As far as is known, the first commercial film screening in New Zealand took place on 7 November 1896, when J. F. Macmahon showed moving pictures on “Edison's Cinematographe” in High Street, Christchurch. This was less than a year after the world's first film show given in Paris by the Lumière brothers. The programme included Traffic in Broadway, Wheelwright at Work, and Sandow the Strong Man. The first motion pictures to be taken in New Zealand were made, it is claimed, by A. H. Whitehouse in 1898. In that year he filmed Uhlan winning the Auckland Cup, and also the opening of the Auckland Exhibition. In 1901 the Salvation Army Film Unit of Australia made a film of 3,360 ft of the visit to New Zealand of the Duke and Duchess of York
In the early years of the century films were usually shown as an item in the popular vaudeville shows by organisations such as Rickard's Vaudeville Co. (1904) and Fuller's Vaudeville Co. (1905). In 1905 “West's Pictures and the Brescians” came to Dunedin from Edinburgh with a show that was “above-all refined” in which the singing and playing of the Brescians filled half the programme and short films filled the other half. The 80-minute film programme consisted of 14 short films, including documentaries such as Firemen at Work in London, travel films, Tour Through Italy, and In Barcelona Park (in “stereoscopic kinematography”), an instructional film, Busy Bee – Every Phase of Bee Culture, and a comedy, Burglar and the Girls. It concluded with an outstanding film of the period, Trip to the Sun, an early space thriller and trick film produced by the Frenchman, Herbert Melies. It had been hand coloured by a line of women, each painting one tint. The brothers Henry and Rudall Hayward, senior, were active members of West's pictures and later developed the chain of theatres known as Hayward's Picture Enterprises.
There were a number of itinerant exhibitors in the early years who screened short films at vaudeville shows from projectors set up in the body of the hall. The illumination for these early films was limelight produced by a flame of oxygen and hydrogen played on a revolving disc of limestone which became incandescent. West's pictures were the first to introduce the electric arc lamp. At first their dynamo had to be worked by a traction engine, and in each small town a traction engine had to be hired. Later, portable generators worked by petrol motors or motorcars provided power for carbon arcs. Perry's Biorama exhibited all over New Zealand the films made by the Salvation Army. Lurid posters, such as The Drunkard, advertised the show, and the Salvation Army band marched through the town to the door of the cinema where a chugging red petrol engine provided power and added to the novelty and excitement of the occasion.
By 1911 picture shows were “everywhere, in the city and suburbs and all doing big business”. Continuous pictures were being shown in specially built cinemas. Prints of the early films could be bought by any exhibitor, but by 1911 leading exhibitors, such as Fullers' Pictures and Hayward's Picture Enterprises, had obtained exclusive rights to certain films and screened them in the chains of theatres under their control and rented them to independent exhibitors. The pattern of cinema organisation was established.
Simple and inexpensive cinematograph cameras were available early in the century and many exhibitors made short films of local interest to attract local audiences. Some of them included items of wider interest made by cameramen in other parts of New Zealand and so there developed a number of newsreels such as the Auckland Animated News, and the Empire News, Dunedin. None of them seems to have lasted very long.
In 1907 the Government Tourist Department employed J. McDonald to make some newsreels on New Zealand subjects to send overseas. The Government Photography Office, under the control of the Department of Agriculture until 1923, made several films, such as Flax Growing at Foxton and Milling Kauri Timber. It then became a part of the Publicity Office, which was later incorporated in the Tourist Department. Its studios were in the basement of Parliament Buildings but, after a fire there, the Photography Office was transferred to the ABC Building in Lambton Quay, where another fire occurred. The nitrate films of the day were so highly inflammable that the Cinematograph Regulations, dealing with safety, were administered by the Chief Inspector of Explosives. An arrangement was then made by the Government with A. A. P. MacKenzie (who established Filmcraft Studios at Miramar, Wellington) to process the films made by Government photographic officers who had accommodation on the premises. In 1936 the Tourist Department bought Filmcraft Studios, which became the Government Motion Picture and Advertising Studios. They produced for the 1940 Centennial One Hundred Crowded Years, a 55–minute sound film re-enacting the history of New Zealand. The next year the New Zealand National Film Unit was established at the studios to help to publicise the war effort. E. S. Andrews was the first producer, and Bert Bridgman the chief cameraman. The assistant producer was C. J. Morton, who has been engaged in making Government films since 1923. A. G. Scott, first sound engineer of the Film Unit, succeeded Andrews as producer in 1950. From 1941 until 1950 the Film Unit produced 459 Weekly Reviews, which was changed then to a monthly Pictorial Parade. Both are 10–minute newsreels covering three or four topics. In addition, the National Film Unit makes each year several short feature films of 10 to 40 minutes in length on New Zealand subjects. They are of a high standard, and amongst those which have won awards at international film festivals are: We Lead the World (tractor accidents), Jetobatics (Air Force display), Snows of Aorangi (ski-ing at Mount Cook), The Long Lake (Wakatipu), Snowline is Their Boundary (high-country sheep farming), and Skyhigh in New Zealand (the Mount Cook region).
Only a few feature films have been produced in New Zealand, largely because of the difficulty of obtaining sufficient finance. The leading producer has been Rudall Hayward, a son of Rudall George Hayward of West's Pictures and Hayward's Picture Enterprises. His films include My Lady of the Cave (1922), Rewi's Last Stand (silent, 1925), The Te Kooti Trail (1927), Bush Cinderella (1928), On The Friendly Road (1936), and Rewi's Last Stand (sound, 1939). Prominent New Zealand actors in the Hayward films were Gordon Campbell, Patiti Warbrick, Stanley Knight, the first “Miss New Zealand”, Dale Austin, of Dunedin, who played the principal part in Bush Cinderella, and Ramai Te Miha, who played the Maori heroine in the sound version of Rewi's Last Stand and who later became Mrs Hayward.
Other New Zealand feature films included Hinemoa, produced by George Tarr about 1914, Just as the Sun Went Down, produced about 1915 by Frank Davenport, The Birth of New Zealand, produced by Harrington Reynolds about 1920, The Kid From Timaru, produced by Barry Marshall, about 1919, and Under the Southern Cross, made in 1925 by the Swedish producer, Gustav Pauli. About the same time Pauli produced what was said to be the best film of Hinemoa. The first New Zealand film with a sound track, Under Southern Skies, was released in its sound version in 1929. Most of the feature films of this period were photographed by Charles Newham, Frank Stewart, or Bert Bridgman. Two feature films have been produced by New Zealanders since 1952, when John O'Shea and Roger Mirams of Pacific Film Productions made Broken Barriers, a film on the race relations of Maori and European. New Zealanders. In 1964 John O'Shea was again the producer for the film Runaway.
In the past 20 years short sponsored films, mainly on industrial topics, or for tourism, have been made by such firms as Pacific Film Productions, Robert Steele Motion Picture Productions, Hayward Film Productions, Morrow Picture Productions (animated cartoons), Reynolds Film Productions, Apex Films (A. Riddock) and Roy Evans Films. Such films have been made both for the commercial cinema and for users of 16-mm sound projectors, which were introduced about 1937. The introduction of television in 1961 has stimulated several small organisations to produce 16-mm films, mostly for commercial advertising.
The use of 16-mm films was fostered by the introduction of non-flammable acetate film, by the use of films for training during the Second World War, and by the establishment of the National Film Library by the Department of Education. The Library began in a small way in 1942 and was fully established in 1945 and is now one of the largest in the world. From 1942 to 1963 the Library was directed by W. B. Harris. It lends films free of charge to about 4,000 organisations and schools and, from a stock of some 25,000 prints covering more than 4,000 titles, issues about 200,000 reels of film a year. The National Film Library also assists the Federation of Film Societies, which comprises 56 film societies with a total membership of about 3,500. Smaller and more specialised 16-mm film libraries include the Services Film Library, the libraries of the Department of Health and the Department of Agriculture, and the film libraries of some oil companies, diplomatic missions, and church groups. There are also several commercial film libraries which hire out 16-mm copies of feature films. The National Film Archives are housed in the National Film Library. The archives was established in 1961 and is controlled largely by the Archives Branch of the Department of Internal Affairs. Unfortunately most of the early films made in New Zealand have been destroyed. Those that remain include a few newsreels, such as of the Napier and the Murchison earthquakes, four of Rudall Hayward's films – The Te Kooti Trail, Bush Cinderella, On the Friendly Road, and Rewi's Last Stand, Pauli's Under the Southern Cross, and Pacific Films' Broken Barriers.
The introduction of sound films in 1929 brought great changes. Audiences appreciated the greater reality of films such as The Jazz Singer and Broadway Melody and attendances at the cinema increased. On the other hand the sound films threw out of work a large number of musicians. The silent films needed some musical accompaniment, and, as early as 1906, the Royal Albert Hall in Auckland advertised “living pictures with Gaumont Chronophone Sound Accompaniment”. As the phonograph of the period was not sufficiently pleasant or powerful, most exhibitors relied on a pianist playing “mood music”. There was generally an “effects man” with a variety of devices such as wind machines, thunder sheets, and coconut shells to make the sound of horses' hoofs. The better cinemas provided orchestras, quartets, and singers of such quality that many patrons went to listen to the music rather than see the films. Fuller's Pictures in 1908 engaged the Edgar Collins Orchestral Band to accompany the films, and in 1912 for Hayward's Pictures in Wellington “the Adelphic Ladies' Orchestra discoursed sweet music”. Some silent films were distributed either with suggestions for appropriate music or with full music and effects scores which required competent professionals.
In the 1920s the cinema organ, the “mighty Wurlitzer”, with a wide range of effects, replaced some orchestras or supplemented them, but the standard of music in the cinemas continued to improve in all the larger cities until the advent of “talkies”. Amongst the best-known orchestras was that of Alfred Bunz, who conducted an orchestra of 23 players in the Crystal Palace, Christchurch, and the orchestra of Maurice Gutteridge, in the Regent Theatre, Auckland. From 1928 there was little employment for professional musicians, except in broadcasting and in the National Orchestra, which was established in 1951.
Agitation for the Government censorship of films and posters began about 1911. Some titles and film posters were rather lurid, but exhibitors censored their films with discretion so that those who went expectantly to see such films as The White Slave Traffic (“adults only”) came away disappointed. The Cinematograph Film Censorship Act of 1916 provided for the censorship of films and its amendment in 1926 for the censorship of posters. The various regulations were consolidated in the Cinematograph Films Act of 1928, and in 1956 the Censorship Regulations were revised on the advice of the Film Censor, Gordon Mirams, to provide for five classes of certificate: (G) Approved for general exhibition; (Y) Recommended as suitable for persons aged 13 and over; (A) Recommended as suitable for adults only (persons aged 16 and over); (R) Screening restricted to persons over a specified age or to a specified class of audience; and (S) Recommended as suitable or unsuitable for a specified class of audience. These provisions make it possible for the Film Censor to reduce the number of excisions and to give guidance, especially to parents, as to the suitability of particular films. The (R) certificate covers most of the controversial films and the (S) certificate gives the censor the opportunity to recommend films especially suitable for children or family audiences. Appeals against the Censor's ruling may be made to a film appeal board.
New Zealanders in 1960–61 went to the pictures about 18 times per head of population. There were some 46,000,000 admissions to 511 theatres for a return of £5,396,000. The organisation of the motion picture industry has been the subject of reports by parliamentary committees in 1934 and in 1949. Most of the city theatres and many suburban theatres are controlled by Kerridge-Odeon or by Amalgamated Theatres Ltd. Smaller suburban and country theatres are controlled by independent exhibitors. Exhibitors obtain their films from film distributors who distribute the films of overseas producers, collect rentals, deduct expenses and charges, and remit the balance to the producing organisations. There is no customs duty on the importation of films, but the film distributors pay a film-hire tax – 10 per cent of their net receipts for British films and 25 per cent for foreign films, and exhibitors pay an amusement tax which is included in the price of admission. In 1961–62 the film-hire tax amounted to £190,000 and amusement tax for cinemas to £493,000. Both film distributors and cinemas are licensed by the Cinematograph Films Licensing Authority.
The Film Industries Board consists of four members of the Motion Picture Distributors Association, four members of the Exhibitors Associations, and a retired Stipendiary Magistrate appointed by the Minister of Internal Affairs. It acts as a tribunal to settle disputes between distributors and exhibitors and advises the Government on matters concerning the motion-picture industry. The Cinematograph Films Act of 1961 consolidated and amended the legislation relating to cinematograph films and brought into statute law important matters of principle formerly included in regulations.
Television was established in New Zealand in Auckland, Christchurch, and Wellington in 1961, and in Dunedin in the following year. The programmes consist largely of cinema films or films specially made overseas for television. An increasing proportion is of films made in New Zealand to cover local events. It is too soon to estimate the influence of television on cinema attendance or its importance in education.
by Walter Bernard Harris, M.A., DIP.ED., DIP.SOC.SCI., formerly Supervisor Teaching Aids, Department of Education Wellington.