[John Anderson Home Movies: Reel 23]

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 presents footage of the day to day workings of a country Victoria cinema –including black-and-white footage of the Mary Poppins premiere in Ballarat – and group sports in rural Victoria.

This film was originally made using 16mm film.

Selected highlights list:
00:00:22:00 black-and-white footage of Mary Poppins opening at Vegas 70 cinema Ballarat
00:00:45:00 glamorous woman arrives in car
00:01:50:00 the snack stand
00:03:58:00 kids blowing up balloons
00:04:20:00 crowds outside the cinema