Australian
Screen

Teacher’s notes

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This clip shows a romanticised view of life in what the narrator calls one of 'Australia’s sun cities’ in 1946. The clip opens with high elevation shots of the streets as the narrator points out the city’s modernity and colour, themes repeated in scenes of people on the streets. A dramatised sequence shows a woman buying fruit from a street barrow. Sunny harbour and beach scenes are then contrasted with scenes of 'the cool indoor world’ of the city and the clip ends with the city’s shops and workplaces closing for the day and people making their way home.

Educational value points

• The film was made to promote Australia’s cities as desirable immigrant destinations and was probably made as part of the post-Second World War effort to increase Australia’s population. A foreign audience would not have been aware of how misleading an impression it created. For example, it implies that city workers travelled to their homes mostly by car. In fact, trams and trains were the major forms of transport and few cars were on the road as petrol was rationed.

• Although the title credits of City in the Sun say it is not about a particular Australian city but 'merely reflects the mood of Australian metropolitan life’, all of the scenes in this clip are of Sydney and they present a multifaceted view of weekday afternoons in the city in the summer of 1946–47, little more than a year after the end of the Second World War. The clip includes glimpses of city streets, parks, harbour beaches, a library and the Sydney Harbour Bridge.

• No hint of the recent War or of post-War austerity is evident in the clip. Scenes such as that of an evening fashion parade at the Trocadero nightclub are accompanied by popular classical background music and a commentary that projects an image of prosperous cities with well-stocked department stores. In reality, both clothing and clothing fabric were in short supply in 1946 and clothing rationing remained in force until 1948.

• Street barrows selling fruit were a feature of Sydney’s Martin Place throughout the 1940s and the ready availability of fruit in Australia, particularly tropical fruit, was a revelation to British and European migrants after the War. The clip makes much of this fact by including a dramatised sequence of a woman buying bananas, oranges, grapes and a pawpaw, fruits that had not been seen in Europe since 1939 and that served to represent Australia as a land of plenty.

• The clip reveals a time in the past when people who went to the city for shopping or other business dressed quite formally and, because most people did not own a camera to record the occasion, street photographers made a living by taking unsolicited photographs of ordinary people in the street. Those photographed would later visit the photographer’s kiosk, view the proofs, and order and pay for any photographs they wanted.

• Television was 10 years away from reaching Australia in 1946 and people relied on radio and newspapers for the news of the day, hence newspaper boys are seen frequently in the clip, positioned on corners and shouting the headlines. In 1946 Sydney had two morning newspapers – the Daily Telegraph and the Sydney Morning Herald – and two afternoon newspapers – the Mirror and the Sun – which were often read on the tram or train trip home.

• The English accents used, and the mention of Australian cities as English suggests that this film may have been used to promote Australia to potential migrants in Britain. Alasdair Loch, City in the Sun’s producer, director and commentator speaks with a strong English accent. Likewise, the only other voice heard is the English-accented woman buying fruit. At the time Australia believed that for defence and development it would need to ‘populate or perish’.

• Occasional subtle references in the film to English viewpoints suggest the film was intended for a British audience. Nonetheless, Australians of the time admired the 'clipped’ accent used by British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) announcers and would have expected to hear something like it in a film promoting Australia.

This clip starts approximately 3 minutes into the documentary.

Black-and-white aerial footage shows traffic on busy city roads. At street level a street photographer, a newsboy and a fruit-barrow man are seen amongst shopping crowds.
Narrator In these Australian sun cities, which some of us have called American and some Americans describe as English, the theme seems to be the 20th century and the atmosphere is one of gay colours, whether we’re looking at Australian city taxi cabs or pretty girls. Colours bloom from the many flower stalls too, in what seems to the visitor to be a pleasant world of summery dresses, with a background of street photographers, fruit-barrow men, shouting newsboys and smart shopping centres, which, in character, can only be described as modern Australia. And every day, among these shops and byways of Australia’s cities, there is always one or another quite simple display to turn the head of some visitors.

A woman’s English-accented voice is heard ordering fruit from what we see is a well-stocked stall.
Woman I’d like half a dozen bananas and a nice, ripe pawpaw – I’d like a small one, please – and a dozen oranges and have you any grapes?

Bright music plays over various scenes – boats sailing past a jetty, a young girl at a make-up counter in a department store and a fashion parade.
Narrator But whilst some Australians like their sunshine, there are others who prefer the cool indoor world of their cities – a world ranging from art galleries to department stores, with their beauty treatments even for the young. And there are occasional fashion parades, which have also taken place in the year over the city.

Workers go home via car or train. Shops close for the day.
Narrator But there’s always that moment when it’s time to go home. For our metropolitan life anywhere is a noisy life and Australian city workers living outside town appreciate the end of the day.