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Frank Morris
Frank Morris. 15 May 2024

The Big Fight: Film shows how Darcy becomes champion!

 


Les Darcy pulled out all the stops. He was now Australia’s Middleweight Champion.

The Star Theatre, at Bondi Junction, Sydney, supplied the “only action” with an advertisement for the filmed fight between Les Darcy and Eddie McGoorty that promised 15 rounds of excitement.

Les Darcy later became middleweight champion of the world, and like Lionel Rose, he was under 20 years of age when he won the title.

In those days Australia wasn’t slow in singing the praises of a national hero; and, consequently, it wasn’t long before a film tribute made its debut. 


Main: Secretary-manager of City Tattersalls, Gus Brown, with a portrait of the legendary Les Darcy in the 1980s. The portrait was donated to the club in 1950.
 

At Waddington’s Majestic Theatre, Sydney, Les Darcy - Heart of a Champion, was to prove that feature scores the number one attraction of the year.

 According to the publicity, it showed how “pluck and determination, together with hard work and straight living,” will win through. His next job was handling dynamite, followed by a try-out with Dave Smith at Maitland Stadium.

Les’s ultimate arrival in Sydney and his becoming world middleweight champion, were the highlights of the film. A fortnight after Darcy’s tribute the Crystal Palace, Sydney, featured the film version of Arthur Wright’s non-boxing prize-winning playThe Loyal Rebel.
 

The portrait up close.
 

Produced by Australasian Films, it starred Reynolds Denniston, Maisie Carte and Charles Villiers. According to the newspaper advertisement, it was set “in the roaring days of ’54, when hearts beat high, and the hand grasped true.”

Critics hailed it as the best and most advanced example of Australian film production. The narrative was coherent, the actors were “capital” and there were excellent photographic effects.

“With a combination of drama an Australian history, this provided a film that was worthy of the highest praise.” 

<< Adapted by Frank Morris from The Australian Screen: A Pictorial History, 1976.

 

Les Darcy fights his way

 


 

Remember when …

 

Some dogs make history!

Nearly 80 years guarding his master’s lunch, The Dog on the Tuckerbox “five miles from Gundagai”, in NSW, can finally rest easy. The dog has been heritage listed. Inspired by a bullock driver’s poem and later immortalised in song, the bronze statue was unveiled by the then Prime Minister Joseph Lyons at Snake Gully, Hume Highway, in 1932. It celebrates the life of a mythical drover dog that loyally guarded his owner’s tuckerbox until death. The poem Bullocky Bill by Bowyang Yorker was first printed in 1857. A song by Jack O’Hagan, Where the Dog sits on the Tuckerbox, was published in 1932.

Adapted by Frank Morris. Story by Harvey Renan, Sydney Morning Herald.
 

British beauty Christine Keeler dies

Christine Keeler, who was at the heart of the “Profumo Affair in 1963, died in 2018. She was 75. The scandal ended Profumo’s career and contributed to the end of the Tory government the following year. - Frank Morris.

 

Citizen rights for Aboriginal soldiers

“As many as 1000 Aboriginal digger served in the Great War,” says Frank Morris, in a 2014 series of the article on WW1, “many of whom lost their lives. He says, “They were the forgotten. Forces who were responsible for this group and say the number – 1000 – ‘is contentious’. The list of indigenous diggers’ name was retrieved from thousands of names given to a high-profile politician in the late 1970s.


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