The Sick Stockrider

The film presents the verses of the poem one by one, separated by illustrated tableaux. It tells the story about a dying stockman.

• Roy Redgrave
• Godfrey Cass as the stock rider's mate
• George Bryant as the stockrider
• Beryl Bryant
• Tom Cannam
• Ward Lyons

Adam Lindsay Gordon's ballad was first published in 1870, the year of his death. The movie was the first from Lincoln-Cass Films, established in 1913.[6] It was shot at the company's studio in Elsternwick, Melbourne and near Healesvulle. It was finished by August 1913[7]

The cast performed a show for the people of Healesville during production.[8]

It was the first of the company's film's released "though it was not the largest of their productions, they thought they had something which would appeal to all present. They were Australians, and hopeful of interesting the public in Australian pictures."[9]

Screenings were often accompanied by a lecturer who would recite the poem.[10]

The movie screened to thirty full houses in Victoria. It has been described as "solid and stagey with shaking canvas sets, an exaggerated alcoholic scene and a bull-goring sequence in which an actor tumble turns across an animal all too obviously at rest."[11]

Contemporary reports said it was a box office success.[12]

A contemporary review said that:

The views wore very life-like and distinct, and illustrated the stockrider reeling from lm saddle, and as his mate tended him beneath the trees, recalling the scenes of his past life 'wheeling through the wild scrub the cattle in the wood,' Yarding the cattle gave opportunity for a fine and animated bush scene, with exhibitions of buckjumping, and was followed by the exciting chase of the bush ranger, 'Starlight.' and his gang, by the troopers' and bush men, the Tjnsrl ranaer at bay, and the struggle in the watercourse.. The lights and shades, the tragedies and comedies of bush life, were followed by the death of the stock rider, with the sturdy bush children romping over his crave — altogether a very fine and vivid production, which elicited a round of applause.[9]

Another review said:

The only drawback to it is that there is no connected 'story ' in the poem, only a series of incidents of bush life, so that the attention of the audience cannot be oarried to a culminating climax; but that the feature which does not apply to other films by the same company, where the dramatic interest is sustained through out.[13]

The Bulletin said that the film was:

A sure draw on the bills, but not the easiest of themes for picture treatment...The incidents of the sick one's old colonial days were arranged for interpolation as the yarn proceeded. The death scene and the kiddies romping on the “grassy mound” of the deceased. were, easy things to finish up with. All the.pictures are as good as the best imported, indeed, the children, frisking about the grave is a fine photo graphic effort. .When the “Sick Stockrider” is shown—it has had two successful innings at Hoyt’s —the poem is recited by Roy Redgrave, ’ who gets his best effects when the Stockrider and his mate are on the screen, , and Bryant’s lips seem to move in unison with the ,verse. There’s a wide field , of Australian verse and short-story illustration , open to the Lincoln-Cass exploiters, and they are working steadily at it. Pretty soon they will have a big repertoire of .popular recitation pictures, and the fat-headed section *of the public that can’t be bothered to read anything in a book will have a light literary education forced upon it.[14]

• The Sick Stockrider on IMDb
• The Sick Stockrider at National Film and Sound Archive
• Original text of The Sick Stockrider by Adam Lindsay Gordon
• The Sick Stockrider at AustLit