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Life Guards at Bondi Beach: Rescue boats (c.1929)
Title:
Life Guards at Bondi Beach: Rescue boats (c.1929)
NFSA ID
35345
Year
1929
Teams of lifeguards ready their wooden boats on shore. One lifeguard is shown in close-up wearing a life jacket and swimming cap. The boats are pushed out to the surf while spectators watch from the beach. The teams of five row in their boats, one of them standing on the end as a rudder, as they move further out into wild surf. Some of the boats get more buffeted than others.
Summary by Poppy De Souza
Title Synopsis
A fragment of actuality footage that shows lifesavers marching on Bondi Beach, a demonstration rescue of a person from the surf and lifesaving boats being rowed out into the surf in front of onlooking crowds.
Title Curator's Notes
Thought to be from around 1929, this footage shows a Surf Life Saving carnival at Bondi Beach. The film uses dissolves, edits and fades to create simple sequences and convey a sense of narrative to the event. The swimming costumes, rescue equipment, resuscitation techniques and crowds all sit firmly in their time.
The film’s provenance is unknown and what is held at the National Film and Sound Archive appears to be only a fragment of what was probably a longer production. It was deposited with the Archive by a private source.
Notes by Poppy De Souza
The National Film and Sound Archive of Australia acknowledges Australia’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the Traditional Custodians of the land on which we work and live and gives respect to their Elders both past and present.