After their first production company, Longford-Lyell Australian Productions, was forced into liquidation in mid-1924, Raymond Longford and Lottie Lyell set up the similarly named Longford-Lyell Productions in association with Charles Perry. The new company's first production was Fisher's Ghost (1924), which completed production barely two months after the demise of the original company. As with Longford's previous film, The Dinkum Bloke (1923), Fisher's Ghost ran into difficulties with the Australian-based distributors. Although passed by the censors, Union Pictures refused to exhibit the film on the grounds that it was too gruesome and Longford was eventually forced to accept an unfavourable offer from Hoyts. The film went on to become a critical and commercial success, but even then still continued to be plagued by distribution problems.
Lottie Lyell's involvement in the new company is believed to have diminished over the next twelve months as the tuberculosis she had contracted several years earlier became increasingly virulent. After her death late in 1925, Longford wrapped up the company's last remaining film projects and effectively retired from the industry as a director (he made only one more film after 1926, this being The Man They Could Not Hang, which was made by Invictus Productions in 1934).
The film output by Longford-Lyell Productions was: Fisher's Ghost (1924), The Bushwackers (1925), Peter Vernon's Silence, The Pioneers and Hills of Hate (1926).
Further reference: Andrew Pike and Ross Cooper.
Australian Film 1900-1977, A Guide to Feature Film Production, 1980 (p. 160).
