Those Dashing McDonagh Sisters Australia’s first female filmmaking team

The trailblazing McDonagh sisters were the first women in Australia to form their own film production company. Between 1926 and 1933, this remarkable trio produced four feature films and a number of documentaries. The youngest, Paulette, was one of only five women film directors in the world. Phyllis produced, art directed, and conducted publicity. And the eldest, Isabel, under her stage name Marie Lorraine, acted in all the female leads. Together, the sisters transformed Australian cinema’s preoccupations with the outback and the bush—and what they mocked as ‘haystack movies’—into a thrilling, urban modernity. In Those Dashing McDonagh Sisters, Mandy Sayer reveals the sisters’ remarkable story, from daughters of a respected Sydney surgeon with a love of theatre and the arts, to their first feature film, Those Who Love (1926), an instant hit, to their controversial final film, Two Minutes Silence (1933). Today, their most famous feature, The Cheaters, is frequently screened at international film festivals around the world.

Mandy Sayer is an award-winning novelist and narrative non-fiction writer. Her work has been published in the UK, the USA, Brazil, Germany, Japan and China. Sayer’ s honours include the Vogel Award, the National Biography Award, the South Australian Premier’ s Award for Non-Fiction, the Age Book of the Year for Non-fiction and the Davitt Award for Young Adult Fiction. She was the recipient of the 2021 Hazel Rowley Literary Fellowship, which supported her research and writing of Those Dashing McDonagh Sisters. She lives in Sydney with her husband, writer Louis Nowra, and their rescue dog, Basil.

Trailer [introduction] 1. Upstairs, downstairs 1816-1897 2. The urban playground 1898-1909 3. Those girls are going to do something outstanding one day 1909-1920 4. The mansion by the river 1920-1924 5. Orphans 1924-1925 6. Living and breathing as one 1924-1926 7. Camera rolling 1925-1926 8. Wild and carefree 1926-1927 9. The sisters should always get what they want 1927-1928 10. Two decent proposals 1928 11. Magic and miracles 1929 12. Trouble with talkies 1929 13. The crash 1929-1930 14. Always do what you are afraid to do 1930-1934 15. Cinderella’ s choice 1933-1934 16. Inside the outback 1934-1936 17. Desperately seeking sisters 1936-1941 18. Spliced together again 1941-1956 19. Isabel rising 1957-1965 20. Second coming 1966-1975 21. Curtain call 1976-1982 Filmography Bibliography