[Wallace Clarke Home Movies: Reel 19]

Wallace Clarke was an amateur cinematographer and filmmaker during the 1960s to the 1990s. Wallace was particularly keen on capturing both the Australian landscape and the people who enjoyed it. As well as Australian urban settings and some world travels, Wallace’s films focus on the many hiking and camping destinations that he visited.

Often carrying the credit, ‘A Walkabout Film’, Wallace’s movies indicate that he was part of a nature study and walking group called ‘The Walkabouters Club of Victoria Inc’. The ‘Walkabouters’ formed in 1968 as a result of a Council of Adult Education (CAE), Outback Study Tour to Central Australia’. Some of the attendees decided to start the Club in order to continue educative walks particularly around Victoria. The Club encouraged their resident artists and photographers to capture their activities.

The collection of Wallace’s films was donated to ACMI by his widow Gwenda Clarke and is shot on various formats, predominantly Standard 8mm and Super 8mm film.

This film showcases Papua New Guinea (PNG) in the 1960s. It begins with coastal towns and ports, sighing, canoes and boats and then travels by plane to the ‘Highlands’ on what appears to be a cargo plane. Along the way, Wallace captures the villages, the dramatic landscapes and the various peoples of PNG.

Originally made on Super 8mm film.

Selected highlights list:
00:00:03:00 a group of smiling children walk along a road under palm trees
00:00:25:00 thatched houses facing a lagoon
00:01:45:00 taking down the sail on a local ‘outrigger canoe’
00:02:18:00 view from a plane overhead and a TAA (Trans Australia Airlines) plane on an airfield being emptied of cargo
00:02:32:00 several totem sculptures and carved statues
00:02:57:00 a man spearing fish in the waves off a rocky perch
00:03:09:00 Coastwatchers Memorial in Madang
00:03:18:00 ‘Petrus II’ sailing boat and unloading cargo of cacao beans in large hessian sacks from a boat onto a pier
00:03:54:00 a lovely old rusty shed, jetty and boats in a palm tree setting
00:04:04:00 school girls playing sport
00:04:29:00 fixing a car in a village of thatch covered houses
00:05:04:00 canoes being paddled across the water
00:06:07:00 a larger boat followed by scenes around a portside town
00:07:34:00 a particularly picturesque roadside store, Central Merchants, and people carrying goods on shoulders and heads
00:08:34:00 ‘44 gallon drums’ being unloaded from a plane by being bounced onto a large rubber tyre
00:08:54:00 aeriel views over the jungles and mountains and misty clouds
00:09:24:00 a long winding river being filmed from the plane above
00:11:29:00 boarding a TAA plane and takeoff with the mountains in the background
00:12:04:00 a small yellow plane
00:12:08:00 a village with thatched houses
00:12:50:00 small planes
00:13:00:00 traditional dress
00:13:23:00 flying over mountains and looking at roads criss-crossing the terrain
00:19:38:00 traditional grass mat weaving
00:21:53:00 sign ‘Kainantu Mile High Gateway to the Highlands Alt. 5280’
00:22:21:00 a large river system from overhead
00:22:10:00 a signpost for ‘Mumeng’, ‘Bulolo’ and ‘Wau’
00:23:38:00 lush valleys in the Highlands
00:25:44:00 sign ‘You are now approaching Wau, Top of Drome, Elvn 3200’
00:28:58:00 house in the trees
00:29:11:00 people washing clothes in the river
00:30:10:00 a cemetery and white crucifix monuments
00:31:04:00 TAA plane