Editing The Story of the Kelly Gang (section)

==Origins==
Australian [[bushranger]] [[Ned Kelly]] had been executed only twenty-six years before ''The Story of the Kelly Gang'' was made, and Ned's mother Ellen and younger brother Jim were still alive at the time of its release. The film was made during an era when plays about bushrangers were extremely popular, and there were, by one estimate, six contemporaneous theatre companies giving performances of the Kelly gang story.<ref name = Sally/> Historian [[Ian Jones (author)|Ian Jones]] suggests bushranger stories still had an "indefinable appeal" for Australians in the early 20th century.<ref>Ian Jones (1995) ''Ned Kelly; A short life.'' Thomas C. Lothian, Melbourne. p. 337. {{ISBN|0 85091 631 3}}</ref> [[Stephen Vagg]] wrote that "bushranger films are their own, uniquely Australian genre, deriving from local history and literary tradition rather than simply copying American tropes... ''Kelly Gang''... , was adapted from an Australian stage play, based on an Australian historical event, and featured many traditions and tropes that are grounded more in Australian than American literary traditions – miscarriage of justice, Protestant-Catholic sectarianism, class warfare, feisty "squatter’s daughters", etc."<ref>{{cite magazine|magazine=Filmink|first=Stephen|last=Vagg|title=50 Meat Pie Westerns|date=24 July 2019}}</ref>