Canberra Today And Tomorrow

From the Film Australia Collection. Made by The Commonwealth Film Unit 1959. Directed by Joe Scully, Rhonda Small and John Martin Jones. The development of Australia’s National Capital. Canberra, the National Capital of Australia, is a city which has been planned; a place where modern living is enriched by a lovely setting. But the hustling young city of today is expanding and developing, and there is emerging the pattern of the proud city of tomorrow.

[@NoosaHeads]

I so wish I had a time machine. Of course they were showing it at its best but I've spoken to many people who tell me it was heavenly at that time. Truly a Garden of Eden.

[@DamianL]

This is one of my all-time favourite channels and I don't even live in 'Straya. Thank you for all the wonderful videos you share ♥

[@NFSAFilms]

Wow, thank you! We appreciate you letting us know.

[@margaretmatthews4872]

Thank you the Canberra of yesterday is so wonderful to watch the time capsule

[@tongduoxu2170]

My lovely Canberra

[@lukeduke3001]

is This the same canberra you want to see amazing how life and attitudes has changed

[@thornbird6768]

Wow , Canberra looked so much like British cities did in the 70's 👍🏻

[@TheAdventuresofRussell]

There's a reason for that. We were heavily influenced by the 'British New Towns' movement. Post war development of Canberra mirrored that of London

[@avidtom52]

Thank you for a fabulous time piece. It is interesting to note the date of production as 1959, which was the year after the city planning design and construction was put on steroids with the Menzies government creation of the National Capital Development Commission in 1958. I note this film was produced by the Department of the Interior, perhaps as a mark of their achievements prior to the NCDC era. Consequently, this footage is all prior to the construction of Lake Burley Griffin.
I worked at the NCDC in its final years and remember a conversation with an older colleague that was there in this period. There was a massive relocation scheme to relocate public servants from Melbourne to Canberra, including the design and construction of the buildings for them to work in and the houses for them to live in. The housing program was equally massive, with government-built houses available to the public servants to rent and subsequently purchase. My friend earned some extra overtime pay on the weekends, to go around all the houses that were completed and handed over to the Commision, to open them up to air them and return later in the day to close them. That is so the houses were nice and fresh and ready for the public servants transferring en masse to Canberra when their particular public service function transferred, all with the machine of government continuing to turn.

[@hellie_el]

the poshest australian accent ever! ❤❤❤ thanks for another delightful video. :)

[@NFSAFilms]

😊 thank you

[@johnd8892]

Almost certain it is a British Newsreel announcer as heard on this later 1965 UK British Pathe newsreel :
th-cam.com/video/TUoCL6pAQ1Y/w-d-xo.html
Perhaps this was meant for UK audiences to encourage migration as so many Australian Government shorts of the time.
Unfortunately not credited in either film, but I have heard him before in the lighter aspect UK newsreels.

[@NFSAFilms]

The narrator is Wilfred Thomas. A well known singer, actor and narrator of Welsh descent who immigrated to Australia as a child. He narrated several government films and can be seen in this film from our collection acting along side Peter Finch These Stars Are Mine th-cam.com/video/4gfdrq7cODI/w-d-xo.html
His "posh" accent would have certainly been a consideration when he got the gig of narrating the official film of the Queen's 1954 visit to Australia. Queen In Australia th-cam.com/video/OCCpuB356IQ/w-d-xo.html

[@NFSAFilms]

Wilfred Thomas.

[@hellie_el]

@@NFSAFilms i imagine it was once considered very desirable to have this very english-sounding accent. does that kind of very posh australian accent still exist? or are accents across australia (socio-economically and geographically speaking) more or less the same, like here in canada?

[@dhall4363]

Well it is certainly changed some since then. Been there a couple of times. Pleasant enough to have a look around for a couple of days.

[@jashugg]

Peugeot 403 at 2:01 and another one (two tone paint) at 7:54

[@johncashwell1024]

At about the 9:10 mimute mark... the population as of June 2022 was 456,692.

[@avidtom52]

my guess the population in 1959 at this video was about 30,000

[@poppymjolk]

I came to the comments hoping someone had given the accurate stats!

[@TheAdventuresofRussell]

Ugh the amount of Canberra docos I could make with this footage!!

[@danrobinson572]

Fantastic video

[@NFSAFilms]

Thanks! 😃

[@poeterritory]

9:03 Those estimates weren't too far off.

[@jesusislukeskywalker4294]

👍🏻 good on you NFSA

[@NFSAFilms]

Thanks. Glad you enjoyed it.

[@nostaldec4705]

2:00 Back before Garema Place was pedestrinaised.

[@adrianbarichievich7756]

some info is misleading

[@simonf8902]

Canberra has gone down hill since this film.

[@danrobinson572]

I wonder what it looks like nowadays??

[@TheAdventuresofRussell]

Check out my Canberra series if you're curious still

[@Andrew-jh5uv]

and now ...😔

[@TheBryce98]

Some things have improved, like the CBD. Notice at 2:00 it's nothing but cars parking and road all around - quite ugly. Glad we realised that building city centres this way had no future.

[@iVisual.sambonkowski]

Australia that was....like looking at a different country.

[@deepgurmansandhu1762]

First view

[@clockworkyokai]

168th view

[@elfulano5884]

Second view