Tracking Shots
Close Ups on NZ Film History
The Kid From Timaru
The words, the film and the music of The Kid From Timaru (1917) would be in perfect accord audiences were assured.
Barry Marschel's one reel dramatisation of his fifteen-verse ballad would certainly be – as the advertisements proclaimed – unique!
The Kid From Timaru featured Marschel's stirring recital with silent film of the action. The ballad told of a young lad sent off to fight in faraway Egypt, but who remained convinced that, of any place on earth, Timaru was best. This was the way to appeal to the patriotic fervour that swept New Zealand during World War I.
No copy of the film survives, but The Kid lives on in Marschel's ballad.
