Cirrus@Austlit

'Frank Beaumont (Beau) Smith was a producer, director and exhibitor of films. He was educated at East Adelaide Public School, and became a journalist, working briefly on the staff of the Critic and helping to found the Gadfly. By 1908 he was press representative for the theatrical entrepreneur William Anderson. 1911 he brought from Europe a troupe of midgets, touring it internationally and through Australasia up until late-1913, at which time he turned to theatre production. Over the next few years he produced a series of musical comedies with his Glad-Eye Company, and also staged possibly the first threatical production of Seven Little Australians 1914.

In 1917 Smith turned to film production, with his first feature brinh Our Friends the Hayseeds. Inspired by the stories of 'Steele Rudd,' Smith had previously collaborated in adapting them into the play, On Our Selection. As a film-maker, he worked variously as producer, director, writer, editor and publicist from the outset. Of his seventeen silent (1917-25) and two sound (1933-34) producions, the seven Hayseeds films were his biggests hits. He is also recognised as the most commercially successful of Australia's silent film producers, due to his rapid, low-cost and regular output of formula films.