'Introducing the McDonagh sisters … a trio of extraordinary and ground-breaking filmmakers. Between 1926 and 1933, the mostly self-taught McDonagh sisters made four trail-blazing independent feature films in Sydney and Melbourne. Paulette, one of only five women film directors in the world, was behind the lens, writing and directing. Phyllis produced, art directed and conducted publicity. And Isabel, under her stage name Marie Lorraine, was in front of the camera, acting in main roles. Together, they transformed Australian cinema’s preoccupations with the outback and the bush – and what the sisters mocked as ‘haystack movies’ – into a thrilling, urban modernity.
'In Those Dashing McDonagh Sisters, Mandy Sayer tracks the sisters’ remarkable story, from their childhood as daughters of a respected Sydney surgeon, learning the art of filmmaking and their first feature film, Those Who Love (1926), an instant hit, to their controversial final film, Two Minutes Silence (1933).
'Although the trio didn’t set out deliberately to blaze a trail of feminism, their collective confidence and independence was striking at a time when there were few career options available to women.' (Publication summary)
''Bliss it was in that dawn to be alive, / But to be young was very heaven.’ William Wordsworth was writing about the French Revolution, but the sentiment could have applied to the three McDonagh sisters in 1920s Sydney. Isabel (born in 1899), Phyllis (1900), and Paulette (1901) were the beneficiaries of two intertwined revolutions – modernism and feminism – that encouraged them to develop skills outside the domestic sphere and to become experts in their field. Daringly, they chose filmmaking, the great obsession of the period; and they were very good at it.' (Introduction)
''Bliss it was in that dawn to be alive, / But to be young was very heaven.’ William Wordsworth was writing about the French Revolution, but the sentiment could have applied to the three McDonagh sisters in 1920s Sydney. Isabel (born in 1899), Phyllis (1900), and Paulette (1901) were the beneficiaries of two intertwined revolutions – modernism and feminism – that encouraged them to develop skills outside the domestic sphere and to become experts in their field. Daringly, they chose filmmaking, the great obsession of the period; and they were very good at it.' (Introduction)
