Christmas Time: Fatty Finn brings back hilarious moments of the Billy Goat Derby!

The kids silent movie classic of all time, The Kid Stakes, produce in 1927, was made as a focus on Sydney as it was during the twenties. Yes, There were Billy Goat Derby’s pulled by real dinky-di goats and brimming with sound effects, music and advertisement from the period.

Old Sydney lives again! This epic, with its ragged urchins, its brawling, free-fisted waterfront larrikins are back. 

Inimitable Fatty Finn (main photo), Australia’s favourite son, has brough together that zany, laugh-a- minute tug-war movie about a billy goat derby to near perfection - The Kid Stakes. 

The long running cartoon strip of Fatty Finn was created by Sydney artist Syd Nicholls in 1923. The strip came a halt when Nicholis died in May 1977. 

Right in the thick of the comedy going on, there was rivalry between gangs: Fatty and Bruiser. Bruiser was ‘king’ of the big kids; and could not been beaten. 
 

Fatty Finn gets a dressing down from Bruiser Murphy.
 

But Fatty soon realised that triumph over Bruiser needed more development and strategy. 

The climax of the Kid Stakes takes a picturesque twist: the hilarious and knock-about running of the Billy Goat Derby. However, just prior to the running of the event, someone had set Fatty’s goat scott free! 

Enter Hector, billy goat! It was a well-known billy goat full of vigour.  Hector was flown to the race that Bruiser had tried to rig. 

Unfortunately for poor Hector, the plane did a roll-over on Centennial Park River and Hector falls into the water. 

Made in the Woolloomooloo-Potts Point area -- around the McElhone Stairs, Judge St, Cowper Wharf Roadway and the old fish market; while the airport scenes were photographed in Moore Park and Mascot Airfield. 
 

One of the posters of the epic 1927 The Kid Stakes, based on a well-known cartoon of Fatty Finn.
 

Fatty and his gang ran for over 50 years in newspapers and magazines.
 

However, the Billy Goat Derby was shot in Rockhampton, Queensland. When 60 goats and an audience of 6000-odd people turned up the crowd let out a victory roar as good old Hector won the Derby. 

Mind you, the goat racing made this epic an affair to remember.  

Tal Ordell, the director, who appeared as the radio announcer covering the goat race, does it with it expertise and veracity. 

“Ordell showed unusual skill in the translation of the new medium of comics in-live action film,” writes comic buff and collector John Ryan. 

Fatty Finn was played by Robin Ordell.
 

FRANK MORRIS: THIS 1927, FILM HAD BEEN LOST FOR MANY YEARS UNTIL A SYDNEY NEWSREEL THEATRE OPERATOR DISCOVERED IT AND CUT THE ORIGINAL DOWN TO A 20-MINUTE VERSION. A SYDNEY UNIVERSITY TEAM OBTAINED THE FILM AND ALL THE LEFT-OVER PIECES WERE USED TO RECONSTRUCT THE ORIGINAL FILM YOU ARE ENJOYING. 

The Kids Stakes was remade in 1984. 

<< The Australian Screen by Eric Reade, Lansdowne Press, Melbourne, 1975.

The Kid Stakes! The return of Fatty Finn