Strike Me Lucky (1934)

Wissenswertes

Strike Me Lucky is a 1934 Australian comedy musical film starring popular stage comic vaudevillian Roy Rene in his first and only film. It was the fourth feature film from Cinesound Productions but proved a box office disappointment. Director Ken G. Hall claimed it was the only one of his features not to go into profit within a few years of release, although the film eventually covered costs.

Production

In the early 1930s, Roy Rene was one of the most popular stage comics in Australia. Bert Bailey and George Wallace had managed to transfer their on-stage popularity to the screen in a series of films, so Ken G. Hall thought he would try to do the same for Rene. Hall later wrote:

The luck we'd had with our first three films all hitting the jackpot was phenomenal. The odds against getting a second winner after The Selection were high in those still-tough times; but to bring in the third filled our cups to overflowing – and scared us a bit at the same time. That sort of luck just could not last. It didn't.

Hall later said "Roy Rene had been hailed by the press, by journalists — let me stress that — as being the top comedian. Possibly because he was as blue as he was and they could retell his jokes... I am not decrying Roy Rene, the great Mo. He was a very funny man, wonderfully talented. But he wasn’t a “family comic”. You didn’t take the kids."

The movie would be Cinesound's fourth feature film. Hall originally intended to make Robbery Under Arms but was concerned about filming it during winter and so postponed the project, electing to make the Rene film instead. (Robbery Under Arms was not made by Hall.)

The original title of Strike Me Lucky was Swastikas for Luck; it was described as "a musical farce with a semi-serious background". It was to "feature many phases of suburban and bush life in Australia".

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