Jewelled Nights

After her father's death, socialite Elaine Fleetwood promises to marry a man she does not love. However, she leaves him at the altar during a wedding ceremony, cuts her hair and decides to disguise herself as a boy and go prospecting in northwest Tasmania. She meets a handsome miner who figures out she is a woman, saves her from a villain and marries her.

• Louise Lovely as Elaine Fleetwood
• Gordon Collingridge as Larry Salarno
• Godfrey Cass as Tiger Sam
• Arthur Styan as Crank Ned
• Grafton Williams as Red Roof
• John Dobbie as Tiny Tim
• Charles Brown as Gus
• Harry Halley as wowser
• Leslie Woods as Robert Milton
• Robert Morgan as Sir John Fleetwood
• Clifford Miller as Richard Fleetwood
• George Bryant as Dr Mason
• Reg Leslie as Frank Reid
• Frank Dunn as Dr Hughes
• Katrina Barry as Lady Fleetwood
• Lucille de Rago as Netta
• Joy Law as Nora Foster
• Jean Foulis as Yvette

The film was made by Lovely after her return from Hollywood in 1924. She and her husband helped set up a company, Louise Lovely Productions, worth £30,000. Among her backers were several businessmen who worked with Arthur Shirley's Pyramid Pictures.{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article66948198 |title=Advertising. |newspaper=The Advocate |location=Burnie, Tas. |date=31 March 1925 |accessdate=24 March 2012 |page=2 |publisher=National Library of Australia}}

They constructed an elaborate £3,000 studio containing several large sets, and shot on location at Flemington Racecourse and in Tasmania. This caused to budget to spiral. The sets were used to film a storm in the Tasmanian rain forest.{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article66943426 |title=Jewelled Nights |newspaper=The Advocate |location=Burnie, Tas. |date=5 March 1925 |accessdate=29 September 2013 |page=2 |publisher=National Library of Australia}}{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article29107264 |title=Cinema Notes |newspaper=The Mercury |location=Hobart, Tas. |date=24 July 1925 |accessdate=29 September 2013 |page=3 |publisher=National Library of Australia}}

Jewelled Nights premiered in Tasmania at The Strand, which was attended by Marie Bjelke Petersen, who wrote the original novel, and future-Prime Minister Joseph Lyons (then-Premier of Tasmania), who commended her writing achievements for promoting Tasmania abroad.{{cite news |url=https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/153735162 |title=Jewelled Nights Premiere at The Strand |newspaper=The Mercury |location=Hobart |date=5 January 1926 |access-date=14 May 2022 |page=4 |via=Trove}} The film was well attended at first, being seen by an estimated 350,000 people in Melbourne and 9,000 in Hobart.{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article67633884 |title=FILM PRODUCTION. |newspaper=The Advocate |location=Burnie, Tas. |date=29 January 1926 |accessdate=30 January 2012 |page=2 |publisher=National Library of Australia}} However it was unable to recover its costs. Lovely partly attributed this to the amount of money taken by distributors and exhibitors – she claimed that in one week in Melbourne the film took £1,565 out of which the producers received £382.{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article3860087 |title=AUSTRALIAN FILMS. |newspaper=The Argus |location=Melbourne |date=11 June 1927 |accessdate=30 January 2012 |page=17 |publisher=National Library of Australia}}

Lovely subsequently retired from filming and divorced Welch.Andrew Pike and Ross Cooper, Australian Film 1900–1977: A Guide to Feature Film Production, Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1998, 129.[http://www.dpac.tas.gov.au/divisions/cdd/information_and_resources/significant_tasmanian_women/significant_tasmanian_women_-_research_listing/louise_lovely 'Louise Lovely', Department of Premier and Cabinet, Tasmanian Government] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120325092944/http://www.dpac.tas.gov.au/divisions/cdd/information_and_resources/significant_tasmanian_women/significant_tasmanian_women_-_research_listing/louise_lovely |date=25 March 2012 }}

Only two minutes of the film were thought to have survived, along with stills taken during shooting. However using photographic reconstruction, newly found footage, animation and a copy of the original novel annotated by Lovely, archivists have manage to reconstruct 20 minutes of the film. This plays daily at the Gaiety Theatre in Zeehan (part of the West Coast Heritage Centre), near where the movie was shot.[http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-01-30/silent-movie-finds-new-voice/3799934?section=entertainment Selina Bryan, 'Silent movie finds new voice', ABC News 30 January 2012][http://www.abc.net.au/local/photos/2011/04/19/3195931.htm Browyn Purvis, Gaiety theatre grand gala', ABC Northern Tasmania, 19 April 2011]

{{reflist}}

• {{IMDb title|id=0190491}}
• [http://colsearch.nfsa.gov.au/nfsa/search/display/display.w3p;adv=;group=;groupequals=;holdingType=;page=0;parentid=;query=%22jewelled%20nights%22;querytype=;rec=1;resCount=10 Jewelled Nights] at National Film and Sound Archive

Category:1925 drama films

Category:1925 films

Category:1925 lost films

Category:Silent Australian drama films

Category:Australian black-and-white films

Category:Australian silent feature films

Category:Films based on Australian novels

Category:Films set in Tasmania

Category:Films shot in Tasmania

Category:Lost Australian drama films

Category:1920s English-language films

Category:English-language drama films