See the films teenage Bruce Beresford and Mike Leyland made at the 1956 Olympics
AN Oscar nominee and a TV legend were just teenagers when they shot the Melbourne Olympics on their home movie cameras. See the films now considered national treasures.
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BACK in 1956, they were a couple of teenagers barely out of short pants who used their film cameras to capture snippets of the greatest sporting show on earth, right here in Melbourne.
These days, film director Bruce Beresford and documentary maker Mike Leyland are famous for other things, but their films of the 1956 Olympic Games are regarded as historic treasures that, 60 years on, are held by the National Film and Sound Archive.
Beresford, 16 at the time, filmed Melbourne street scenes including inside the athletes’ village in Heidelberg West, various venues, an Olympic soccer match and close-ups of international athletes in team uniforms.
The budding filmmaker went on to carve out an enviable career as a director with Driving Miss Daisy, which won the best picture award at the 1990 Academy Awards along with Australian classics including The Adventures of Barry McKenzie, Don’s Party, Puberty Blues, Breaker Morant and Mao’s Last Dancer.
Leyland, 15, was given the chance to attend the Olympics when he won a cartooning competition.
First prize was a letter from country and western singer Smoky Dawson and a ticket to the Olympic Games.
Young Mike’s dad bought him a 16mm home movie camera to make the most of the trip.
Leyland had a box seat only a few rows back from the track at the opening ceremony at the MCG on November 22, 1956.
His footage includes athletes from France, Great Britain, India and Australia marching along the track, runner Ron Clarke with the Olympic flame, a walking event, the hurdles, a distance foot race and field events, along with a glimpse of boxing at Festival Hall.
With his brother Mal, he carved a place in Australian TV history with their Ask The Leyland Brothers series of Aussie travel documentaries.
Sadly, Mike Leyland died in 2009, aged 68.
Along with the work of teenage Beresford and Leyland, the National Film and Sound Archive preserves a film from the Melbourne Olympics by another would-be filmmaker whose career in showbiz never quite panned out — then Prime Minister Robert Menzies.
Our longest serving PM was also a dab hand with a 16mm camera.
His film captured a host of men’s and women’s running events at the MCG including sprinter Betty Cuthbert winning her heat in the 200 metres race.
Earlier films made by Mr Menzies include images of the London Blitz, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill at home with his family and glimpses of the Royal Family during World War II.
What are your memories of the Melbourne Olympics? Let us know in the comments below.
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