Trivia / Ned Kelly (1970)

• Box Office Bomb: Budget: $2.5 million. Box office: $808,000.
• Completely Different Title:
  • Argentina: The Kelly Brothers
  • Brazil: The Force Will Be Your Reward
  • Finland: Kelly's Brothers
  • Turkey: Brothers Gang
• Creator Backlash: The film was effectively disowned by Tony Richardson and Mick Jagger, neither of whom attended the London premiere. As late as 1980 Jagger claimed he had never seen the film.
• Fake Australian: Mick Jagger as Ned Kelly.
• The Other Marty: Jagger's girlfriend of the time, Marianne Faithfull, had come to Australia to play Ned's sister, Maggie, but their relationship was breaking up, and she took an overdose of sleeping tablets soon after arrival in Sydney. She was hospitalised in a coma, but recovered and was sent home. She was replaced by a then-unknown Australian actress, Diane Craig, then studying at NIDA.
• Troubled Production: The making of this movie dogged by problems:
  • The film was initially announced in the early 1960s, with Albert Finney and Angela Lansbury in the lead roles. However, British trade union regulations required a mostly British crew, and the cost of putting them up in Australia was more than the British arm of Columbia Pictures was willing to pay. Eventually, Finney and director Karel Reisz dropped out.
  • The project eventually passed on to Tony Richardson, the director of Tom Jones (which had starred Finney). Richardson wanted to cast Ian McKellen as Kelly, but the producers insisted upon casting Rolling Stone Mick Jagger, who was trying to branch out into movies, instead. This caused a stink with the actors' union and some of Kelly's descendants. The latter group also strongly objected to the decision to shoot in New South Wales instead of Victoria (where the real Kelly famously hailed from).
  • Jagger's girlfriend, fellow musician Marianne Faithfull, was cast as Kelly's sister Maggie. However, their relationship was disintegrating and Faithfull was deep into her substance abuse at this point. Immediately after arriving in Sydney, Faithfull took an overdose of sleeping tablets and landed in a coma; she was sent back home upon recovery and was replaced by Diane Craig. (Jagger and Faithfull would break up a few months before the film's release.)
  • The shoot itself saw several accidents, including Jagger being slightly injured by a backfiring pistol, Mark McManus narrowly escaping serious injury in a carriage accident, and several costumes being destroyed by a fire.
  • The film ended up a critical and commercial failure, and was subsequently disowned by Richardson and Jagger, neither of whom attended the premiere in London; as late as 1980, Jagger claimed to have never even watched the film.
• Uncredited Role: Australian playwright Alexander Buzo wrote the final draft of the screenplay. His involvement remains uncredited.
• What Could Have Been: According to Kevin Brownlow, Ian McKellen was originally set to play the lead but the producers went for Mick Jagger.

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