The Romance of Maoriland

The Romance of Maoriland
Directed by	Edward T. Brown
Written by	Edward T. Brown
Produced by	Edward T. Brown
Starring	Patch Mason Tom Campbell Ted Coubray
Release date	1936 (1936)
Language	English

The Romance of Maoriland was a 1930 New Zealand film, intended to be New Zealand's first "talkie" film with

’s Coubraytone sound system, though also having intertitles. The film was registered with the Chief Censor on 14 August 1930, but was never released.

Producer, director and script writer Edward T. Brown had purchased some footage from the 1923 film The Birth of New Zealand. Several episodes included pre-European culture, the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi and a robbery and kidnapping in the Gabriel's Gully goldfields. The holdup of a Cobb & Co coach incorporated stock Western clichés according to Sam Edwards; masked robbers, the driver holding his hands high and jewellery ripped from women passengers.

Cast

The cast included Patch Mason, Tom Campbell and apparently Stella Southern as the mother of a boy passenger kidnapped during the holdup episode.

References

• New Zealand Film 1912-1996 by Helen Martin & Sam Edwards p43 (1997, Oxford University Press, Auckland)
  ISBN 019 558336 1