The cultural success of the movie soon prompted a backlash, according to the National Film and Sound Archive. The film was banned from the towns of Benalla and Wangaratta, which apparently still had ties to the Kelly gang. But the movie’s influence continued to spread — a month after those bans, the film reportedly inspired five school children in Ballarat to steal from a photography studio and hold up other kids at gunpoint.
Unfortunately for such a historically important document, no complete copy of the film exists today. By the mid-40s, the film had gone missing, like so many other movies from the first three decades of filmmaking (via Mental Floss). Short fragments from the film were discovered in the 1970s and early ’80s (some film reels were found while cleaning old Australian houses), but nothing substantial. Then, in 2006, researchers uncovered the longest fragment of “The Story of the Kelly Gang” ever discovered.
Today, about a quarter of the film has been found and restored. But if you watch the incomplete movie, it might seem a bit strange to modern eyes. Not only is it a silent film, almost the entire story uses wide shots, mimicking the feel of theater. It speaks to how old this early movie is — the “screen grammar” of closeup shots and quicker edits wouldn’t be popularized until at least five years later, when D.W. Griffith released the short film “The Lonedale Operator” (via Film Comment).
