Rupert Kathner (1904–1954) was an Australian film director best known for newsreels and low-budget films. He worked with Alma Brooks, an ex-barmaid, who co-produced, operated the camera, edited, co-scripted and acted in their films.[1] Kathner and Brooks were also "shady con artists and fugitives from the law",[2] sometimes described as the "Bonnie and Clyde" of the Australian film industry.
Kathner was born in Adelaide and educated at St Peter's College. He studied art under Hans Heysen and became a sketch artist. He broke into the film industry in the early 1930s by working on set designs. His first movie was Phantom Gold (1937).[3]
Kathner and Brooks achieved their first success with their "shocking [for the time] newsreels".[4] The most popular of these was about the unsolved murder case, The Pyjama Girl Murder. The newsreel was about to be distributed internationally when World War II broke out.
Kathner and Brook's features were essentially B-grade movies, and dealt with typically Australian topics such as Ned Kelly and horse-racing.
They were often in trouble with the law.[5]
Kathner died of a brain haemorrhage in 1954.[6]
Hunt Angels (2006) is a feature-length documentary which re-enacts Kathner and Brooks' "movie-making spree that took on the Hollywood barons, a corrupt police Commissioner and the (so-called) cultural cringe, all in their passionate pursuit to make Australian films. On the run from police across thousands of miles, they would stop at almost nothing to get their films made."[7] Hunt Angels "uses an innovative digital composite technique whereby the characters come alive in the real world of Sydney in the 30s and 40s".[8]
The film was directed by Alec Morgan. It stars Ben Mendelsohn and Victoria Hill, playing the roles of Kathner and Brooks, and includes interviews with "real" people such as actor Bud Tingwell, filmmaker/distributor Andrew Pike, and Kathner's son, Paul F. Kathner.
Alma Brooks was an Australian filmmaker, best known for her association with Rupert Kathner.[11]
Although rarely mentioned in contemporary publications, she was a key partner in Kathner's filmmaking endeavours from the 1930s until his death in 1954. She co-produced, operated the camera, edited, co-scripted and acted in his films, and also participated in Kathner's less legal endeavours.[12] [13]
This included involvement in a legal case in 1942 where she and Kathner were accused of defrauding someone of unsound mind.[14] [15] [16] [17]
In 1944 they were in legal trouble again being charged with conspiracy to defraud investors of a proposed movie Kelly of Tobruk but were acquitted.[18] [19] [20] In 1940, Brooks when working with an editor, was involved in a fight at a film production company.[21]
She was played by Victoria Hill in the film Hunt Angels (2006).[23]