8:30pm, Sunday August 7, 2022

SPECIAL LIVE FILM EVENT

Open-air parking garage, ground floor SPK (Polish Combatants Hall), 206 Beverley St

PAY-WHAT-YOU-CAN

THE WELL-DRESSED TRAVELLER

Home life during WWII and Canada at mid-century

presented by the Home Movie History Project

Please note: this screening will happen rain or shine, as the SPK Parking Garage is covered. We hope to see you there!

A London Ontario family filmed their daily life and their ramblings across the continent from the 1930s to 1950s. Tackling whatever they were doing looking their best, usually wearing a sharp suit or a new frock. The family took up shooting 8mm in 1934 near the format's beginning and soon switched from black and white to making crisp Kodachrome images, which are still beautifully preserved. The colours of uniforms are seen at military parades through London streets starting in 1939. Young men of their family now also in uniform, pose with cheerful brave faces. During the war they filmed the home life in London and locally around southern Ontario and nearby Michigan. Following the war they returned to wider travel, documenting trips driving west in both Canada and the US. The collection ends in 1955 with a large parade held for the centennial of the city of London. 

From intimate colour portraits of family members; to a wartime flower garden spelling out "Brave Men Shall Not Die Because I Falter"; to the Kellogg's plants in London and Battle Creek; to the everyday rhythm of things during the war – heading to school or church, catching the bus, kids birthday parties and ice-skating en masse outdoors; to travel footage of arriving by train at Jasper, the eccentric Corn Palace in S Dakota and the "Garden of the Gods" desert rock formations; and, to a group of men in warm weather all wearing white fedoras or panama hats – images that together form a chronicle of the lives and times of Canadians in the mid 20th century.