Australian
Screen

an NFSA website

Christmas Hustle and Bustle: Crowds Leave for Well-deserved Holiday on 22 December (1928)

play Please note: this clip is silent
clip
  • 1
Christmas season in Melbourne education content clip 1

This clip chosen to be G

Clip description

This clip begins with a shot of a crowd (mostly women) gathering around suitcases on the pavement outside Flinders Street Station in Melbourne, just before Christmas 1928. Men are filmed loading suitcases onto the running boards of cars parked on the street. A car pulls out from the kerb in front of a hotel building and drives off. The next section features Melburnians running across a city intersection in the pouring rain later that day. The clip ends with a scene of two swagmen sitting in a park (possibly Melbourne’s Botanical Gardens) talking to each other. One holds a bottle of beer. It ends with close-ups on their faces.

Intertitles are used in this clip.

Curator’s notes

by Poppy De Souza

The inclusion of the two men at the end of this Christmas newsreel item is of interest to a contemporary viewer. During the inter-war years in Australia, people suffered great economic hardship and many people were unemployed. During the Depression, swagmen travelled on foot looking for work wherever they could find it (carrying their possessions in their swags – hence the name). The intertitle at the beginning of the clip says they are visiting Melbourne for Christmas, indicating that maybe they have arrived home after a long year on the road. It is a hint of the economic hardships of the time and a contrast to the opening scenes in this clip where well-dressed women with bundles of suitcases line the streets in preparation for their holidays. The final shot – a close-up on one of the men’s faces – is the image that stays in the viewer’s mind.

Teacher’s notes

provided by The Le@rning FederationEducation Services Australia

This black-and-white clip from a silent newsreel shows scenes of travellers with suitcases on the footpath outside Flinders Street Station in Melbourne on 22 December 1928 preparing to take their Christmas holiday break. Subsequent scenes show shoppers crossing the street in pouring rain and a couple of swagmen in a Melbourne park. The travellers, including a man stacking suitcases on the running board of a car, appear prosperous, which provides a contrast with the intimate scene of the two homeless men. The clip has intertitles.

Educational value points

  • The footage provides a view of Melbourne and its inhabitants during the late 1920s when the city, – with a population approaching 1 million – was enjoying a brief resurgence of prosperity before the decline that occurred after the onset of the Great Depression towards the end of 1929. This prosperity is reflected in the dress and luggage of the travellers. Car ownership increased greatly in the 1920s and a large number of cars can be seen in the clip.
  • The representation of Melbourne at Christmas time in the clip is unusual because it ignores traditional festive motifs associated with the season, such as decorated streets or stores with Christmas window displays. Instead it shows people getting caught in an unseasonal downpour of rain, travellers on their way to holiday destinations and two ‘swaggies’. The closest thing to a celebratory tone is the bottle in the swagman’s hand.
  • The clip reveals the presence of poverty alongside wealth in 1920s Melbourne by including footage of well-off travellers followed by the two swaggies in the park. A contrast is drawn between the prosperous holiday-makers on their way to comfortable holiday destinations and the two homeless men whose Christmas will be spent in the park. Their shabby clothes and gap-toothed smiles would have invited pity in many viewers.
  • The two swagmen represent the face of unemployment in the 1920s one year before the 1929 Great Depression. Their name refers to the swag (usually a few possessions rolled in a blanket) that homeless men carried with them. The steady decline in the price of wool from 1925 led to widespread rural unemployment. From 1927 manufacturing jobs declined. After 1927 relief work for a small government allowance dried up and many unemployed took to the road seeking work.
  • This actuality footage comes from a silent newsreel screened as part of cinema programming, providing audiences with local and national news. Newsreels were part of a thriving filmmaking industry in Australia that grew with the advent of sound in the 1930s and then declined with the introduction of television in 1956. In silent newsreels information and emphasis had to be conveyed visually, assisted by intertitles. Items commonly included sport and human-interest stories.