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Satan in Sydney

1918 film by Beaumont Smith

Manuscripts, fine bindings, an engraving plate and preserved performance ephemera
Arts and lettersInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJul 21, 2026
Entity authorityQ7425905 ↗
Source-derived summary

Satan in Sydney is a 1918 Australian melodrama from director Beaumont Smith. It was his first movie which was not about the rural family, the Hayseeds. It is considered a lost film.

Synopsis

Country girl Anne Maxwell is receiving lessons from choir master Karl Krona, who is secretly a German sympathiser. Her step-sister, Betty Benton, tells Anne's father that she overheard Anne arranging to meet up with Krona in private. Mr Maxwell visits the church along with a minister and discovers Krona trying to kiss Anne against her will. Krona is fired from his job and Mr Maxwell tells Anne to leave home. She decides to make her living in Sydney and is followed there by her lover, Will Waybrn, who saves her from a house of ill repute.

War breaks out and Anne decides to become a nurse and serve overseas. Krona shaves off his moustache to pass as a Belgian and establishes an opium den in Chinatown to lure soldiers on the way to the front into deserting.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “Satan in Sydney” as 1918 film by Beaumont Smith. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Satan, Sydney and film.

Editorial reviewA useful identification and reception guide that helps separate the work itself from editions, performances, ownership and later interpretation. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1918—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1918-01-01. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Satan, Sydney and film providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Satan in Sydney”, the useful work is to connect “1918 film by Beaumont Smith” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

Object files, edition statements, performance records and contemporary criticism preserve different stages of the work’s history. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 21, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7425905. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1918.

Critical limits

Later fame can flatten the distinction between original context, subsequent adaptation and institutional collecting history. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.

Best used for
  • Identifying works and editions
  • Tracing reception history
  • Finding collection records
Verify next

The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Satan in Sydney”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Satan in Sydney primary sources, Satan in Sydney archive and Satan research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Satan in Sydney”?
  2. Which edition, object, performance or recording is being described?
  3. How did later circulation or interpretation alter the work’s reception?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Satan in Sydney” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.