Australian
Screen

Teacher’s notes

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This clip shows home-movie footage of Sydney’s Kings Cross at night in 1962. It focuses on the illuminated advertising signs for companies such as Speedo, Philips, Mobil and Peters Ice Cream, as well as shopfronts with neon signage and the neon-lit entrance to the Hampton Court Hotel. The clip also shows cars, distinguishable in the dark only by the glow of their headlights, making their way down Darlinghurst and Bayswater roads. It includes intertitles arranged using plastic lettering.

Educational value points

• Kings Cross is an area in inner-city Sydney centred around the crossing of three major thoroughfares – Darlinghurst Road, Victoria Street and William Street – and from the 1920s was characterised by its population of 'bohemians’ such as artists, writers and actors and migrants. From the early 1960s the area increasingly became known as a centre for entertainment and tourism and as a 'red light’ district. From the 1970s onwards the neon signs that advertise products shown in this clip were largely replaced by signs advertising strip clubs and bars.

• The name Kings Cross is the third name given to the area since British settlement. Originally the area was called Woolloomooloo Hill. In 1897 it was renamed Queens Cross and in 1905 was further renamed Kings Cross in honour of King Edward the Seventh.

• The first neon advertising sign in Australia was installed in Kings Cross in 1929, starting a trend in the area that transformed William Street and Darlinghurst Road into the 'glittering mile’. Neon advertising signs became widespread in the 1930s, but from the 1960s began being replaced by back-lit plastic signs. Today local heritage groups are working to preserve the few remaining neon signs, some of which are regarded as works of art with some dating from the 1930s.

• The 'glittering mile’ of neon advertising signs and the vibrant nightlife of Kings Cross made it something of a tourist attraction. A promotional booklet, Focus on Kings Cross, published in 1967 described the Cross as a 'Mecca of Australia’s night-life! From the four corners of the continent they come: the rich, the poor, and the in-between; the playboys, the playgirls, but mostly they just come to look, stare, observe the most fabulous square mile in the land’.

• Amateur filmmaking became popular after the introduction of the 16-mm camera in 1923 and the 8-mm camera in 1932 as relatively inexpensive alternatives to the conventional 35-mm film format. However these cameras were still priced beyond the reach of most people and it was not until Kodak introduced the more affordable Super 8 format in 1965 that home-movie making became widespread among different social groups and accessible to those on low incomes.

• The footage exemplifies typical features of the home-movie genre. The camera is hand-held with resulting instability of the image. Editing is achieved 'in-camera’ simply by turning the camera on and off and the content is shown in real time. McKenzie and Kent also use a technique known as an 'iris in’ (a round, moving 'mask’ that opens to start a scene) at the beginning of their footage and conclude with an 'iris out’. Silent home movies often made use of intertitles and plastic lettersets, such as used in this footage.

• Although historically regarded as amateur and only of interest to their creators and immediate family, home movies such as this one have now gained the status of historical documents. Home movies have increasingly been sought out to help reconstruct history, for example in documentaries and museum displays. They are a record of the lifestyles, cultures and traditions of everyday Australians, and can also provide diverse perspectives or alternative histories.