Historical information
Main Stream Melbourne - The River Yarra on film (Screen Sound Australia, 2004) and The Prize (Eltham Films, Tim Burstall ,1960)
Combining footage from more than 90 early newsreels, documentaries and short films which additionally features almost 200 photographs and illustrations - shows locals fishing and swimming in the river, holding canoe races and lazing at boathouses. Also included is Tim Burstall's 1960 short film, The Prize, which tells the story of a boy, played by his then six-year-old son Tom, and his adventures with a kid goat. The film, shot on the Yarra, won a bronze award at the 1960 Venice Film Festival.
Of specific interest, scenes from Warrandyte, Montsalvat footage from 1965, Heidelberg School Artists' Trail, Koornung School (1947) in North Warrandyte, Tim Burstall and The Prize (1960) with scenes on Brougham Street Bridge, and Yarra River scenes at Morrison's Breakwater at Eltham and the Bend of Isles at Kangaroo Ground.
Physical description
VHS Video cassette, 130 minutes. Converted to MP4 file format 02:16:11, 1.54GB
Subjects
References
- Rare Yarra footage shows how our river runs deep A collection of rare archival footage of the Yarra River was launched yesterday, showing a clearer picture of the murky Melbourne landmark. Combining footage from more than 90 early newsreels, documentaries and short films, Main Stream Melbourne: The River Yarra on Film covers the social history of the upper and middle sections of the river from the Baw Baw Plateau down to the Johnston Street Bridge. "It just snakes its way through so many areas and so many people's lives," said producer Ken Berryman. "People have engaged with it for all sorts of reasons - even if it's just younger people now identifying with sipping latte at Southbank to people who used to swim in it 50 years ago. I think everyone that you talk to seems to find some way of linking up with the Yarra." The compilation by ScreenSound Australia - which additionally features almost 200 photographs and illustrations - shows locals fishing and swimming in the river, holding canoe races and lazing at boathouses. Also included is Tim Burstall's 1960 short film, The Prize, which tells the story of a boy, played by his then six-year-old son Tom, and his adventures with a kid goat. The film, shot on the Yarra, won a bronze award at the 1960 Venice Film Festival. Tom Burstall grew to become an Australian film industry player and yesterday praised the project. "The archive's work in preserving our heritage is great and needs to be supported," he said, recounting how he and his young co-star were hit by their fathers to make them cry on cue for a pivotal scene. But some of the Yarra's most exciting stories remain unseen, such as the 1918 world record high dive by Alick Wickham, the Solomon Islander who introduced the world to the "Australian Crawl" swimming stroke. At Deep Pool, near Dights Falls in Kew, he dove over 60 metres from a platform in front of a crowd of 70,000, losing both consciousness and his bathers upon hitting the water. Yet the archive could only track down one still image of the feat. "For such a well-advertised event, someone, somewhere, must have taken some film, but in all our efforts to find it we just haven't," Mr Berryman said. "The search goes on." Main Stream Melbourne is available through the National Screen and Sound Archive in Clarendon Street, South Melbourne, and will be available in video stores.
