The Story of the Kelly Gang (1906)
A dramatization of the real-life Kelly gang of Australian bushrangers, from their crimes across the outback to the fatal shootout with police at Glenrowan, where Ned Kelly made his last stand in homemade armor.
The Story of the Kelly Gang ran roughly an hour, making it arguably the first dramatic feature film made anywhere in the world, though only fragments — around seventeen minutes — are known to survive today; its success helped launch a wave of Australian bushranger films before colonial authorities banned the genre outright.
Background
The Story of the Kelly Gang dramatizes the real crimes of the Kelly gang, a group of Australian bushrangers, from their activities across the outback to the fatal shootout with police at Glenrowan, where leader Ned Kelly made his famous last stand wearing homemade metal armor. Running roughly an hour, it is often cited as arguably the first dramatic feature film made anywhere in the world, well before feature-length storytelling became the norm in either Europe or the United States.
What to watch for
Only fragments of the original film survive today, around seventeen minutes in total, so modern viewers are seeing a small portion of what was originally a much longer production. Watch for how directly the film draws on real, recent history rather than fiction or legend from the distant past; its commercial success helped launch a wave of similar Australian bushranger films in the years that followed, a trend eventually ended when colonial authorities banned the genre outright, worried it glorified criminals.
