In the 1910s Beaumont Smith decided to cash in on the stage success of On Our Selection with a bunch of comedies about a yokel family, The Hayseeds. When Ken Hall had a huge hit filming Selection in 1932, Smith decided to cash in again, and blew the dust off his Hayseeds IP.
Canny Smith also hooked up with JC Williamsons, the theatrical management who dominated Australian commercial theatre. They (presumably) financed, or at the least "loaned" a lot of their actors who were then appearing in a musical Music in the Air in Sydney. Most notable of these was Cecil Kellaway, a hugely talented South African-Australian comic actor who carved out a niche playing befuddled dads. He was given the role of Dad Hayseed.
The film quite shamelessly rips off the Rudds - Kellaway's Dad has a speech about drought and banks plunked in (which hokey but still would've carried weight in 1933), Tal Ordell's eldest son is horny and stupid and woos another stupid yokel, Kellaway has a wife who doesn't say much and there's a hot youngster who who gets romanced (a "Townleigh" though, not a Hayseed).
The casting isn't quite right - Kellaway is awkward as a hayseed (that speech feels really forced), he's not good as an imitation Bert Bailey; he would be far better as a farmer in It Isn't Done. Tal Ordell seems older than Kellaway. They're better than Arthur Clarke who is the guy the hot daughter romances - he's terribly wet. So too is Shirley Dale, as his love interest.
The play of Selection cross pollinated with stage melodrama (the murder subplot). The Hayseeds feels more cross pollinated with JC Williamsons stage muscials - there's these dancing hikers who come through, and a plot about a girl getting lost in the bush who comes across a mystery man strumming a guitar. It turns out this man is the long lost nephew of a Lord.
Both plots are resolved quickly and lazily - turns out mystery English man took the blame for theft for his relative who is really guilty; that relative dies off screen and confesses clearing his name. And Dad gets out of financial trouble by winning the lottery. There's also a plot involving one of Hayseeds' sons, I think that isn't resolved? I may have to check.
But still the speeches while manufactured have a basis in truth, the film loves Australia, there's fun with Kellaway and Ordell dressing up as Ned Kelly to help Clarke, the financial pressures on people were real, the songs are charmingly odd, there's a Busby Berkley number at the end which is quite good. There's lots to see.
Smith shot it mostly in studio but gets the cast out on Sydney streets to catch a tram. He also did some filming out at Pymble. He had a lot of get-up-and-go, did Smith.
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