Sweet dreams: Queensland, sugar and the 1927 Royal Commission into the Moving Picture Industry

Abstract

ABSTRACTThe impetus for the 1927 Royal Commission into the Moving Picture Industry was the US film companies' ‘stranglehold’ on the Australian film industry, the effects of which were perceived as undermining both Australian film businesses and Australian national identity. The Commissioners took evidence in seven Queensland towns, some quite small and isolated, with almost all exhibitors from these locations represented. This evidence constructs an in-depth picture of film business and consumption in regional Australia, as well as a social, cultural and economic portrait of the country on the cusp of the Great Depression. This article takes as its starting point the Commissioners' repeated comparison of the film industry and Queensland's sugar industry, and their suggestions that the film industry's problems could be solved by replicating the intervention and support given to the sugar industry by both State and Federal Governments. These references, the article argues, reveal the Commissioners' understanding of the film industry, and conjectures that these conceptualizations may still influence the way Australian films are watched today.