Surfers Paradise 1960

McKenzie, Roger and Kent, Bernie: Silent Car Trip Australia
Curator's clip description
by Poppy de Souza
A Surfers Paradise title card opens this segment which includes shots of typical Queensland holiday units, hotels and motels, and swimming pools. The main streets are filled with billboards and signs, motels, cafes and pubs. The 'Beachcomber' nightclub is shown and a '60s style brick holiday apartment block. A brief view of the beach ends this clip.
Curator's notes
An ever-popular tourist destination on Queensland's Gold Coast known for its coastline, shopping, nightlife, and dining, Surfers Paradise has expanded exponentially since the 1960s. The beginnings of the phenomenon that is Surfers Paradise today can be clearly seen in this clip. Billboards for Qantas and Ansett-ANA perch on top of buildings, neon signs adorn the fronts of restaurants and night clubs, and holiday apartments and hotels (with must-have outdoor pool area) abound.
One of the fantastic things about edited home movies is their often creative use of title cards and intertitles. They reveal the personal investment put into creating a cohesive narrative or sequence and reveal a little about the character of the creator. The title cards in this home movie all have colour picture postcards as their background, each carefully picked to suit the style of place which follows. The title card for this segment, for example, is extremely apt -- a row of smiling beachgoers.

[@GlenB1963]

I remember a lot of those places. Grew up in Main Beach from 1969. It truly was a whimsical place to be and grow back then.

[@gracereceive]

Whimsical. Such an apt description Glen

[@teddyboo7843]

To the people who recorded such iconic footage like this , I thank you !

[@victorsauvage1890]

I didn’t set foot in Surfers’ Paradise until the late 1980s, at which time Surfers’ Paradise was a mass of concrete skyscrapers. However this film clip gives me such a strong sense of what Surfers’ Paradise was like in 1967 that I feel as if I had been there in 1967. Destructive and cheap personalities proliferated during the 1970s and 1980s

[@stevefranklin4507]

The real Surfers as i new growing up there as a young bloke. Note the cars parked in the street with the windows down. Try that there today.

[@rogergreen9861]

I was lucky to be raised by grandparents with a weekender in Blaxland Lodge, Broadbeach, right on Old Burleigh Road back when the Lennons International was still being called a white elephant in a sea of sandhills. The block we were on (between George and Ann Streets) had empty sites all over it and you could have bought the lot for a song.

[@victorsauvage1890]

Truly sweet mood and personalities and environment! It may take 1000 years - or 10,000 - or 100,000 - but this is the way of life of the most advanced civilisations of the distant future - The concrete towers we see in Surfers’ Paradise today, will be quietly dismantled and replaced by two-storey motels - with quiet, sensitive, down-to-earth population.

[@raysrox57]

My Family Stayed In the First Place Shown In 1965, I Recognised it Straight Away, Went Back In 1980 On Honeymoon & Everything Had Changed Except For Santaland Which Used To Be In the Middle Of Nowhere But In 1980 Sat On A Six Lane Highway

[@jamesgovett2501]

Great smorgasbord of automobiles there! But l would have to say it was @ least 1962 as l counted 3 EK Holdens 1.11 a wagon just in front of the simca aronde, sedan @ 1.58 and another wagon @ 3.04, it certainly was a good era l remember well as a kid, l remember those BP Zoom ads (for ready mixed green coloured 2 stroke petrol for lawnmowers etc) with Bob Dyer of pick-a-box fame as the one at 1.54 On the pole! Great stuff.

[@Prieze868]

Gold Coast in the 60s before air conditioning look at all those hotels with their windows open a horrible looks really good though the retro look

[@johhnmorgan8329]

My nana and pop use to live on the gold coast in the 60s there's too many people living on the coast coming in from the capital cities buying up all the land

[@jonglewongle3438]

Yes, that was it. That was the ' tint ', if you will, the complexion, of the place as I faintly recall it as an infant among tourists in the early to mid-1960s. We passed through there without actually staying there, but stayed not too far from there. The bold emphatic signage was a thing with it.

[@leopoldonotarianni8663]

Excellent work there

[@batmanlives6456]

I vividly recall this area back in the 60’s Particularly the meter maids WOW

[@helixator3975]

1 15. Motel is so lux that the carpark has its own pool

[@professorpatpending8731]

life was better overall back then?

[@WinnerTaker]

@Bruce Parkes No it isn't. Australia is better then ever

[@cookiemonster6486]

@@WinnerTaker Agreed

[@jasonlee7816]

Why is the Gold Coast shit?

[@Prieze868]

Without real estate agents and developers driving up the price of real estate it would have gone up anyway but not the same ratio getting people to in-depth 100000 over their limits are they can't afford to go out for dinner all on holidays at lunch and then they get divorce cause I can't afford a lifestyle some R&R and then the property goes back on the market usually the same real estate agents and also the the the population explosion

[@johnjones.3427]

@@WinnerTaker covd ,2 yrs later how do U feel, Australia?

[@cityofgoldcoast]

Hi, it's the City of Gold Coast (Council) Video Production Team - we love this video and were wondering whether you'd consent to us using extracts of it in a (non-commercial) presentation. Many thanks and we hope to hear from you.

[@Gezza1967]

cityofgoldcoast feel free. Sourced from Australian Screen, not my footage sorry.

[@jesusislukeskywalker4294]

see i told you. you're a national treasure. nfsa should no question put you on their payroll.

[@nicholascallaghan4074]

1950's and 1960's on holidays Fern St. Northcliffe, the real GC.

[@seanzappulla71]

Was this filmed on Super 8 or 16mm film

[@cudgee7144]

Notice at 2.30 what would have been then a high rise, one of the first. It was the start of it's demise. Was still a great place into the eighties, a drug and crime ridden dump now.

[@jesusislukeskywalker4294]

yeah i noticed that too. some say joh wasn't even an australian. and to others down right un australian.. today it's quite clearly similarly with most premiers. either players or being played. what ever happenned to integrity and honesty and loyalty. my goodness.

[@johnjones.3427]

@@jesusislukeskywalker4294 ol Joh & his bro,s were bloody corrupt,I met Terry Lewis in my travels back then,he stuck staunch.nice man.he was a fall guy & Fitzgerald enquiry closed to soon,a lot of crooks then.they were more straight up days,now kids in ice stabbing each other.bad days now.

[@graerindley6312]

If it's a dump how come people flock there and pay very high prices

[@philipthomson7460]

Back when it was called the South Coast, not the Gold Coast.

[@lynetteweiss5442]

Can any tell me the name of the Hungarian restaurant in surfers paradise in 1965.

[@leopoldonotarianni8663]

I think this is 1961 or 1962

[@davidklaehn2938]

Those were the days, not a mobile phone, ching or muslims anywhere, jist good old australian living. Every true aussie should be receiving compensation for having their lives taken away and how we used to live..

[@leogillespie3309]

Amen to that mate , crime so low then 🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺

[@Jo_Wardy]

I bet 75% of the motels are gone for high rise hotels

[@batmanlives6456]

Boy we drove shitbox cars back then !!!

[@graerindley6312]

And we only had horses 120 years ago but so what

[@andrewbowers_]

There was no such thing as, stabbings, needles, ethnic gangs committing home invasions and car-jackings. There were no street parades celebrating pride in sexual deviancy. But most important of all - there was one flag representing a united Australian people under GOD.

[@ACDZ123]

Yer albo and Labor are doing their best to destroy this country. Even the liberals as well ..1.5 million migrants coming over the next few yrs ..insanity

[@leogillespie3309]

And most of us owned and used guns , 🇦🇺