Australian
Screen

Teacher’s notes

provided by

This black-and-white silent film shows pedestrian and road traffic, including trams, cars, motorcyclists and a few horse-drawn vehicles, in Melbourne’s city centre in the 1920s. It begins with an intertitle, 'City Traffic in variable moods’, and then features shots of the South Melbourne tram and Flinders Street Railway Station. The film incorporates humorous intertitles: 'Observe the married men bustling their way home’ (followed by slowed-down film), 'As seen by a gentleman after a convivial Saturday afternoon’ (followed by inverted images), 'He would of course insist on a front seat on the tram’, and 'MELBOURNE Learn to Drive Drive Wellington Parade South is now the Mecca of the future motorist’. The clip concludes with a comic sequence about learning to drive that features a car going around in circles.

Educational value points

• The clip includes sequences in which the film is sped up, slowed down, played in reverse and inverted for comic effect, suggesting that the filmmaker recognised the dramatic possibilities of film. The effects were possibly achieved by either over- or under-cranking the hand-wound camera as it was filming. The accelerated traffic may have been filmed at fewer than 24 frames per second, while conversely the slow-motion scenes may have been filmed at more than 24 frames per second. Intertitles precede each scene and provide the humorous context for the footage to follow.

• Melbourne city in the 1920s is depicted as a bustling centre. The economic revival Melbourne experienced in that period brought people to the city not just to work, but to visit department stores, cinemas and theatres. Melbourne was also an important centre of government. At Federation in 1901 the area known as Canberra was chosen to be the site of Australia’s capital. However, until the new city was built, Melbourne was the provisional seat of national government with most of the federal public service departments based in Melbourne’s city centre.

• As indicated in the scenes of Melbourne city traffic in the 1920s, trams and motor vehicles had become the main form of transport in the period, although motorcycles and bicycles were also popular (particularly for those unable to afford a car), while horse-drawn vehicles were still used for deliveries and as short-distance cabs. Motor vehicles and the tramway enabled the suburban expansion of the city.

• The clip shows Melbourne trams in the 1920s. Private tramway systems began operating in Melbourne from 1885, but in 1920 the Melbourne and Metropolitan Tramways Board (MMTB) took over operation of the whole tramways system. Today, the Melbourne tram network is the third-largest in the world. The MMTB introduced the distinctive W-class trams in 1923, and variants of these trams (W1 through to W7) were the mainstay of the Melbourne tramway system for 60 years. The W-class tram is an iconic symbol of the city, and 53 of these trams are still in use.

• A large number of motor vehicles of the period are shown in the clip, illustrating that during the 1920s the motor vehicle was becoming a feature of everyday life. In 1920 there was one car for every 55 people in Australia and by 1929 this had increased to one for every 11 people. When motor vehicles first appeared in Melbourne in 1900 they were a luxury for the wealthy. However, car prices fell sharply, due to the introduction of assembly-line production, and registrations of motor cars, trucks and motorcycles doubled between 1917 and 1922, reaching a total of 44,750.

• Traffic congestion caused by the myriad of vehicles on the road was a relatively new phenomenon in the 1920s. Complaints were made about the noise, fumes and speed of motor vehicles, which alarmed both pedestrians and horses. The increasing popularity of cars led to the introduction of road rules in Melbourne in 1916, whereby vehicles had to travel on the left-hand side of the road and, when stopping, a hand or a whip had to be raised. Hand signals for turning were introduced soon after.

• Flinders Street Railway Station and the busy Flinders Street and Swanston Street intersection are shown in the clip. Built between 1901 and 1910, Flinders Street Station is a prominent Melbourne landmark and meeting place. It is the central railway station of the Melbourne suburban rail network and between the 1920s and the 1940s, it was the world’s busiest passenger station.

• The clip shows examples of the clothing worn by men and women in the city in this period. In the 1920s, both men and women wore hats in public. The helmet-like cloche hat was popular for women, while men tended to wear brimmed felt hats called fedoras. Women wore loose-fitting dresses with a dropped waistline and hemlines just below the knee. The lounge suit, which consisted of a single-breasted jacket, matching waistcoat and trousers, was favoured by men for both work and leisure.