AustLit

The second Australian film to be based on the real-life British criminal John Babbacombe Lee, whose attempted execution by hanging failed three times, before his sentence was commuted to life imprisonment.

This version is a re-make of Philip Lytton's 1912 film, The Life Story of John Lee: or, the Man They Could Not Hang, for which Arthur Sterry and fellow producer Frederick Haldane had held the distribution rights.

Contemporary reports indicate that this version of the story included additional scenes of John Lee's childhood and was significantly more pious than Lytton's original.

The story of John Babbacombe Lee was filmed again in 1934 by Raymond Longford.

'In the picture there are many additions, both to the book and the play. First the Waybacks are seen on their selection, and then on a visit to Sydney, in which Dads and Mums take a trip to Bondi, and see girls high-diving and sun-bathing. As the comedy develops the producer contrives to intensify interest by keeping before the spectator different threads of the story at the one time. For instance, the audience sees Mums and Tilly at the fortune-teller's, and then Dads and Charlie Lyons with the girls in the surf. Parallel with these two changing scenes are shown the quarrels and lights in the yard of the house occupied by the Waybacks in Sydney, and the development of the love affairs of the hero and heroine away in the country.'

Source:

'The Waybacks', The Advertiser, 3 June 1918, p.9