Ned Kelly (1970 film)

Ned Kelly is a 1970 British-Australian biographical bushranger film. It was the seventh feature film version of the story of 19th-century Australian bushranger Ned Kelly, and was the first Kelly film to be shot in colour.

The film was directed by Tony Richardson, and starred Mick Jagger in the title role. Scottish-born actor Mark McManus played the part of Kelly's friend Joe Byrne. It was a British production, but was filmed entirely in Australia, shot mostly around Braidwood in southern New South Wales, with a largely Australian supporting cast.

Plot Plot

Ned Kelly is forced by police persecution to become a bushranger. He robs several banks and is eventually captured after the Siege of Glenrowan. He is hanged in Melbourne.

Cast

Production Development Karel Reisz and Albert Finney In the early 1960s, Karel Reisz and Albert Finney announced plans to make a film about Ned Kelly from a screenplay by David Storey. Finney and Reisz flew to Australia in October 1962 and spent ten weeks picking locations and doing research.

In January 1963, it was reported the film would star Finney and Angela Lansbury. The movie was meant to be Finney's next project after Tom Jones (1963) and filming was to start in March 1963.

The British arm of Columbia Pictures agreed to put up the entire budget. However, British labour union regulations required a mostly British crew, and the cost of putting them up in Australia put the budget beyond what Columbia were willing to pay. (Tom Jones had yet to be released.) Finney and Reisz went on to make Night Must Fall (1964) instead.Alexander Walker, Hollywood England: The British Film Industry in the Sixties, Stein and Day, 1974 p 146-147

Following this, Finney was still meant to make the film. However, he and Reisz eventually dropped out.

Tony Richardson and Mick Jagger The project passed on to Tom Jones director Tony Richardson, who wrote the script in collaboration with Ian Jones, a Melbourne writer and producer of TV drama and expert on Ned Kelly. According to Kevin Brownlow, Ian McKellen was originally set to play the lead but the producers went for Mick Jagger.Welsh, James Michael & Tibbetts, John C. The Cinema of Tony Richardson: Essays and Interviews SUNY Press, 1999, p. 38

"I am taking this film very seriously", said Jagger at the time. "Kelly won't look anything like me. You wait and you'll see what I look like. I want to concentrate on being a character actor."

During pre-production other filmmakers, including Tim Burstall, Gary Shead and Dino de Laurentiis, announced their own Ned Kelly projects.

Casting The making of the film was dogged by problems; even before production began, Actors' Equity and some of Kelly's descendants protested strongly about the casting of Jagger in the lead role, and about the film's proposed shooting location in country New South Wales, rather than in Victoria, where the Kellys had lived.

Jagger's girlfriend of the time, Marianne Faithfull, had come to Australia to play the lead female role (Ned's sister, Maggie), but their relationship was breaking up, and she took an overdose of sleeping tablets soon after arrival in Sydney. She was hospitalised in a coma, but recovered and was sent home. She was replaced by a then-unknown Australian actress, Diane Craig, then studying at NIDA.

Filming Shooting began on 12 July 1969 and took ten weeks. During production, Jagger was slightly injured by a backfiring pistol, the cast and crew were dogged by illness, a number of costumes were destroyed by fire, and Jagger's co-star, Mark McManus, narrowly escaped serious injury when a horse-drawn cart in which he was riding overturned during filming.

Release Reception The film was poorly received at its opening, and is still regarded as one of Richardson's least successful efforts. It was effectively disowned by Richardson and Jagger, neither of whom attended the London premiere.'Ned Kelly: How Mick Jagger Almost Ruined the Australian Icon', International Business Times, 1 sept 2011 accessed 18 September 2011 As late as 1980 Jagger claimed he had never seen the film. Gerry Fisher's cinematography, however, has been praised for its craftsmanship – repoussoir, shadow, reflection and understated lighting – giving the film a melancholy feel.

Arthur Krim of United Artists later did an assessment of the film as part of an evaluation of the company's inventory: When we programmed this picture we thought Mick Jagger would be a big personality with the younger audience. Unfortunately, his other film Performance came out just before Ned Kelly and failed. We have every belief that Ned Kelly will not do well either. In addition, Tony Richardson, the filmmaker handled the material in a very slow-paced manner and we have not been able to persuade him to make the cuts necessary to improve the film. This is again a case of programming a film in a time of much greater optimism about the size of the so-called youth orientated – particularly starring one of the new folk heroes.quoted in Tino Balio, United Artists: The Company that Changed the Film Industry, Wisconsin Press, 1987 p 313-314

A.H. Weiler of The New York Times said,

Filmink argued "Jagger was known as a wild child rock star but in the film played Ned Kelly as this languid… uh… I'm not sure what Jagger played Kelly as, to be honest, but it was not the same guy who sang 'Sympathy for the Devil'."

Box office Ned Kelly grossed $808,000 at the box office in Australia, which is equivalent to $7,716,400 in 2009 dollars.

Home media Title Format Feature Discs Region 1 (USA) Region 2 (UK) Region 4/B (Australia) Special features Distributors Ned Kelly DVD Film 1 7 July 2015 2008 2005 14 February 2009 (Re-Release) None Shock Entertainment (Australia) MGM Home Entertainment (UK) Ned Kelly Blu-Ray Film 1 N/A N/A 8 October 2021 New Audio Commentary by film scholar Adrian Martin (2021)

New Interviews about the making of the film (2021)

Trailer Via Vision Entertainment

Legacy Ian Jones later wrote and produced (with his wife Bronwyn Binns) a mini-series on Kelly, The Last Outlaw, which aired on the Seven Network in 1980. Australian actor John Jarratt starred as Kelly.

The actual body armour costume worn by Jagger is on display at the Queanbeyan City Library, New South Wales, and the initials "MJ" are scratched on the inside. The head-piece, like its original, was stolen.

Soundtrack

The Ned Kelly soundtrack features music composed by Shel Silverstein and performed by Kris Kristofferson and Waylon Jennings and produced by Ron Haffkine, with one solo track sung by Jagger and one sung by Tom Ghent.

Track listing Waylon Jennings – "Ned Kelly" "Such is Life" Mick Jagger – "The Wild Colonial Boy" "What Do You Mean I Don't Like" Kris Kristofferson – "Son of a Scoundrel" Waylon Jennings – "Shadow of the Gallows" "If I Ever Kill" Waylon Jennings – "Lonigan's Widow" Kris Kristofferson – "Stoney Cold Ground" "Ladies and Gentlemen" Kris Kristofferson – "The Kelly's Keep Comin'" Waylon Jennings – "Ranchin' in the Evenin'" "Say" Waylon Jennings – "Blame it on the Kellys" Waylon Jennings – "Pleasures of a Sunday Afternoon" Tom Ghent – "Hey Ned"

Ned Kelly (1970 film)

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