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Clip description
You can view the short film A Day at the Beach here in its entirety. This is an education film for children aged six to eight years, in which a young Australian family, the Mitchells, head to the beach on a Saturday for a day of fun in the sun. The children, Bruce and Anne, build sandcastles until a wave washes away their handiwork. Their father goes fishing while mother watches the children. After a swim and a picnic lunch, the children bury their sleeping father in sand. They watch a surfboat row out between the breakers, as a young surfer rides a longboard to shore. After an exhausting but enjoyable day, the family heads for home.
Curator’s notes
This style of film would be swept away by television and the rise of youth culture. Even when it was made, many of the kids in the audience might have found it comical, especially the eight year-olds, who were the senior age for which it was intended. Australians were already passionate beachgoers. An Australian kid growing up within a reasonable distance of the coast would usually have some access to beach culture. Families who lived in the country would come to the city or smaller coastal towns for their annual holidays, if their budget allowed.
Certain beachside suburbs in Sydney were associated with certain places in the country. A kid growing up in Wagga Wagga, for example, might run into his or her friends in January at Cronulla Beach, south of Sydney, or at Manly. Both were popular with people from southern New South Wales. The holiday trade had an impact on those suburbs, especially the architecture. In the postwar period, beachfront boulevards were built up with small blocks of flats, often with four to six flats on three floors. During the summer months, they would be rented solidly to families from inland.
A Day at the Beach might well have been intended more for the country child, than the boy or girl growing up in the city. The film gives a strong sense of the innocence of that era and the conservatism. Notice the style of bathing costumes – demure and lots of coverage. The nylon Speedo costume had yet to be invented, not that they would have shown them in a children’s film of that time.
The film was made by experienced staff in the government filmmaking arm, the Commonwealth Film Unit, the new name for the Australian National Film Board, which was founded in 1946. It was eventually called Film Australia. The film was photographed by George Lowe, one of the most experienced cameramen in that unit, and directed by Malcolm Otton, who had one of the longest careers in the unit, from 1946 until 1979. There is no credit for the writer, but it is likely that Malcolm Otton wrote the narration. Some sources list the narrator as Gina Curtis.
