[Wallace Clarke Home Movies: Reel 8]

Wallace Clarke was an amateur filmmaker during the 1960s to the 1990s. Wallace was particularly keen on capturing both the Australian landscape and the people who enjoyed it. As well as Australian urban settings and some world travels, Wallace’s films focus on the many hiking and camping destinations that he visited.

Often carrying the credit, ‘A Walkabout Film’, Wallace’s movies indicate that he was part of a nature study and walking group called ‘The Walkabouters Club of Victoria Inc’. The ‘Walkabouters’ formed in 1968 as a result of a Council of Adult Education (CAE), Outback Study Tour to Central Australia’. Some of the attendees decided to start the Club in order to continue educative walks particularly around Victoria. The Club encouraged their resident artists and photographers to capture their activities.

The collection of Wallace’s films was donated to ACMI by his widow Gwenda Clarke and is shot on various formats, predominantly Standard 8mm and Super 8mm film.

This film captures a trip by car to the Victorian town of Beechworth and surrounds.

Originally made on Super 8mm film.

Selected highlights list:
00:00:10:00 title card ‘WHC presents’ and ‘Historic Beechworth’ followed by the town welcome sign and some very quiet streets
00:00:47:00 ‘Beechworth Post Office’
00:01:24:00 looking down into an historic street of buildings with original verandas as well as an ‘Esso’ sign in the foreground and ‘Mobil’ further along
00:01:32:00 ‘Burke Memorial in stained glass (for ‘Robert O’Hara Bourke’) followed by a very old cottage and many other historic buildings
00:05:12:00 sign for ‘The Ovens Goldfields Hospital’ includes highlights of the hospital’s history such as being the only hospital between Melbourne and Goulburn
00:05:57:00 bushwalkers, followed by a small aircraft dropping fertilizer and views of the countryside
00:06:30:00 views of the ‘Beechworth Powder Magazine’ building and plaque for the opening by ‘the Honourable RJ Hamer’ in 1966
00:08:05:00 views of a ‘bush hut’ among scrub and trees and another small cottage which could be the home of ‘bushranger’ Ned Kelly
00:08:50:00 country views, a creek and waterfall, and a lake or river with speed boats
00:10:15:00 views around an old cemetery including a sign for ‘Chinese Ceremonial Burning Towers’ before seeing the towers and some graves with Chinese lettering on the headstones
00:11:35:00 travelling a dusty road by car through the bush, past a lovely ageing house with very deep veranda until the sign ‘Mt Pilot Scenic Reserve’
00:12:36:00 farmland and old farmhouses, some views of flora and fauna and a lookout tower and mountain views
00:13:07:00 a large lizard on a rock
00:13:28:00 lookout tower
00:13:44:00 photographers on a summit
00:14:16:00 title card ‘The End’