[John Anderson Home Movies: Reel 33]

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This film was originally made using 16mm film.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 various moments in the Anderson family, including kids’ birthday parties, beach holidays and First Communion at the church. There is some great footage of fashion in the 1960s, particularly beach wear.

Selected highlights list:
00:00:02:00 a birthday party, kids eating cake and wearing paper hats
00:01:08:00 a boy blowing vigorously on a party horn
00:02:00:00 birthday boy receiving his gift, a Tommy Thunder toy machine gun
00:02:33:00 girl with fake vampire teeth
00:03:01:00 people sunbaking on the beach
00:04:03:00 the three boys learning to swim
00:05:47:00 snow or hail on the streets of Ballarat, driving through the storm
00:06:12:00 kids on toy bikes and pushing a dog in a pram
00:07:45:00 rows of children in matching outfits at church
00:08:25:00 learning to ride a bike
00:10:30:00 First Communion at church with all the girls in white dresses and veils
00:11:57:00 an older couple walking down the street
00:13:00:00 boys in party hats
00:13:40:00 birthday cakes and frog in a pond (chocolate frog in jelly)
00:14:45:00 more relaxed sunbaking on the beach
00:15:16:00 the three boys in matching bathers (swimwear)
00:15:47:00 picnic under a large red beach umbrella
00:16:42:00 boy in yellow terry towelling hat enjoying a can of Fanta
00:18:55:00 group of kids exploring on the beach and throwing food to seagulls
00:21:03:00 on the slide at local playground