In the Last Stride

Dave Smith, retired heavyweight boxing champion travels around Australia having various adventures, including working as a swagman, fighting Les O'Donnell, a speedboat chase across Sydney harbour, a football game involving rugby league stars, and a climax in which Dave's horse Sunlocks wins the Sydney Cup.

• Alma Rock Phillips as Enid King
• Dave Smith as Alick Wallace
• Les O'Donnell
• Dunstan Webb as a black American and a young Australian squatter
• Mick King
• Jack Munro
• Charles Villiers
• Rock Phillips
• Pat McGrath
• Harry Jerdan
• Percy Walshe

{{Infobox book|

| name = In the Last Stride

| title_orig =

| translator =

| image =

| caption =

| author = Arthur Wright

| illustrator = Lionel Lindsay

| cover_artist =

| country = Australia

| language = English

| series = Bookstall series

| genre = sporting

| publisher = NSW Bookstall Company

| release_date = 1914

| english_release_date =

| media_type =

| pages = 232

| preceded_by =

| followed_by =

}}

The film is based on a novel by Arthur Wright, which sold 30,000 copies and had been serialised in Referee magazine.{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article58497465 |title=Love And Football. |newspaper=The Register |location=Adelaide |date=18 April 1914 |access-date=17 May 2012 |page=4 |publisher=National Library of Australia}}{{Citation

| title=Australian Moving Pictures. An Industry Which Has Failed to Grow Up. Some Reminiscences.

| journal=Everyones.

| volume=6| issue=357 (5 January 1927)

| location=Sydney

| publisher=Everyones Ltd

| url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-576826185

| id=nla.obj-576826185

| access-date=26 February 2024

| via=Trove

}}

Alick Wallace, a champion rugby player and boxer, is loved by Enid King, who is desired by a football umpire, Norton, who also dabbles in opium smuggling. During a game, Norton sends Alick off the ground in disgrace. Alick boxes Norton at Sydney stadium, knocks him out and is fired from his job as a clerk by his employer, Enid's father.

Alick finds himself falsely accused of burglary, robbery and smuggling, as well as the death of old King. He heads to the Queensland bush and trains a horse which winds up winning the Winter Stakes at Randwick.

"No reader will be able to complain that he has not received his money's worth of sensation", said the Sydney Morning Herald.{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article15500708 |title=Some New Novels. |newspaper=The Sydney Morning Herald |date=11 April 1914 |access-date=28 September 2014 |page=4 |publisher=National Library of Australia}} According to the Adelaide Register:

Mr. Wright has produced another rattling yarn. He understands sport thoroughly. You might doubt it in finding a professional pugilist play football in the afternoon with a big fight booked for the evening; but the author admits that 'it looked an act of pure madness,' and it was necessary for the story.{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article58497465 |title=Love And Football. |newspaper=The Register |location=Adelaide |date=18 April 1914 |access-date=28 September 2014 |page=4 |publisher=National Library of Australia}}

The Western Mail said that Wright had manufactured "a story almost entirely composed of police court, football, boxing, and racing reports, written up in tho style and with all the literary graces of diction that distinguish the average horse Reporter of a Sydney sporting weekly."{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article37977263 |title=A Footballing Hero. |newspaper=Western Mail |location=Perth |date=24 April 1914 |access-date=28 September 2014 |page=49 |publisher=National Library of Australia}}

It was made by Double A Productions, which had been formed under the management of W.S. Jerdan, formerly a supplier of distributors and photographic equipment. The syndicate also included Rock Phillips and boxer Dave Smith. Smith was invited to play the lead. "Let's hope the enterprise meets with the success it deserves", wrote the Motion Picture News.[https://archive.org/stream/motionpicturenew131unse#page/360/mode/2up/search/%22news+from+foreign%22 Hal Carleton, "Film News From Foreign Parts", Motion Picture News, 16 January 1916]. Retrieved 23 November 2014

The movie was shot in Sydney in 1915. One scene was shot on Mosman Oval featuring rugby league stars Dan Frawley, Bob Tidyman and Harold Horder. Filming took place around Middle Harbour and between and outside Sydney heads.{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article263631215 |title=Production Of Moving Pictures--In America And Australia. |newspaper=Australian Town and Country Journal |volume=XCVIII |issue=2555 |location=New South Wales, Australia |date=18 December 1918 |access-date=21 November 2023 |page=21 |via=National Library of Australia}}

Dave Smith later wrote some reminisces of filming, in particular fight scenes with fellow boxer Les O'Donnell:

The ring and stadium were built for the [fight] scene on the flat roof of a city building and the lads from the sporting clubs made the fans. We boxed three terrific rounds with no beg pardons, and the K.O. a left to the body and right to the chin, made a wonderful finale. Les and I entered into the spirit of tho story and that fight scene was really wonderful. One of my masseurs, Dunstan Webb, who played a big part in the film, For the Term of His Natural Life (1927) also played with us. One scene was on a launch up in Middle Harbor, and Webb in a melee, was to be shot and then fall back into the water. We ran through the stuff all but the falling in, before the take, and when the director was satisfied the operator started to film. We floated through our parts and Webb was shot, but when falling back into the water, thought of the grey nurses and tiger sharks lurking below arid turned finishing his fall with a neat header into the water.{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article131173579 |title=Reminiscences of the Ring and Views of Local Doings. |newspaper=The Referee|location=Sydney |date=16 April 1930 |access-date=28 September 2014 |page=11 |publisher=National Library of Australia}}

The movie was previewed at the Globe Theatre in Sydney in November 1915 where, according to one account, "all present were fully convinced that the production was quite equal to any of the Imported films."

However the movie was not a popular success: Wright later wrote that he "doubt if they ever recovered" the budget for the film at the box office.

{{reflist}}

• {{IMDb title|0343832}}
• [http://www.austlit.edu.au/austlit/page/C25307 In the Last Stride] at AustLit
• [http://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/DetailsReports/ItemDetail.aspx?Barcode=3422848&isAv=N In the Last Stride] at National Archives of Australia
• The original story was serialised at the Port Macquarie News in 1939 – [http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article106036576 25 Feb – first installment], [http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article106035647 4 March], [http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article106037381 11 March], [http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article106038991 18 March], [http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article106038909 25 March], [http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article106040757 1 April], [http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article106040930 8 April], [http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article106035484 15 April], [http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article106040585 22 April], [http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article106037525 29 April], [http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article106037791 6 May], [http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article106037939 13 May], [http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article106036851 20 May], [http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article106038028 27 May], [http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article106040662 3 June – final]
• [http://aso.gov.au/titles/historical/les-darcy-vs-dave-smith/ Clip of Dave Smith fighting Les Darcy] at Australian Screen Online

{{Arthur Wright}}

Category:Australian black-and-white films

Category:Lost Australian drama films

Category:1916 films

Category:1916 drama films

Category:Australian silent feature films

Category:Films based on Australian novels

Category:1916 lost films

Category:Australian boxing films

Category:Australian horse racing films

Category:Silent Australian drama films

Category:1910s English-language films

Category:English-language drama films

Category:Lost silent Australian films