A once long-lost piece of New Zealand film which marked the arrival of Hollywood on these shores is being revived with a contemporary soundtrack. Scott Kara reports.
Hollywood came to New Zealand back in the 1920s in search of sweeping landscapes and exotic natives to film - and 1929 silent movie Under the Southern Cross had it all.
There are action-packed fight scenes filmed on volcanic White Island, an abundance of "friendly and photogenic" Maori doing kapa
haka, and a love triangle of a plot.
"The fact it was an all-Maori cast was pretty extraordinary," says Diane Pivac of the NZ Film Archive, who is an expert on films from this era, "and the fight on White Island is quite something."
One of these friendly, and quite striking faces, was a young Maori girl by the name of Witarina Mitchell who starred as the lovely Miro. It's safe to say Mitchell, along with Dale Austen, from the 1928 film The Bush Cinderella, were New Zealand's first movie starlets.
Under the Southern Cross, the brainchild of American adventurer-turned-film director, Alexander Markey (more on this colourful character later), is a "Maori folk drama"-meets-Romeo and Juliet type tale about the warring tribes of Ariki and Watee.
It tells the story of chief Pakura of Ariki who in an attempt to broker a peace deal offers his daughter Miro in marriage to Watee prince Patiti. But wait, there's a twist, because to win Miro, Patiti must take out the "Contest of Spears" against Rangi of Ariki.
In this year's Film Festival the movie gets a rare showing, and to give the film a contemporary spin, musicians Warren Maxwell (of Trinity Roots and Little Bushman), Himiona Grace, and Maaka McGregor have composed a soundtrack to play live with the film.
The remarkable thing about Under the Southern Cross is that it was missing for around 50 years.
"It was lost for a long, long time," says Pivac. But in London in 1980 British film historian Kevin Brownlow, who is renowned for rescuing and restoring many silent films, discovered a copy of the film, which had been renamed The Dragon's Pit.
He contacted the Film Archive, which back then had only just been established, and arrangements were made for the film to be repatriated to New Zealand.
Oddly, the film had a number of names, including Taranga (its working title), and Under the Southern Cross when it was released. Another interesting oddity is that the movie was initially released on 35mm film, but the copy Brownlow turned up was on 16mm. "So at some point it was reduced to 16 and that's what came back to us - so there's no known 35mm print of this film anywhere in the world. What we've got is as good as it gets."
With the film back in New Zealand, the then director of the archive at the time, Jonathan Dennis, set about finding Mitchell, its star. After filming Under the Southern Cross Mitchell chose not to pursue an acting career, which is probably just as well, according to Pivac, because there wasn't much work around with the next feature film in New Zealand not shot until 1938.
Mitchell had gone on to be Maori politician Sir Apirana Ngata's secretary, a founding member of Kohanga Reo, and after Dennis tracked her down she became the Film Archive's kaumatua, travelling the world promoting the archive's early Maori collection.
The last screening of Under the Southern Cross - apart from a private screening at the archive last year - was in Rotorua at her 100th birthday.
"She was a truly phenomenal and inspiring woman," says Pivac of Mitchell who died in 2007 aged 101.
And then there was Markey, who rather than being inspiring could best be described as colourful. He initially came to New Zealand in 1925 trumpeting a contraption called Dr Abrams Cancer Cure Machine. Pivac says while his medical advice didn't go down too well he was captivated by New Zealand's landscape and Maori traditions.
"He was no film-maker but convinced Universal to back him and in February 1928 he and a crew started shooting."
But by July he had shot far more film than he should have and had only told half the story. So Markey was called back to the US by Universal who charged his assistant, Lew Collins, with finishing the film - which is why Collins is credited as director.
Pivac says because the 1920s was a time when Hollywood was looking for something new, in terms of landscape, fauna and people to film, there was a lot of interest in New Zealand.
"So Markey certainly cashed in on that."
Not that he was exploitative because Pivac believes he was genuinely passionate about New Zealand and the Maori people.
"We are so lucky Markey came down here to make these films. While today we might cringe at certain aspects of it, it did give the world a view of New Zealand; it proved that film-making could be done here; and it had an international release, unlike a lot of the other early films that were made here. And New Zealand has a history for being a location for foreign film-makers, and you could say that started from here."
Under the Southern Cross was not the only film made around this time. Hinemoa, a 1914 film, is regarded as New Zealand's first feature -"However, it's lost. It's long gone. The archive has never seen it" - and there were a number of films made in the 1920s by director Rudall Hayward, including 1925's Rewi's Last Stand and 1927's The Te Kooti Trail (the latter of which starred Patiti Warbrick who played Patiti in Southern Cross). Also, Markey returned in 1930 to shoot Hei Tiki in and around Lake Taupo.
"But the fact [Under the Southern Cross] has an all-Maori cast makes it pretty special, and it's really special in terms of it existing in its complete form because we don't have a lot of [complete] films from this period."
Musician Warren Maxwell was not familiar with the film until the idea of creating a soundtrack came about. But he loved it. "It's funny, it takes you through all the emotions today's blockbusters do.
"There's action, comedy, drama, and the hero and villain and the love triangle.
"There's one scene where it's like a game to the death, a bit of gladiator stuff, and they've built this wall out of manuka, like the Chinese do with their scaffolding, and the whole tribe is standing on it and it's swaying ... OSH would have a field day," he laughs.
What also struck Maxwell was how the kapa haka the actors did in the 1920s film differs from today.
"They were less formal, and it was an insight into how Maori have changed. And the funny thing for me was imagining this American director sitting back, with his big megaphone, saying, 'Okay, when you poke your tongues out, do it with more emphasis'," he jokes in a loud American accent. "Because the actors were just going for it. And Maori are an entertaining culture. We don't just eat each other, you know. We put on a good show too.
"And you can see that in their performances as well."
For the soundtrack, Maxwell and his musical cohorts drew on these performances for inspiration and all agreed what was needed was to do something different from what was expected.
"You know, not like the Charlie Chaplin kind of stuff."
He's not giving too much away, but they use everything from a bandsaw and synthesisers to taonga puoro and electronic beats to conjure up the soundtrack.
"We take the audience on a journey without taking too much of the focus off the story."
Pivac admits Under the Southern Cross is very rarely screened, and part of the reason is because it's hard to watch. From her perspective, matching silent films with contemporary music is key to making these "jerky and scratchy" old movies accessible to modern audiences.
"What is fantastic is the guys are playing with the actors. They really bring out the joy that they had in filming this thing in 1928. They are respectful of the images, but they have a lot of fun and they are quite free in their interpretation. It's very much the 20th century meets the 21st century which is a really nice collision."
LOWDOWN
What: Under the Southern Cross (aka The Dragon's Pit, Taranga, The Devil's Pit)
When: July 10, 5.15pm, Sky City Theatre
