Woolloomooloo or Wapping? Critical responses to The Sentimental Bloke in 1920s London and the normalization of the inner-city working class

TY - JOUR

T1 - Woolloomooloo or Wapping? Critical responses to The Sentimental Bloke in 1920s London and the normalization of the inner-city working class

AU - Morgan, Stephen

PY - 2012/3

Y1 - 2012/3

N2 - This article explores the British reception of the first film adaptation of C. J. Dennis' verse poem The Sentimental Bloke, and traces the tendency of contemporary London critics to re-align the film's inner-city character 'types' with those much closer to home. Whilst contemporary Australian reviews tended to regard the central characters as typical Australian 'larrikin' types, London critics consistently compared them with – and occasionally even mistook them for – their own inner-city working class types. References to cockneys and costers abound in a process of normalization that saw Sydney's urban working class identities subsumed by that of their more familiar English cousins. Framed by an investigation of themes of 'realism', 'authenticity' and 'universality', this article asks why London critics may have needed to normalize certain aspects of the film and ponders what that process might say about urban identity and broader British notions of Australia and 'Australianness' in the 1920s.

AB - This article explores the British reception of the first film adaptation of C. J. Dennis' verse poem The Sentimental Bloke, and traces the tendency of contemporary London critics to re-align the film's inner-city character 'types' with those much closer to home. Whilst contemporary Australian reviews tended to regard the central characters as typical Australian 'larrikin' types, London critics consistently compared them with – and occasionally even mistook them for – their own inner-city working class types. References to cockneys and costers abound in a process of normalization that saw Sydney's urban working class identities subsumed by that of their more familiar English cousins. Framed by an investigation of themes of 'realism', 'authenticity' and 'universality', this article asks why London critics may have needed to normalize certain aspects of the film and ponders what that process might say about urban identity and broader British notions of Australia and 'Australianness' in the 1920s.

KW - Silent Cinema

KW - Australian Cinema

KW - Anglo-Australian Relations

KW - Urban Studies

U2 - 10.1386/sac.5.3.321_1

DO - 10.1386/sac.5.3.321_1

M3 - Article

VL - 5

SP - 321

EP - 332

JO - Studies in Australasian Cinema

JF - Studies in Australasian Cinema

IS - 3

ER -