The Man from Kangaroo

The Man from Kangaroo
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Wilfred Lucas
Produced by	E. J. Carroll Snowy Baker
Written by	Bess Meredyth
Starring	Snowy Baker
Cinematography	Robert V. Doerrer
Production company	Carroll-Baker Australian Productions
Release date	24 January 1920 (Sydney)
Running time	6 reels
Country	Australia
Language	Silent film English intertitles

The Man from Kangaroo is a 1920 Australian silent film starring renowned Australian sportsman Snowy Baker. It was the first of several films he made with the husband and wife team of director Wilfred Lucas and writer Bess Meredyth, both of whom had been imported from Hollywood by E. J. Carroll.

John Harland is a former boxer turned reverend posted to the town of Kangaroo. He falls in love with Muriel, an orphaned heiress, and discovers that her guardian Martin Giles is embezzling her inheritance. Harland earns the ire of parishioners by teaching young boys to box, and Giles manipulates local opinion to have the bishop remove him.

Harland rescues a gentleman from a mugging in Sydney who suggests that he go to Kalmaroo where a criminal gang has driven the church out of the area. Harland preaches, and unexpectedly sees Muriel in the congregation; her property is near Kalmaroo.

But her overseer is Red Jack Braggan who leads the gang which violently breaks up Harland's mission – much to the distress of Muriel who regards Harland as too timid – and is in cahoots with Giles. Harland goes to work as a station hand at a property neighbouring Muriel's.

Giles arranges for Red Jack to kidnap Muriel so that he might marry the girl and thus prevent her giving evidence against him. Harland rescues Muriel: they leap from the stage coach as it thunders across Hampden Bridge into the Kangaroo River.

Baker visited Hollywood in 1918 to shoot additional scenes for The Lure of the Bush and to study production methods. With E. J. Carroll he arranged to bring back a team of Americans to assist them making movies in Australia, including director Wilfred Lucas, his wife, screenwriter Bess Meredyth, actor Brownie Vernon, assistant director John Wells and cinematographer John Doerrer.

Meredyth spent a few months in the Mitchell Library in Sydney looking for topics to make movies about. It was later stated at the Royal Commission on the Moving Picture Industry in Australia that Meredyth felt "the only truly national subject about which producers could make a picture [in Australia] was horse racing. Australians, she said, had not yet developed any distinctive individuality of national character or tradition." This is what prompted the Carrolls to make all their films with Lucas and Baker about bush and station life.