With particular reference to "the appearance of poems in films interests
me. Scripts which are all quotation":
The recently restored 1919 Australian silent film "The Sentimental Bloke",
directed by Raymond Longford and Lottie Lyell, uses intertitles taken from
C.J. Dennis' 1915 poem "The Songs of a Sentimental Bloke". I can't say for
sure whether every single intertitle came from that poem, but the film was
well-received by the largely American audience at the National Gallery of
Art in Washington DC last fall. The live accompaniment by Melbourne-based
Jen Anderson and the Larrikins helped, so that the period Australian slang
seemed less of an obstacle. Barry Alpert
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