[John Anderson Home Movies: Reel 27]

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This film was originally made using 16mm film.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 John and Marie’s honeymoon on Hayman Island in Queensland. They travel up through New South Wales and Queensland, passing through Tamworth, Surfers Paradise and Brisbane, before taking a seaplane to the Whitsundays. The film has excellent footage of summer holidays with friends, fishing, playing tennis, swimming, and exploring the island and resorts.

Selected highlights list:
00:00:03:00 title cards ‘Hayman Island’, ‘Produced and Photographed by John R. Anderson’
00:00:18:00 1950s cars driving down a busy main street
00:01:19:00 kids playing and people swimming at a local pool
00:01:54:00 Tamworth town centre featuring the Tudor Hotel
00:02:05:00 driving down a street lined with jacaranda trees
00:03:04:00 banana plants
00:03:34:00 the exterior of the Café Cathay in Surfers Paradise
00:03:50:00 Brisbane City Hall
00:04:29:00 sign for ‘The Oasis: Queensland’s Most Beautiful Garden’
00:05:00:00 boys on a diving board above a beautiful pool
00:05:45:00 catching a seaplane to the Whitsundays with some beautiful footage over the water
00:09:35:00 two women looking out over the coastline from a cliff
00:10:15:00 at the resort, by the pool with striped umbrellas and deckchairs
00:11:10:00 group of friends in holiday attire
00:11:31:00 man carrying a large fish, very pleased with his catch
00:11:58:00 holidaymakers lined up for a group shot
00:13:00:00 time at the beach
00:14:38:00 searching for oysters
00:14:50:00 another catch – a swordfish
00:15:08:00 game of tennis in bathers
00:16:40:00 on a boat, exploring the island
00:18:50:00 Melbourne Bitter Ale and Cairns Bitter Ale beer bottles
00:19:55:00 shells at a shell shop
00:21:28:00 cooking a picnic on an open fire at the beach
00:22:00:00 new people arriving on a boat
00:22:57:00 title card ‘The End’