Springbok Film Co.

Though Thelma Gutsche assumed that the short-lived Springbok Film Co. was “an overseas production firm”, it was probably founded by the Australian-born entrepreneur and showman Rufe Naylor, initially to produce locally-made “topical shorts” to be shown in his Transvaal-based Tivoli picture palaces, but also to provide a home for The Great Kimberley Diamond Robbery (1911), a fictional two-reeler made by R.C.E. Nissen that was touted as South Africa’s first home-grown film drama. The company seems to have fallen by the wayside when Naylor’s financially struggling Africa’s Amalgamated Theatres (A.A.T.) was taken over by I.W. Schlesinger’s African Theatres Trust.

Sources

Gutsche, Thelma - The history and social significance of motion pictures in South Africa 1895-1940

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