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Film Collection Online: DPR/TV - Make Someone Happy

09 September 2013

To complement the release of the film collection online, the film and sound team are creating a series of showreels to give you a taste of the material that is now readily available at your fingertips!

A major component of the Memorial’s film collection is the Army Directorate of Public Relations DPR/TV series of 16mm cine films. Starting in the early 1960s and ending in the early 1970s this series spans the Vietnam War, Indonesian Confrontation as well as the activities of the Army in PNG and Australia. The films were shot, as the ‘TV’ in the series title implies, for television news broadcast. The raw camera footage was edited down to a few minutes, a storyline written and multiple 16mm prints were made for distribution to broadcasters for the evening news.  The Memorial holds the camera original footage, the outtakes and in most cases related documentation such as shot lists and storylines. There are over nine hundred titles in this series and the majority of films have now been digitized and are available for download on our website.  Entering DPR/TV as the search term will retrieve the catalogue records for this series and the link to download the access video.

Intercut with footage of the lovely Lorrae Desmond MBE performing in Nui Dat 19 September 1969, this showreel contains brief clips of soldiers, nurses, a tracker dog and soldier’s loved ones welcoming their return home.  Though many persons shown in the films were identified, the first fellow you see is unknown (as is the tracker dog from the same film) as we did not receive any documentation with this particular film, War dogs in training DPR/TV/616.  If you recognize him or indeed recognize yourself please contact us. The other close ups of persons are named in the shot lists as:  Lieutenant Terrie Roche of Goulburn NSW sharing a joke with her patient (Temporary) Corporal Terry Porter of Teneriffe, Qld; Private Alan Pon of Bexley, NSW on the troop carrier HMAS Sydney very happy to be on his way home; Lieutenant Margaret Ahern of Leeton NSW, removing her surgical mask to smile for the camera; Sergeant Brett Nolan of Tocumwal, NSW wearing Vietnamese peasant hat and Private Jim Malone of Camooweal, Qld with a big smile for the camera. The remaining clips are from the return home of 3 RAR in October 1971 and feature families and soldiers.  We again request help in identification as none of persons shown in this film are named due to the lack of any accompanying documentation.

 The second part of the showreel is an example clip from the DPR/TV Christmas messages from Vietnam. The Christmas messages were filmed from 1967 to 1971 and organized by state of origin for broadcast in Australia during Christmas. In this clip you may recognize a former Deputy Prime Minister and Ambassador to the Vatican giving his Christmas 1968 greetings.

Please enjoy exploring, researching and, most importantly, viewing our collection.

Links to collection items used in the show reel –

F04383, F03873, F03907,

F03887, F04142, F04183

F04675, F04691                                    

Our previous showreels can be found here -Not a Common Carrier, Captured Films, Department of Information and First World War.

If you have any questions, concerns or feedback about the content of the film collection please feel free to contact photofilmsound@awm.gov.au

  - Antoni Rudnicki, Curator of Film & Sound

Last updated: 30 March 2021

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