Sweet Nell of Old Drury is a 1911 Australian silent film

Silent film

A silent film is a film with no synchronized recorded sound, especially with no spoken dialogue. In silent films for entertainment the dialogue is transmitted through muted gestures, pantomime and title cards...

 directed by Raymond Longford

Raymond Longford

Raymond Longford was a prolific Australian film director, writer, producer and actor during the silent era. Longford was a major director of the silent film era of the Australian cinema. He formed a production team with Lottie Lyell...

 about the relationship between Nell Gwynne and King Charles II

Charles II of England

Charles II was monarch of the three kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland.Charles II's father, King Charles I, was executed at Whitehall on 30 January 1649, at the climax of the English Civil War...

. It is based on the 1900 play of the same name by Paul Kester

Paul Kester

Paul Kester was a U.S. playwright.He was the younger brother of Vaughan Kester and a cousin of William Dean Howells....

. Shooting began in September 1911, with the direction originally done by George Musgrove

George Musgrove

George Musgrove was an English-born Australian theatre producer.-Early life:Musgrove was born at Surbiton, England, the son of Thomas John Watson Musgrove, an accountant, and his wife, Fanny Hodson, an actress and sister of Georgiana Rosa Hodson who married William Saurin Lyster...

, but he soon realised he was out of his depthm, and Longford – who had done the screenplay – took over. It was the only film from stage star Nellie Stewart

Nellie Stewart

Nellie Stewart was an Australian actress and singer, known as "Our Nell" and "Sweet Nell".Born into a theatrical family, Stewart began acting as a child. As a young woman, she built a career playing in operetta and Gilbert and Sullivan operas. In the mid-1880s, she began a long relationship with...

, whose fee was apparently ₤1,000 – half the budget. The movie screened in cinemas for six years, but no copies of it appear to exist today, and it is considered a lost film

Lost film

A lost film is a feature film or short film that is no longer known to exist in studio archives, private collections or public archives such as the Library of Congress, where at least one copy of all American films are deposited and catalogued for copyright reasons...

.

Cast

• Nellie Stewart
  Nellie Stewart
  Nellie Stewart was an Australian actress and singer, known as "Our Nell" and "Sweet Nell".Born into a theatrical family, Stewart began acting as a child. As a young woman, she built a career playing in operetta and Gilbert and Sullivan operas. In the mid-1880s, she began a long relationship with...
  
   as Nell Gwynne
• Augustus Neville as King Charles II
  Charles II of England
  Charles II was monarch of the three kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland.Charles II's father, King Charles I, was executed at Whitehall on 30 January 1649, at the climax of the English Civil War...
  
  
• Charles Lawrence as Lord Jeffries
• Stewart Clyde as Lord Rochester
• W. Ladd as Lord Lovelace
• Leslie Woods as Sir Robert Fairfax
• W. Edgeworth as Lacey, Lord Jeffries' servant
• Walter Bastin as Percival, a strolling player
• Fred Pettit as Rollins, a strolling player

External links

• Sweet Nell of Old Drury at National Film and Sound Archive
  National Film and Sound Archive
  The National Film and Sound Archive is Australia’s audiovisual archive, responsible for developing, preserving, maintaining, promoting and providing access to a national collection of audiovisual materials and related items...