image of person or book cover 848873127970391933.jpg
Portrait published in Melbourne newspaper Winner, 22 December 1915, p.12
Charles Villiers Charles Villiers i(A135389 works by)
Gender: Male
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1 1 form y separately published work icon Possum Paddock Kate Howarde , ( dir. Kate Howarde et. al. )agent Australia : Kate Howarde , 1921 Z1719213 1921 single work film/TV 'This [silent film] is the screen adaptation of theatrical entrepreneur Kate Howarde's very successful stage play. The incomplete footage goes some way to showing why the storyline was so popular, with struggling bushman Andrew McQuade having to sell off his precious 50 acre field 'Possum Paddock', to pay off his bank loan. The trials and tribulations of the paddock and of daughter Nancy, who is courted by both a gentlemanly neighbour and a cad happily resolve themselves ... The film did well commercially after opening at the Lyric Theatre, Sydney on 29 January 1921. A scene involving the plight of an unmarried mother was cut by censors. Critics found the film a little long but likeable. Much of the stage cast was retained for the film.' (National Film and Sound Archive record)
1 form y separately published work icon The Face at the Window Gertrude Lockwood , ( dir. Charles Villiers ) Australia : D. B. O'Connor Feature Films , 1919 Z1871018 1919 single work film/TV horror thriller science fiction crime

An early Australian film with shades of both horror and science fiction. As Australian Screen points out,

It almost defies belief that the Australian film industry failed to produce a single horror movie in its first 70 years. It is understandable that during the 1948-68 period in which almost all horror movies were banned in Australia there was no incentive, but looking back further only a small handful of early Australian features contain any elements of the fantastic, let alone outright horror.

The Face at the Window (based on an 1897 stage melodrama) is one of this handful of films, though it falls more strongly into the genre of 'thriller'. Nevertheless, as Robert Hood points out, the film is

A light spoof about a master criminal named 'Le Loup' (suggestive of Marcel Allain and Pierre Soubestre's Fantomas), who wears a grotesque mask and howls maniacally as he stalks his victims. He kills a prominent Parisian banker and a detective. But a mad doctor uses 'an electrical device' to revive the dead detective momentarily, giving him time to write out Le Loup's real name. Le Loup is shot while trying to escape. The stabbing scene had to be cut before censors would pass it for screening in Sydney.

Sources:

Australian Screen, 'Horror in Australian Cinema' (http://aso.gov.au/titles/collections/horror-in-australian-cinema/). (Sighted: 29/6/2012)

Hood, Robert. 'Killer Koalas: Australian (and New Zealand) Horror Films'. Tabula Rasa (http://www.tabula-rasa.info/AusHorror/OzHorrorFilms2.html). (Sighted: 29/6/2012)
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