Archived newsreels from around 65 years ago were shown for the first time on Friday, giving a glimpse of “happier” Maltese, who seemed to always have a smile on their faces in those days.
The footage, spanning from 1955 to 1963, at a time when there was no TV, also includes an “exhibition” of the first beach concession in Golden Bay, featuring the novelty of deckchairs and umbrellas in neat rows as the first tourists started to visit the island in the mid-1950s and before sunbeds would hog its shores and elbow them out.
A unique record that may not exist in other archives- Vincent Lungaro Mifsud, chairman, Malta Cine Circle
Belonging to the Malta Cine Circle, the newsreels have not been seen since they were originally screened some seven decades ago, Vincent Lungaro Mifsud, chairman of the film-making club, said.
‘Newsreels show things we take for granted’
“They are a good journey to the past, showing things we take for granted,” he said. A selection of events from the four hours of footage, filmed by the Circle’s members, were screened June 24, at a show titled These Made the News, to commemorate its 70th anniversary.
The events, which Lungaro Mifsud maintains few people around today would remember clearly, are making the news again as Times of Malta has reshot the same scenes 70 years later, highlighting the contrast between life then and now.
Roads have few cars and there is a conspicuous absence of cranes on the horizon – captured also in a clip singled out by Lungaro Mifsud that sees a statue being hauled up onto the top of the St Publius church by a hand winch, “probably similar to Egyptian times”.
The extensive collection of news, including political events such as the 1962 elections and the Integration campaign, is a “unique record that may not exist in other archives”, he said.
Outside St John's Co-Cathedral in Valletta
The digging of the Portes des Bombes underpass.
Celebrating the 1960 Pauline centenary near the Gillieru restaurant in St Paul's Bay.
The road leading up to Castille, now known as Ġlormu Cassar Avenue.
‘Portes des Bombes goes unnoticed’
The Portes des Bombes underpass, for example, goes by unnoticed as people drive through, oblivious to the fact that once it was not there. But the archived footage shows the roadworks under way as it was dug out in 1957.
Few would remember the law courts being constructed instead of the bombed-down auberge in 1956, Lungaro Mifsud maintained, as this is captured in the newsreels, together with the celebration of the Pauline centenary of 1960, commemorating 1,500 years since St Paul arrived in Malta.
The Circle was founded in 1952 by a small group of cine enthusiasts who wanted to share their pastime with fellow film-makers.
Until the early 1960s, regular ‘guest nights’ would be held to project amateur films by club members and productions from similar clubs in the UK to packed audiences in the Phoenicia hotel’s ballroom.
In between one guest night and another, members would be given a roll of film and assigned to shoot special events in Malta in that period to present them as short newsreels before the show.
“This emulated what was happening in the cinema theatres when Pathé and Gaumont newsreels used to be shown before the start of the main feature film,” said Lungaro Mifsud.
When Hollywood movies were all the rage
The 1950s were the years when Hollywood movies were all the rage and 8mm home cine cameras were becoming accessible to enthusiasts as the Circle grew in popularity and its membership increased year on year, he added.
Film is highly volatile and easily deteriorates but some five years ago, the newsreel archive footage was sent to a lab in Holland to be re-mastered and digitised and is now “safely preserved” for years to come.
To commemorate its anniversary, the Circle has prepared a series of special shows on the development of film-making in Malta throughout the past seven decades, including documentaries from the 1950s that are “some of the only live visual records that really capture you”.