Production
The making of the film was dogged by problems; even before production began, the Actors' Equity and some of Kelly's descendants protested strongly about the casting of Jagger in the lead role, and about the film's proposed shooting location in country New South Wales, rather than in Victoria, where the Kellys had lived.
Jagger's girlfriend of the time, Marianne Faithfull, had come to Australia to play the lead female role (Ned's sister, Maggie), but the Jagger-Faithfull relationship was breaking up, and she took an overdose of sleeping tablets soon after arrival in Sydney. She was hospitalised in a coma, but recovered and was sent home. She was replaced by a then-unknown Australian actress, Diane Craig, who was then studying at NIDA.
Shooting began on 12 July 1969 and took ten weeks. During production, Jagger was slightly injured by a backfiring pistol, the cast and crew were dogged by illness, a number of costumes were destroyed by fire, and Jagger's co-star, Mark McManus, narrowly escaped serious injury when a horse-drawn cart in which he was riding overturned during filming.
The actual body armour costume worn by Jagger is on display at the Queanbeyan City Library, New South Wales, and the initials "MJ" are scratched on the inside. The head-piece was stolen.
Unlike most film versions, this is the first Ned Kelly film to feature the writing of "The Cameron Letter", one of Kelly's lesser known and rarely published letters that was written to Donald Cameron MLA, a political representative in The Parliament of Victoria at the time. The letter was Kelly's first attempt to gain public sympathy. However, Kelly's well-known letter, The Jerilderie Letter, is omitted from the film.
Read more about this topic: Ned Kelly (1970 film)
Famous quotes containing the word production:
“The production of obscurity in Paris compares to the production of motor cars in Detroit in the great period of American industry.”
—Ernest Gellner (b. 1925)
“... if the production of any commodity necessitates the sacrifice of human life, society should do without that commodity, but it can not do without that life.”
—Emma Goldman (1869–1940)
“The growing of food and the growing of children are both vital to the family’s survival.... Who would dare make the judgment that holding your youngest baby on your lap is less important than weeding a few more yards in the maize field? Yet this is the judgment our society makes constantly. Production of autos, canned soup, advertising copy is important. Housework—cleaning, feeding, and caring—is unimportant.”
—Debbie Taylor (20th century)