's off-sider to an Aboriginal woman. As such, it is little known or celebrated. Financially the film appears otherwise, with some overseas television sales possibly adding to the coffers of the production company. David Donaldson recently summarised Captain Thunderbolt thus:
Film produced in 1951 in expectation of television, directed by Cecil Holmes, photographed by Ross Wood. Vigorous production that was, for its time, highly innovative in content and style but poorly released in 1955. No full version or decent print is known to exist. Urging for some form of restoration for re-presentation in 2025. (Donaldson 2023)
In hindsight, the true quality of the film has been revealed by commentators such as Donaldson who saw it in its original 35mm format during the 1950s. It is a rare, hidden gem of Australian film-making and deserving of revival. The National Film and Sound Archive (NFSA) entry for the film likewise applauds elements of its production, as evident by the following quote:
Captain Thunderbolt's originality and intelligence separate it from most Australian films made at that time. It takes a stand on such issues as championing the underdog, mocking the colonial aristocracy, satirising xenophobia and racism and exposing the blinkered brutality of power. (NFSA 2011)
There was more than one Captain Thunderbolt bushranger / highwayman operating in Australia during the 1900s. Apart from the aforementioned American precursor, during the 1860s in South Australia another Captain Thunderbolt led a gang. Apparently the real Captain Thunderbolt contacted him to claim the title (Nelson 2015). Likewise there was an American film released during 1955 which featured the John Doherty Captain Thunderbolt. It was titled Captain Lightfoot and starred Rock Hudson, Barbara Rush and Jeff Morrow as Thunderbolt. Against such Hollywood competition, the Australian black and white Captain Thunderbolt would have found it difficult to compete.
Cecil Holmes' Captain Thunderbolt was released in Australia in 1955, during a period of lackluster local production early that decade, with the Hollywood machine flooding the market. It is possible that the release was impacted upon by the production and release of the similarly titled American film Captain Lightfoot, with a belief that confusion would arise if they were both given widespread release and marketing. Obviously the Australian film lost out due to the power of the US market and their distributors in Australia at the time. The local Communist Party of Australia newspaper Tribune highlighted this on a number of occasions, and specifically with regards to Captain Thunderbolt (refer newspaper extracts in the separate References article). It appears that both director Holmes and company director Scrimgeour were members of the Community Party of New Zealand, or left leaning. This was problematic in Australia during the post-WWII years and especially the 1950s, with Australian Prime Minister Robert Menzies a rabid anti-Communist. Menzies made use of the Federal police and intelligence agency - later known as ASIO - to assist in the monitoring, harassment and censorship of the activities of local Communist Party members and affiliates, similar to the McCarthy crackdown in the United States. This impinged upon film making and the burgeoning film society movement in Australia, including those latter groups springing upon on university campuses (Olivain 2021). Whilst no specific evidence has come to light that Menzies or the intelligence services intervened to halt the early 1952 cinema release of Captain Thunderbolt, it is likely that the American distribution companies, which then had control of the major cinema markets in Australia, were aware of the anti-Communist McCarthyism affecting the film industry back in their own country at the time, and therefore steered clear of any Australian equivalent or upsetting Prime Minister Menzies. A Communist film director and company manager would definitely be black listed to some degree, and without public explanation. No other significant reason can be surmised to explain the failure to release a quality Australian-made film at a time when there was a dearth of such items available to local cinemas.
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3. Versions of the film
There are three extant sources of substantive information on the content of the Captain Thunderbolt film: (1) The shooting script; (2) the 69 minute cinematic release; and (3) the 53 minute television release. Of course the film was not shot exactly as presented in the surviving, original shooting script from the Charles Tingwell collection, and obviously not all the footage that was shot made it into the final cinematic and television edits, with some ending up "on the cutting room floor" as they say. The original script contained 337 scenes plus cinematographer annotations regarding camera movements. The 35mm cinematic edit ran for 69 minutes, which Holmes noted was cut down from the available footage in a tightening exercise; and the 16mm television edit ran for a further reduced 53 minutes. In a February 2024 comparison by one of the present authors of the surviving original script with the shortened, television version of the film in the NFSA collection, the following scenes appear to have been deleted in order to bring the film down from 69 to 53 minutes, excluding brief jump cuts within scenes:
- Five children playing - a long scene near the beginning of the film where five children, including a young Fred Ward, are playing with toy guns at being bushrangers.
- The young Joan and Ward ride home in tandem, laughing together.
- The five children have biscuits with Mrs. Ward at her house after playing. At that point Joan comes up with the name Thunderbolt for young Fred Ward.
- Judge comments in the court trial of Ward and Blake.
- Meeting between the judge and land owner Hogstone before sentencing, with the latter blackmailing the judge into giving the two young men a custodial sentence.
- Fred Ward knocking Constable Mannix out prior to escaping from Cockatoo Island.
- Blake and Ward eating with Mrs. Ward after their escape.
- Maggie and Blake getting married.
- Ward confronting Joan in her garden, and their sharing a kiss.
- Joan's husband, Constable Dalton, arriving home after Ward leaves and discussing Ward with Joan.
- Maggie and Blake in the cave hideout.
- Blake and Ward in the cave hideout.
- A parliamentarian speaking about Captain Thunderbolt in parliament.
- Maggie and Blake farewelling each other in the cave hideout.
- Maggie and Mrs. Ward getting ready to go and warn Ward and Blake of the police entrapment.
- Maggie and Mrs. Ward hearing gun shots at the woolshed.
- Speeches by parliamentarians and headlines regarding Captain Thunderbolt.
- Ward and Joan meeting up after the shooting of Blake.
As the extended, 35mm Prague copy has not as yet been studied by the authors, it is unclear as to whether some, or all, of the scenes as outlined above were included in the original cinema edit. However, from the above analysis it can been seen that a substantial, and significant part of the original script relating to character development failed to make it through to the televised version. Also the fate of final scene, which is suggestive of the rumour that Ward escaped the shootout and went on to live out his life in America, remains unknown.
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4. Archival records and artefacts
The following is a collection of known material related to the film, including items of digitised film and promotional material such as posters and lobby cards. A link from the NFSA Most Wanted page goes to ALL the Captain Thunderbolt material in the NFSA, as of November 2023, with some of the most significant items included below.
* Captain Thunderbolt, 16 mm black and white film, 53.07 minutes, television edit, 1953, National Film and Sound Archive, Canberra, Title number: 7629. There is also an entry in the Libero WebOPAC Catalogue which lists the film as 55 minutes long. Record number: 50301. Barcode number D0734. Production Company: Archway Film Distributors Ltd.
* Captain Thunderbolt, trailer, 35 mm black and white film, 2.40 minutes, 1953, National Film and Sound Archive, Canberra, cat. no. 799279.
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| Still from original trailer, 1953. |
* Assorted call sheets and production papers for Captain Thunderbolt and papers and publicity clippings explaining the production of the feature film, plus the script by Creswick Jenkinson, National Film and Sound Archive, Canberra, cat. no. 1098055.
* Seventy eight (78) pieces of negative film stock showing frames from the film, National Film and Sound Archive, Canberra, cat. no. 786031.
* Bud Tingwell copy of the shooting film script, National Film and Sound Archive, Canberra, cat. no. 1666186.
* Collection of original publicity stills and a few production photographs from Captain Thunderbolt.
* NFSA Flickr photograph collection:
- Behind the Scenes of Captain Thunderbolt, National Film and Sound Archive, Flickr. Five (5) black and white photographs.
- Scenes from the Surviving Film of Captain Thunderbolt, National Film and Sound Archive, Flickr. Twenty four (24) black and white photographs.
- Lost scenes from the Surviving Film of Captain Thunderbolt, National Film and Sound Archive, Flickr. Eleven (11) black and white photographs.
* Music score. The wool-shed polka: from Australia's jubilee feature film, "Captain Thunderbolt" / words and music by Sydney John Kay, Microphone Music, Sydney, 1951, 3p. Copy: National Library of Australia.
* Posters. Australian 1-sheet and a daybill poster are known, with the latter illustrated above. No illustration of the 1-sheet is available. Nor has promotional material from the New Zealand and United Kingdom releases been identified.
* Lobby cards. Set of 8 Australian release lobby cards, 8 x 10 inches each, black and white. Three British variants are also known, possibly of a set of 4. The latter have identical images to the Australian versions, though with slightly different text. Apparently they were published in Australia with the censor details removed so as to facilitate overseas usage, including in the US and UK, though this has not been confirmed. The following lobby cards are known: (1) Title card, (2) Leaning against a rock with gun, (3) Two men on horses, (4) Police and men fighting, (5) Hold up at the dinner table, (6) Coach hold up and (7) Hiding behind rocks. They are illustrated below.
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| 1. Lobby cards, including title card and hold up of the stage coach. |
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| 2. Lobby card - Leaning against a rock with a gun. |
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| 3. Lobby card - Ward and Blake on horses. |
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| 4. Lobby card - Mannix having struck Blake to the ground. |
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| 5. Lobby card - Hold up at the card game. |
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| 6. Lobby card - Hiding behind the rocks. |
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5. Historical videos
The following videos relate to the history of the real Captain Thunderbolt and his activities in Australia during the nineteenth century. They do not specifically relate to the filmed version, though there is reference to a 1910 film on the bushranger.
* David Roberts, Captain Thunderbolt - Myth and Mystery, 17 May 2012, The Sydney Institute, YouTube, duration: 12.26 minutes.
* Thunderbolt (1910), National Film and Sound Archive, 28 February 2013, YouTube, duration: 24.11 minutes. Extant scenes from the 1910 film directed by John Galvin.
* The Ghost of Captain Thunderbolt, Jim Pope, 30 July 2015, YouTube, duration: 4.45 minutes. Comedy skit.
* Kevin MacLeod, Captain Thunderbolt, Geerlings Digital Moments, 16 August 2017, YouTube, duration: 11.10 minutes. An historical account of the true history of the bushranger Frederick Ward. Filmed at the locations he make use of.
* Captain Thunderbolt and Uralla Township, Tom Hall, 5 July 2020, YouTube, duration: 25 minutes.
* Exploring Captain Thunderbolt's hideouts, Part 1, Urbex Lens, 31 August 2022, YouTube, duration: 38.50 minutes.
* Captain Thunderbolt - the 'gentleman bushranger', Infamous Antics, 28 July 2023, YouTube, duration: 3.26 minutes.
* Captain Thunderbolt - hiking through large boulders, Lost in the Right Direction, 15 March 2023, YouTube, duration: 23.15 minutes.
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6. References
The following is related to the life and times of Captain Thunderbolt, along with material related to the film and its production team. Additional material can be found in the associated References article.
Arnold, Vivian, The Man Called Thunderbolt [libretto], Wirripang, Wollongong,1988, 304p.
Baillie, Adam, Riding with Captain Thunderbolt, Scholastic Press, 2013.
Baxter, Carol, Captain Thunderbolt and his lady, Allen and Unwin, Sydney, 2011.
-----, Bushranger Thunderbolt and Mary Ann Bugg [website], 2011.
Belshaw, Jim, The Making of Captain Thunderbolt, New England Story [blog], 13 August 2010.
Brouwer, David, Captain Thunderbolt: horsebreaker to bushranger, CB Alexander Foundation, Tocal, 2005.
Butler, Eoin, Thunderbolt and Lightfoot, the highwaymen who raised hell in New England (United States), The Irish Times, 28 January 2017.
Captain Thunderbolt [webpage], National Film and Sound Archive, Canberra, 2011.
Captain Thunderbolt, $2 coin, Cook Islands, 2003.
Couzens, Andrew, Cinematic visions of Australian colonial authority in Captain Thunderbolt (1953), Robbery Under Arms (1957) and Eureka Stockade (1949), Studies In Australasian Cinema, 10(2), June 2016, 1-13.
Danks, Adrian, Captain Thunderbolt, in Ben Goldsmith & Geoff Lealand (editors), Directory of World Cinema: Australia & New Zealand, Intellect, Bristol and Chicago, 2010, 25-26.
-----, Hard Labour: Cecil Holme's Captain Thunderbolt, Senses of Cinema, 94, April 2020.
Death of Thunderbolt, the Bushranger, Evening News, Sydney, 28 May 1870.
Donaldson, David, Looking for Captain Thunderbolt (Cecil Holmes 1953), Senses of Cinema, 2014.
-----, Captain Thunderbolt film, Facebook, accessed 18 October 2023.
Hamilton. C. James and Barry Sinclair, Thunderbolt: Scourge of the Rangers, Phoenix Press, 2009. A work of historical fiction which suggests it is presenting a "true story."
Holmes, Cecil, One Man’s Way, Penguin, Ringwood, 1986.
Hobden, Jim, Captain Thunderbolt: The story of the notorious bushranger, 1988.
Jolly, Jane and Liz Duthie, Captain Thunderbolt's Recital, National Library of Australia, 2023.
Lambert, Anthony, The search for Captain Thunderbolt: An interview with David Donaldson, Studies in Australian Cinema, 5(1), 2011.
Milner, Lisa, 'We film the facts': the Waterside Workers’ Federation film unit, 1953 - 1958, PhD thesis, Communication and Cultural Studies Program, University of Wollongong, 2000.
Nelson, B.J., Captain Thunderbolt & Will Monckton, 2005, 155p.
Nelson, Jim. [The South Australian] Captain Thunderbolt, Campbelltown City Council, 2015.
Niland, Bed, The story of the Captain Thunderbolt statue in Uralla, Kangaroo Press and Uralla Multi-media, 2007.
Olivain, Claire, Magic and McCarthyism: The forgotten history of campus film societies, Honi Soit, University of Sydney, 9 November 2021.
Pratt, Ambrose, Three Years with Captain Thunderbolt, New South Wales Bookstall Company, 1905.
----- and Sydney Josephs, Thunderbolt [play], Royal Theatre, Sydney. Reviewed in the Sunday Times, Sydney, 15 October 1905.
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| Ambrose Pratt, 1903. |
Pike, Andrew, and Cooper, Ross, Australian Film, 1900-1977: A guide to feature film production, Melbourne University Press, 1981, 448p; second revised edition, Oxford University Press, 1998, 362p.
Rixon, Annie, Captain Thunderbolt, Edwards & Shaw, Sydney, 1948.
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| Annie Rixon 1948 |
Roberts, David Andrew and Carol Baxter, Exposing an exposé: fact versus fiction in the resurrection of Captain Thunderbolt, Journal of Australian Studies, 36(1), 2012, 1–15.
Schuttler, Brad, The Capture of Captain Thunderbolt: A Life of a Bush Ranger, Apple Books, 2022, 169p.
Shirley, Graham, Another important discovery in the search for lost films [Captain Thunderbolt 35mm trailer], National Film and Sound Archive, Canberra, 2010.
Smith, Jane, Australian Bushrangers: Captain Thunderbolt, Big Sky Publishing, 2014, 77p.
Teasdale, Colin, Frederick Wordsworth Ward - Captain Thunderbolt: The Pirate, Publicious Pty Ltd, 24p.
The Bold, the Bad and the Ugly: Captain Thunderbolt & the Captain's Lady, $1 coil, Royal Australian Mint, Canberra, 2019.
-----, $1 counterstamp coin, Royal Australian Mint, Canberra, 2019.
Toohill, Trudy, The Reporting of Captain Thunderbolt the gentleman bushranger: His story in newspaper articles published from 1856 to 1941, 2016.
Vermont's Captain Thunderbolt: a mysterious school teacher with a secret past, History Today, n.d.
Williams, Stephan, A ghost called Thunderbolt, Popinjay, 1987.
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7. Acknowledgements
This article was compiled with the assistance of Graham Shirley, David Donaldson, Ray Edmondson, staff of the National Film and Sound Archive, Canberra, especially James Dyer, staff the Czech Consulate-General Office, Sydney, and staff of the the Czech Film Archive, Prague. MO
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| Strike 1912 | For the Term of His Natural Life 1927 | Metropolis 1927 | Captain Thunderbolt 1951 + Copyright & access issues + References | Film Posters |
First posted by Michael Organ: 18 September 2023
Last updated: 8 April 2024
Michael Organ, Australia
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