Arthur Higgins

The first documentary of Frank Thring’s Cities of the Empire series, this episode is about Melbourne in Victoria. It shows the city’s architectural highlights and public buildings along with its famous parks and gardens.

Fatty Finn is the six-year-old leader of a gang of kids in Woolloomooloo. They enter Fatty's pet goat Hector in the annual goat derby, but his rival Bruiser Murphy lets the goat loose before the race. After a series of adventures, Fatty finds the runaway goat and persuades a friendly aviator to fly him to the race-track in time for the main event.

The diggers and their officer, who has fallen for a nurse at the hospital, are subtly manipulated by a British intelligence officer to assist in passing false battle plans to the Germans. Given leave in England, they end up billeted at a country house and offered barley water instead of the home-brew they anticipated.

Zane Grey bets he can catch a fish bigger than one he sees at Watsons Bay. He hears about a large shark, nicknamed "white death", terrorising the Queensland coast and goes to catch it. He is thwarted by the comic attempts of Newton Smith, a representative of the Wallanga Branch of Fish Protectors, to persuade Grey not to harm fish. There is also a romance between two young people. Eventually Grey manages to catch the shark.

Peter Vernon's mother dies and he is adopted by a squatter, Kingston, whose son, Philip, is Peter's age. The two grow up and fall in love with the same girl, Marie.

After being fired from his job at a grocer, George, gets a job as a stableboy at a local stud farm run by the Fleming family. He befriends the horse Hotspur who is a favourite to win the Melbourne Cup, and develops a strong whistle which is used to make the horse run fast.

A larrikin is reformed due to the love of a good woman.

A reformed thief (Douglas Stuart) marries a wealthy socialite but is tormented by a former accomplice who tries to frame him for murder.

Bill is a Woolloomooloo larrikin who vows to abandon his life of gambling and drinking after a spell in gaol following a raid on a two-up game. He falls in love with Doreen, who works in a pickle factory, but faces competition from a more sophisticated rival.

In colonial Australia, James Morrison is a young teamster who has two friends, Long and Short. He is betrothed to Jane Judd when he visits Sydney and meets fiery Irish girl Biddy O'Shea, who is just off the "wife ship" – a boatload of women from an Irish orphanage bought out to Australia. James is attracted to Biddy and promises to marry her. James returns to Bathurst to break the news to Jane, but his mother dies and makes James promise to marry her daughter. He feels obliged to honour his old commitment to Jane.

Two brothers, Bill and Wally Winter, become infatuated with a gold digger, Nina Bellamy. She persuades them to ask their wealthy father, Sir James, for ₤10,000 so Bill can produce a stage show and Wally a movie, both starring Nina. Sir James discovers the truth about Nina and gives his son the money, provided they leave town in secret for one month to write their shows and that they only use new talent.

The adventures of Ginger Mick take him from slums and backyards to lock-ups and racecourses. He romances Rose, works as a rabbitoh and enlists to fight in World War I.

The story is founded on fact. In a village on the south coast of England, young Margaret Catchpole is being courted by two rivals, Will Laud, a smuggler, and Lieutenant Barry of the coast guards. She favours Laud, and when he escapes from custody after a government raid on the smugglers, Margaret steals a horse and tries to join him. In a fight with the coast guards, Laud is killed an Margaret is arrested for horse-stealing and transported to Botany Bay. Only part of the film survives today.

An adventuress, Cora Williams is in love with Howard Wilson, even though he is happily married to Mabel, and they have small children. Cora gets a man called Curtis to pretend to be in love with Mabel and engineers a situation where Howard walks in on them and gets the wrong impression.

Famous Hollywood director Robert Grimble arrives in the antipodes to make an epic flick about pioneering women, and launches a quest to find a girl with "that certain something" for the main role.

On Our Selection is a 1920 Australian silent film directed by Raymond Longford based on the Dad and Dave stories by Steele Rudd.

The movie is set eight years after the events of On Our Selection. The Rudd family are now more prosperous, but Dad is as autocratic as ever. His children are grown up and the baby twins are up to mischief Dave is married and tries to do as little work as possible, but is forced to do so by his wife and domineering mother.

‘Sunshine Sally’ is a perceptive and professional portrayal of the life-style and characters of the working-class area of Sydney known as the ‘Loo (Woolloomooloo) and the luxurious houses and spacious gardens of the rich Sydney area of Potts Point. Following the story of the spirited Sally who works in a sweatshop, the ‘White Star Laundry’, the film introduces us to Sally’s best friend Tottie and their larrikin friends, Skinny Smith and Spud Murphy. Sally’s family origins are unknown and when she is rescued from the surf at Coogee by bronzed lifesaver Basil Stanton, she becomes involved with Basil and his mother’s rich and cultured lifestyle.

The Woman Suffers is a complicated silent melodrama of revenge and sexual betrayal, only part of which survives. In the first two reels, which have been lost, a woman caught in an abusive marriage runs away with her infant son from her drunken husband. He falls on a knife and dies and she collapses in the bush. The child wanders off and is found by one family; the mother is rescued by another family and is unaware that her son lives.

George enlists in the police force and is assigned to Harmony Row, a haunt of criminals such as Slogger Lee.