Remember when newsreels were on before movies at the cinema?
THESE days, news is spread instantly across social media. But back before TV became popular, things were very different — you could watch the news only at the cinema.
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THE house lights dim and the crowd shuffles to their feet as the first strains of God Save the Queen begin to play. On the big screen a young Queen Elizabeth inspects the Royal Guard on horseback and then, as the anthem begins to fade, the audience resumes their seats to the raucous cacophony of two kookaburras … it’s time for the Cinesound Newsreel.
In a thousand picture theatres across Australia, that scene was played out night after night (except for Sundays), until the mid-70s when, as a victim of the new medium of television, the newsreels ceased to be shown.
It’s a scene that most Boomers will vividly recall from their childhood years: going to the pictures with Mum and Dad or to Saturday afternoon matinees, sitting in the back row of the local “fleahouse” and rolling Jaffas down the aisle.
The National Film and Sound Archive in Canberra recently embarked on a $4 million dollar project to preserve and document the 4000 newsreels in the Cinesound Movietone Australian newsreel collection, which spans from 1929 to 1975 and is a treasure trove of Australian and worldwide news events.
These days we follow the news 24/7 on the internet and watch the nightly news on TV but before 1956 we either read all about it in the newspaper, heard it on radio or watched it on the big screen at the picture theatre.
Those were the days of two feature films, a Heckle and Jeckle cartoon, a Pete Smith special and, of course, the latest Australian and overseas news in the newsreel.
Cinesound Review and Australian Movietone News were the rival companies, each producing a weekly montage of current events from around the country and overseas news which might affect the nation.
Newsreels commenced in Australia before the 1920s, although few records remain of those earliest productions. By the mid-to-late 20s it was a thriving industry with a number of small and independent producers.
In 1931 the Australian arm of Fox Movietone News began a weekly newsreel in picture theatres, closely followed by Union Theatres’ Cinesound Review.
Cinesound’s managing editor, Ken Hall, boasted that his company was “The Voice of Australia”; everything was filmed by Australian cameramen and crews and they never used a foreign story.
Movietone also produced an Australian edition newsreel, which was part of its worldwide coverage of news. Fox Movietone had production centres in Brussels, London, Paris, Prague, Tokyo and Sydney. Its international edition newsreels were released in 47 countries, translated into more than a dozen languages and seen by more than 200 million people each week.
The local newsreel industry, so accurately depicted in the Australian-made and highly acclaimed film Newsfront (1978), continued to thrive into the early 60s. With the arrival of television, both companies were suddenly under pressure and, as the specialised newsreel theatrettes and smaller picture theatres began to close, it became apparent they needed to be doing something different.
Both introduced a more “magazine-style” shorter format with some success, but in 1970 it was decided the two companies should merge, bringing to an end.
As Cinesound-Movietone they introduced The Australian Movie Magazine but by then the horse had well and truly bolted and in 1975 the last production of Movie Magazine was shown in Australian picture theatres.
Looking back on those newsreels of 50 years ago is captivating. They remind me of just how close we were to Britain and how British the announcers sounded. Some of the content now seems rather unremarkable but it has provided us with a precious record of how we were, how we behaved and even entertained ourselves.
The men and women who travelled around Australia to record on film the biggest stories of the day were pioneers of film and journalism. Although the content of the newsreels mainly centred on the most populous states, both companies employed freelance cameramen in other states and thus provided coverage from around the country.
They have recorded for us on film the national disasters and tragedies, the great victories, the political events of the day and the highs and lows of our nation over more than half a century.
Bob Byrne is author of Adelaide Remember When and Australia Remember When. His new book, The Best of Bob Byrne’s Boomer Columns, will be in bookshops later this month. He posts his memories daily on the Adelaide Remember When Facebook page