Annette Kellerman's 'musical marine fantasy'

In this newsreel excerpt, Annette Kellerman is training her troupe of performers in Sydney for a 'musical marine fantasy' hospital benefit – complete with piano accordion accompaniment.

Almost 20 years after her last film, Venus of the South Seas (1924), Kellerman continues to perform as well as train others for charity shows like this one.

At the end of the newsreel story we see Kellerman dancing one of her unique underwater ballet pieces.

According to the biography written by her sister Marcelle Wooster, Kellerman trained herself to hold her breath underwater for three minutes and twenty seconds at a time.

Excerpt taken from the newsreel Cinesound Review No. 0430.

Notes by Beth Taylor