[John Anderson Home Movies: Reel 26]

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This film was originally made using 16mm film.

This film shows a family holiday to sunny Surfers Paradise, Queensland. The family visit the theme parks Ski Land and Marineland, which combined to become Sea World in 1972. The film features some great holiday footage of the motel pool, theme parks and the beach at Surfers Paradise, along with notable 70s fashion.

Selected highlights list:
00:00:07:00 motel sign ‘Surfside 6: Holiday – Overnight’
00:00:19:00 kids playing in the motel pool
00:03:07:00 enjoying milkshakes and icy-poles
00:03:27:00 on a chairlift
00:04:35:00 water skiiers doing tricks at Ski Land
00:07:06:00 a pyramid of people on water skis carrying flags reading ‘Ski Land’
00:08:28:00 dolphins performing tricks in a pool at Marineland
00:09:33:00 a trainer and a girl in a bikini holding out a fish on a platform over the pool for a dolphin who leaps into the air; the trainer pushes the girl into the water
00:11:10:00 riding on three-person bikes called ‘Silly Cycles’
00:12:26:00 The Sands Hotel
00:13:53:00 rainbow lorikeets
00:14:30:00 riding on a toy train around the park grounds
00:15:00:00 boarding an ANSETT plane