BMA world tour. Part 3.

Date:
c.1935
  • Film

About this work

Also known as

British Medical Association Round the World Tour and Annual Meeting at Melbourne. 1935

Description

This amateur film, which has been edited semi-professionally with additional intertitles and maps to orientate the viewer, consists of footage shot in the third part of the BMA's World Tour as they travel onwards. The group travel have left San Francisco and arrive at Honolulu on board the MV Aorangi; the arrival is filmed from the ship looking at the coastal landscape. The ladies of the party are wearing lei (garlands). The group stay at the Royal Hawaiian Hotel, Waikiki Beach; the setting is right on the beach and in lush tropical gardens. The party visit a village where women are making skirts from palm leaves for the tourists. There is then an amusing lesson in hula dancing. The villagers put on a performance. In a coconut grove, native peoples demonstrate going up a tree. Indigenous people are seen surfing on long wooden boards and boys dive from a jetty. Leaving Hawaii, there's various shots on deck including a baby in a baby bouncer! As the ship crosses the meridian, 'Father Neptune' appears to initiate people who haven't crossed it before; the deck is crowded with onlookers. Various people are tipped upside down into a pool. The party arrive in Fiji; they are greeted by a local band and dancing and fire-walking. The party then disembark for Auckland, New Zealand. In Auckland, the city is seen to be prosperous; the building are described as being 'tall tabernacles of trade'. There are exterior views of St Matthews, the Old Mill in Symonds Street and Grafton Bridge.

Publication/Creation

UK, c.1935.

Physical description

1 film reel (18 min.) : silent, black and white
The film is turning acetic and is stored in fridge B.

Notes

This film forms part of a group of films donated to the Wellcome Trust in 2006 by The British Medical Association.
This series of films (there are 6 in the collection) relate to the British Medical Association's Round the World Tour and Annual Meeting in Melbourne, 1935. The journey is also captured in a diary kept by Mrs. Katherine Harman which was acquired separately by the library (MS.7394) . The party travelled in style with the travel services arranged by Pickfords going by ship from Southampton to New York; across the USA via Washington, Chicago, Albuquerque, the Grand Canyon and Los Angeles to San Francisco; by ship to Hawaii, Fiji, Auckland (an excursion here to the Rotorua geothermal sites) and Sydney; by train to Melbourne and Canberra; by ship once more from Sydney to Brisbane, Macassar, Bali, Java (visiting Surabaya, Borobudur and Batavia (Djakarta)) and Singapore; by train to Kuala Lumpur and Penang; by sea again to Colombo, Bombay, Aden, Suez, Malta and Marseille; finally by train and ferry back to London.

Copyright note

Copyright previously held by British Medical Association and assigned to Wellcome in 2005

Type/Technique

Languages

Where to find it

  • Location Access
    Closed stores
    7107F
    Can't be requested

    Note

Permanent link