[George Malins Home Movies: Reel 16]

George William Malins (1910–2007) was an amateur filmmaker who made home movies in Australia and overseas from the 1940s to 1970s. According to his daughter, George was ‘optimistic, happy and enthusiastic’, an outlook reflected in his films which are a history of home life and a love of travel.

George came to Australia from England as a young man by way of the merchant navy, after having seen South America and some of Asia. He met his future wife Sybil, who was impressed by George’s world travels and his dreams for the future.

The family lived in the Melbourne suburb of North Balwyn, spending their summers camping at Wye River on the Victorian coast often with extended family and friends.

George and Sybil must have shared a sense of adventure as they eventually sold the family home and sailed on the ‘SS Orontes’ to England, travelling around Britain for two years.

The George Malins Home Movie Collection was donated to ACMI by the creator’s daughter, Ruth Hargrave. The films were made on 16mm film.

A short film of a road trip to Albany, Western Australia, including a visit to the whale processing station, in operation at the time of the film. The Cheynes Beach Whaling Station, located at Frenchman Bay in King George Sound, east of Albany, operated from 1952 to 1978 and was the last operating whaling station in Australia.

Selected highlights list:
00:00:02:00 kangaroo in open bushland with gumtrees in the background, filmed at dusk or dawn
00:00:18:00 men working on the whale processing station, cutting large pieces of a whale carcass and hosing down the deck
00:01:06:00 a signpost pointing to ‘Albany (21)’ in one direction and ‘Whaling Station (1)’ in the other, with the coastline in the background
00:01:15:00 view from inside the front windscreen of a vehicle driving along the road, leaving Western Australia; a sign gradually appears reading ‘State Border, Come Again to Western Australia’
00:01:36:00 what appears to be a 1950s model Bedford camper van driving down the road through swirls of dust