Adelaide in 1969: The big trends, movies, music and culture

The moon landing might have been the biggest news story of 1969, but in Adelaide we were also into movies, dancing and — proving nothing changes — royal watching.

• The moment we watched the moon landing
• The most bizarre Moon landing conspiracy theories
• 1969: Moonshots, music and murder

The moon was big news in July of 1969, but a flick through The Advertiser’s files from the time reveals another huge story unfolding closer to home — the Vietnam War.

Australian injuries and deaths were big news, as was the mounting opposition to the war, but it was a mystery that was dominating the coverage. The shooting of singer Cathy Wayne — the first Australian woman killed in Vietnam — was, naturally, a big story.

The beautiful 19-year-old entertainer was shot in the chest by a bullet fired from a .22 pistol fitted with a silencer.

A US Marine named James Wayne Killen was tried for her murder and sentenced to 20 years’ hard labour. Killen, who maintained he was innocent, was retried two years later and released. Who actually killed the young Australian remains a mystery.

While the politics of war raged, the politics of race were also big news, as demonstrated by a front-page story on American tennis champion Arthur Ashe being denied a visa to play in South Africa because of the colour of his skin.

On the entertainment front, the cinema was still the main game in town, with dozens of theatres spread across the city and throughout the regions.

Drive-ins were also incredibly popular, especially among teenagers. For around $2 you could catch Dustin Hoffman in The Graduate or Sydney Poitier in Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner.

The fact that neither one of these movies was released in 1969 points to the fact that films could take a while to get to places as far away as Australia, and once they were here they got a long run.

Anne Bancroft and Dustin Hoffman in a scene from the 1967 film The Graduate, which was screening at Adelaide drive-ins in 1969.

Bizarrely, Ben-Hur (1959) was also showing in Adelaide in July, 1969. Perhaps it was getting a 10-year anniversary screening.

Those looking for a more, ahem, educational cinema experience could get along to a screening of West German hit film Helga: The Intimate Life of a Young Woman.

Music fans were well catered for in the Adelaide of 1969.

Many of the live-music clubs that dominated the mid-’60s, such as the Big Beat Cellar, were still operating and pubs were increasingly putting on live shows at night, unencumbered by the six o’clock closing laws that were abolished two years earlier.

“Johnny Farnham and his friend, Sadie the Cleaning Lady, are back on the local night-life scene” read one story in the entertainment pages.

A fresh-faced John Farnham in 1967.

Those with more discerning tastes could catch the already-legendary Masters Apprentices at the Sgt Peppers club.

The Glynde Hotel was already advertising its pre-Christmas residency by Adelaide’s own Kamahl and if you were planning on buying tickets to the dinner dance at the Governor Hindmarsh Hotel, too bad — it was booked out.

On the road we were hooning around in Holden Kingswoods and Ford Falcons, and a new Toyota hardtop would set you back $3695, while a 253 Holden V8 was a comparative bargain at just $2586.

A new Hoovermatic washing machine was $157 and Foodland’s “Moonland” sale had blocks of Nestle chocolate for 15c and Weet-Bix at 28c a pack.

At John Martin’s on Rundle St you could pick up a sports coat for $10 and team it with a “casual flannel shirt” for just $1.70.

In other fashion news, a new “shrink-proof” miniskirt was launched and made it to the front page, perhaps more on the strength of the accompanying picture than its news value.

A 1969 mini skirt.

On the housing front, a solid brick home in Northridge was just $10,500, including appliances and a Hills Hoist rotary clothesline.

Dining out, while not at the levels we see today, was becoming increasingly popular and there was no more sophisticated dining hot spot than the local Chinese restaurant. A story in the paper’s food pages told of being unable to even get a seat at one of the city’s half a dozen or so Chinese joints on a Friday night, such was their popularity.

Royalty then, just as now, was big news and the Tiser ran a front-page speculation piece headlined “Will She Be English or Royalty” in which the journalist asked who was likely to claim the hand of the hottest royal on Earth, one Prince Charles.

Four possible options were put forward — none of them Di or Camilla.

Charles was hot news as he was to undergo his investiture, where he would be named Prince of Wales, an event so exciting that the ABC was advertising its special “direct by satellite” coverage.

Prince Charles at his investiture in Wales, 1969.

In great news for Aussie travellers everywhere, Qantas announced that it was now stopping at the “Last Garden of Eden”, aka Bali.

News out of America included the fact that Senator Edward Kennedy was in deep trouble after his car plunged off a bridge in Massachusetts, killing his secretary, Mary Jo Kopechne.

In actual moon news, there were reports of “SA men to bounce lasers off moon” to accurately measure its distance from the Earth — which you think you might want to do before you go there — and Apollo 11 reports of the great views from 125,000 miles out from Earth.

All of these stories were just fillers for the main event, the report on the actual moon landing of July 20.

A special late-night third edition of The Advertiser had actual reports that humans had, indeed, walked on the surface of the moon.

The next day there was even speculation that life could be found on the moon, with a report of a seemingly “wet” soil sample, along with reports of how the city and schools came to a standstill to view the historic event on television.