[John Anderson Home Movies: Reel 1]

John Robert (Jack) Anderson (1924–1993) was a film distributor, cinema owner and photographer as well as an enthusiastic filmmaker in and around Ballarat in Victoria. Jack developed an interest in film very early at cinema shows and gained his first film experience while serving in WWII, photographing wartime conditions and aircraft involved in the defence of Australia’s north, including the aftermath of the Darwin bombing raid.

It was whilst working in photographic studios that Jack met his future wife, business partner and fellow film enthusiast Marie Bourke. Starting out by hiring films and showing them around regional Victoria, Jack and Marie established cinemas such as the Astor Cinema in Ararat, Bell Post Hill Drive-In in Geelong and the Southern and Northern Drive-Ins and Vegas 70 Cinema in Ballarat. In the 1970s, the Anderson family acquired and restored the Regent Theatre in Ballarat which would then become the first multiplex in regional Victoria.

Along the way, Jack filmed his family and friends activities and outings, horse racing, Ballarat street scenes, motorcycle scrambling and travel scenes on the road – an unusual and wonderful look at life in regional Victoria during the 1940s to the 1960s.

This film shows an outing to the local horse races, a visit to a fast flowing river and some street scenes in Ballarat in the 1940s.

This film was originally made using 9.5mm film.

Selected highlights list:
00:00:12:00 horses racing on a country race track
00:00:35:00 racing official on horseback
00:00:51:00 ‘S E Chamberlain’ bookmaker bag is sighted in the background while an older gentleman in a three piece suit and hat ambles past the camera
00:01:10:00 a group of women at the races wearing hats including a scarf knotted at the front in a 1940s style
00:01:22:00 a man gestures to the camera that he has lost his bet
00:02:01:00 advertising sign for ‘Longhurst Quality Bread’
00:02:15:00 a travelling tram, tram tracks, cars and trucks on Ballarat streets, including Sturt Street
00:02:25:00 a service station called Atlantic Garage
00:02:30:00 two men walking around a turbulent waterway
00:03:03:00 Ballarat rooftops from a high vantage point
00:03:50:00 Ballarat street scene focussing on some people walking toward the camera wearing good examples of fashionable 1940s style clothes
00:04:08:00 Ballarat Town Hall
00:04:10:00 a main shopping street in Ballarat showing a ‘Myer Store’ verandah