The Betrayer

The Betrayer is a 1921 Australian-New Zealand film from director Beaumont Smith about an inter-racial romance between a white Australian and a Māori girl.

The Betrayer
Original newspaper advertisement
Directed byBeaumont Smith
Produced byBeaumont Smith
Written byBeaumont Smith
StarringStella Southern
CinematographyLacey Percival
Production
company
Beaumont Smith Productions
Distributed byBeaumont Smith
Release date
19 March 1921[1]
Running time
5,500 feet
CountryAustralia
New Zealand
LanguageSilent

It is considered a lost film.[2]

Plot

Australian Stephen Manners (Cyril Mackay) travels to New Zealand and falls in love with a Māori girl. He goes home and she dies giving birth to their daughter, Iwa. Iwa is raised by her grandfather Hauraki (Mita), who explains to Manners what happens when he returns to New Zealand twenty years later. Manners decides to take Iwa (now played by Stella Southern) back to Sydney, Australia, but doesn't tell her that he is her father.

Travelling with Manners is John Barris (John Cosgrove), who Hauraki tells on his deathbed that Iwa's real father actually is a missionary, not Manners. Barris keeps this information to himself and makes advances on Iwa, which are stopped by Manners.

Iwa tells Manners she is in love with him, so Manner explains he is her father and she returns to Rotarua. Barris' wife (Bernice Vere) tells Manners the truth so he returns to New Zealand and is reunited with Iwa, this time as a romantic couple.[3]

Cast
  • Stella Southern as Iwa
  • Cyril Mackay as Stephen Manners
  • John Cosgrove as John Barris
  • Marie D'Alton as Mrs Manners
  • Mita, Chief of the Arawa as Hauraki
  • Bernice Vere as Eleanor Barris
  • Maggie/Bella Papakura
  • Guide Susan
  • Herbert Lee
  • Raymond Hatton
  • Dunstan Webb

Production

The film was short on location in Rotorua and Auckland, New Zealand, at Coogee Beach and the Wentworth Hotel in Sydney.[4] The cast and crew amounted to about twelve people.[5] Among them was Rudall Hayward who Smith hired as his assistant and later went on to become one of New Zealand's most prolific directors.[6]

Most stories of inter-racial romance at this time ended unhappily but this one finished with a white man marrying a Māori woman.[7]

Release

The movie was originally entitled Our Bit o' the World but this was changed out of fear audiences would think it was a travelogue.[8]

In 1922, Smith re-edited the film for the British market, adding a racecourse scene and a chase between a car and a train, probably taken from his earlier movie Desert Gold (1919). He retitled the movie The Maid of Maoriland, a title under which the film was re-released in Australia.[4][9]

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References
  1. "Hoyt's De Luxe and Lyceum". The Argus. Melbourne: National Library of Australia. 21 March 1921. p. 8. Retrieved 19 May 2012.
  2. Ross Cooper,"Filmography: Beaumont Smith", Cinema Papers, March–April 1976 p333
  3. ""THE BETRAYER."". The Register. Adelaide: National Library of Australia. 18 May 1921. p. 9. Retrieved 18 May 2012.
  4. Andrew Pike and Ross Cooper, Australian Film 1900–1977: A Guide to Feature Film Production, Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1998, 104.
  5. "AUSTRALIAN DRAMA AT WEST'S". The Register. Adelaide: National Library of Australia. 26 May 1921. p. 8. Retrieved 19 May 2012.
  6. L. R. Shelton. 'Hayward, Rudall Charles Victor – Biography', from the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography. Te Ara – the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, updated 1-Sep-10 accessed 22 November 2012
  7. Helen Martin and Sam Edwards New Zealand Film, 1912-1996. (1997) Auckland: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-558336-1 p28
  8. ""THE BETRAYER."". The Register. Adelaide: National Library of Australia. 30 May 1921. p. 3. Retrieved 21 January 2012.
  9. "ENTERTAINMENTS". The West Australian. Perth: National Library of Australia. 18 February 1922. p. 10. Retrieved 19 May 2012.
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