AustLit

Based on Dion Boucicault and Joseph Jefferson's play Rip van Winkle; or, The Sleep of Twenty Years (1866), which had had several successful seasons on the Australian stage prior to the film's production. The film is relatively unusual for early Australian film, in having a strongly fantastical focus.

'"Breaking the News'' is the principal film. It is an exciting drama of goldfield life, founded on Mr. John Longstaff's famous painting of the same name. The scene depicting the flooded mine and the rescue of the imprisoned men is most realistic. The picture, which is entirely an Australian production, was loudly applauded at its conclusion.'

Source:

'Tivoli Theatre', Bendigo Advertiser, 3 April 1912, p.7. (Via Trove Australia)

On Christmas Eve in 1833, a happily married but impoverished inn-keeper, Mathias, murders a wealthy Jewish visitor to the inn, driven by the chance at wealth. He uses the stolen money to pay his debts and rise in local society. But, fifteen years after his crime, his guilt drives him to hallucination: believing he can hear his victim's sleighbells outside the inn, he sleeps, dreams of being tried and convicted of the murder, and dies without his family ever knowing the source of their wealth and his guilt.

Based on the nineteenth-century melodrama by French writers Erckmann-Chatrian, which had been adapted for the Australian stage by director Lincoln, the story was a popular one for early film, and was adapted again in 1935. This film (like the 1935 one) is now lost.

Described in contemporary newspapers as a pictorial representation of the song.

Set in Italy, Called Back is based on a play, which was itself adapted from a novel by Hugh Conway.

Dr Ceneri gives money to support Garibaldi, including money meant for his orphaned niece and nephew Pauline and Anthony. When they grow up, they learn of what he did with the money, and Anthony is killed by the villainous Macari. This is seen by Pauline, who goes insane, and the blind Gilbert Vaughan. Vaughan regains his sight, Pauline regains her sanity, and they are married while Macari is arrested.

While working the California goldfields, Will Gordin is falsely accused of murder and is about to be lynched when his girlfriend rides to the rescue.

Finding his brother out in an attempted murder but unwilling to expose him for the sake of the family name, Jack Drayton departs for Australia under the assumed name Jack Marston. In Melbourne, he falls in love with a bookmaker's daughter, wins the Melbourne Cup, and attracts the unwanted attentions of the murderous blackmailer Fletcher.