In the early 1970s, Australia’s Department of Transport put out a series of safe-driving films. Strine, of course, is Australian for “Australian”:
Paul’s post the other day with the 1973 review of the Austin Marina reminded me of this film, as I misremembered one of the demonstrator cars as a Marina—the gold one that shows up at 2:09. Nope, guess not, so what is it? The taillights remind me of those on the ~’65 Envoy, but this movie car is newer, and it’s on a continent halfway round the world. Still, I keep thinking it’s from somewhere in the GM constellation. I’m sure someone’ll pick it.
The traffic is remarkably sparse, and the advice is risibly outdated—speed up to merge at the same speed as traffic on the freeway? Check your mirrors and use your turn indicators?! Like, I’m so sure anybody’s really gonna do all that and post selfies on Fecebook while being infotained. God! »eyeroll«
Still, the picture and sound quality are really terrific, and so’s the scenery—with and without wheels under it. I’m a linguistics geek, so it’s interesting to hear this Australian version of the 1970s safety educational film narrator voice and accent, and sort of try to map the presentation onto the North American equivalents without being able to pick out specific things to go, “Who talks like that?” about.
I’m also a traffic system engineering geek, so I’m having fun noting the close similarities between Australian and U.S. freeways—the design and configuration of the signs in this film, for example, are closer to U.S. practice than the ones here and now in Canada. Clearly Australian roadway engineers looked closely (in a mirror) at the U.S. Interstate highway system.
Other fun stuff? Yep! At 5:37, we’re advised to “turn on your four-way emergency flashers, if you have them“. I just recently learnt from CC commenter Carl Kelsen that four-way flashers weren’t legal in Australia until 1973, the same year this film was made. Guess the DoT wanted to promote the new device and future-proof the film.
The freeway film was actually ninth in the series. Here’s the first one, with more close-ups; more sermonising, and more BANG! »sound of falling glass« action:
The music is certainly period, what with all the strummity-strum guitar and trumpets and suchlike. So are the cars, obviously; look in the –rearview– rear-vision mirror at 6:32.
It’s also interesting to see traffic full of 1960s-’70s American(ish, cousin) cars with amber rear turn signals, many of which double as reversing lamps. But don’t look too closely at them—that’s how they getchya; the next thing you know, you’re stuck being a socialist without any freedom.
That’s a great film. There’s a companion series on how to drive, of which there are about 12 or so episodes. In this one, PC Geoff Caine shows you how to look after your brand new Ford Falcon.
The yellow/gold car appearing front on at 2.09, with a surf board on the roof reg LMJ730, is a Holden Torana, an evolution of the Vauxhall Viva HB. This one looks like an LC generation 1969-72.
The accents are, to me, not very broad Australian, and could almost be British.
Overall, the street scenes show a lot British influence then I suspect they would now
Thank you!
Definitely a 4 cylinder Torana, but I think it’s the next series on, the LJ (1972-74) as the three rear lights each have their own chrome surround. With the LC they had a single frame round the whole cluster.
The HC Viva had very similar rear lights too, but if you look at some of the styling ‘clays’ from 1964 that style of rear light was considered for the HB too.
Yes, LJ Torana, came in 1300 and 1760 cc. Also 6 cyl, this one probably 1300, definitely 4 cylinder.
Yep 4 banger 1300 I had one in bright orange factory paint but overtaking wasnt really something it did with only the gutless 1256 Viva engine.
Quite right, Rog, the accent here is pure NarratorAus of the time. If the doco was from the previous decade, it would sound positively cod-English Toff. The famous Australian Cultural Cringe at its finest.
It’s Torana alright, the short-nosed 4-cyl one, and if there were no other clues, that knock-kneed Viva front end would tell it anyway. They set-up seemed to be clapped-out on all of them when quite young.
” it would sound positively cod-English Toff ”
or if it was made by the Air Bair Cair ( the national broadcaster ABC )
Yep. Normal people didn’t speak like that, only on TV, or ABC radio.
I’m wondering how he got that Torana 1300 to overtake anything. A friend’s mum had one; they were slooooow.
My Mum had the previous LC version with the 1159cc engine, I don’t think it ever overtook anything, but it was a far better car than the ugly, farting, front suspension collapsing Austin Lancer it replaced.
I can’t remember anything going wrong with the Torana.
Australian English is great fun. Another good book about it is G’day: Teach Yourself Australian in 20 Easy Lessons, ISBN 978-0207154317. It’s a light-hearted but informative spoof on those language courses you see that are centered around a fictional family and their social circle. It’s got all the trappings: a bit of dialog for each lesson, vocabulary, questions for further study. For example:
“Give moral and philosophical arguments in basic Australian about whether Darlene should have her boiler scraped [= have an abortion]. `Buggered if I know’ is not an acceptable answer.”
An updated film would have more advice on dealing with heavy stop and go traffic.
In ’85, a friend and I took a road trip from London to Edinburgh to the Isle of Skye and back via Stonehenge (what a letdown). Mostly on motorways (freeways) on the way back, at 80-90 mph in a Mini Metro. We had little trouble driving on the left, even with a stick, but remembering in my mind’s eye, we’re always on the right.
I sure wish Americans had better lane discipline. On the three lane stretches of I-95 I used to drive frequently, the middle lane was usually the slow one. It’s amazing there weren’t more wrecks.
Yeah very familiar roads and quite similar to what the motorways in NZ are like to drive on early in the morning when I head south the traffic volume increases dramatically as daylight comes and by the time I reach the Bombay hill where I enter the Auckland motorway I cant usually do my legal top speed of 90kmh and @48,000kgs gross I leave more distance to the vehicle in front, tailgaters get a rude shock as I use Jake brakes and with no inertia switch do not trigger the brake lights, yep Murican truck,
I still hold an Aussie drivers licence Tasmanian issue this time the rules are similar state to state but not the same.
That’s interesting (and a little frightening, not just for tailgaters) that with the jake brake the lights don’t come on. I kind of wondered how that worked in EVs with the one-pedal driving, ie not having to touch the brake, the infographic of the car on the screen of ours actually shows it that when I lift off the gas completely then the brake lights DO come on including when it’s holding itself at a light, but when just backing off the throttle and more or less coasting (which in an EV still requires some throttle application, otherwise it’s regen braking) as in an ICE car then they stay off.
Hey! It’s socialism WITH freedom, if you don’t mind, umpire. Well, sort-of, on both counts, the former only by US standards.
That freeway is in Sydney somewhere, and I suspect very new, perhaps even not yet open in parts. How else could they set up some of those shots? Btw, the two main cars stopping at speed and so on are ZF Ford Fairlanes for the curious (that old Falcon platform but stretched, 116 in WB, 302 or 351 V8. The main other cars with the rear lights low in the bumper are HQ Holdens). Man, it’s stark reminder of how massively boring the tariff and quota-protected carscape was in my younger years – every second bloody car was Holden or Ford! No wonder I took a shine to Renaults and Pugs (assembled here, low sellers), they weren’t either of those two.
As for lingiustics, the Oz accent can sound awfully like a power saw after any absence – really a bit harsh on the ears – but it’s hugely muted from the times of this vid or the hilarious Strine book shown. In fact, many of the tortured English bits from that book, written in the ’60’s, have simply gone for good, though they lived on well into the ’90’s before their main speakers were themselves gone.
Now, to my great irritation, the present mob of teens-and-under have these weird half-US voices, presumably because that country utterly dominates the ‘Netland they all live entirely within.
On other thing from these videos that I’m so glad to see it’s not just my unreliable memory from childhood – my god people were ugly in the ’70’s! Clothes, hair, glasses, and that great Aussie special, men in shorts and shoes with white socks, short-sleeve shirt and ties. Seriously, the shag carpets and vinyl roofs and general shit on cars of then
is just part of a continuum, I swear. And everything everywhere stinking of cigarettes and acrid exhausts, I can smell it through the screen. Now, I had a happy childhood, but I did not like the sights and smells, and the nostalgia that brings back this era from time to time is completely and entirely misplaced wishfulness.
I read somewhere that when the first, obscure Mad Max movie was screened in the US, some of the voices were dubbed so Americans could understand the accent.
The ‘power saw’ accent, and ‘men in shorts and shoes with white socks’…I had to rush to YouTube to find some scenes from ‘Kath and Kim’. 🙂
Idea for sausage…
This kind of cultural hegemony is poopy. The fun U.S. accents are hollow shadows of their former glory, too.
Glancing at the news, it seems people are still ugly, just maybe now with some less unfortunate fashions—I’m not licenced to give advice on the subject, but that doesn’t stop me pointing and laffing at the ’70s and ’80s.
Careful, mate; you could get eggs thrown at you!
Ooh! I hadn’t seen that one.
And so many eggs. Say, I’m almost jealous.
I commented, but, to speak Strine, the bastard nicked off on me. Can one o’ youse good bastards chase ‘im down for a bloke?* On yer*.
*for me
*(ie: good on you=thanks)
Years ago the Australian travel authority published a series of magazine travel ads in ‘Strine’. One showed two large yachts sailing closely together, heeled over. The caption read ‘Bat Rice’.
The car (that hopefully has flashers) at 5:29 is a ‘Tri-matic’.
Nah, mate, it’s a Kingy. Badge is for the tranny, and it’s prob’ly the bloody Traumatic that’s packed up, hey.*
(*transl. with further notes in square brackets):
“No, sir [also friend, enemy, exclamation] that is a GM Holden Kingswood. The badge is the call-out for the Tri-matic auto transmission [a locally-made adaptation of GM Strasburg 3-speed, ‘traumatic’ being a joke name common for the new auto then] and it’s likely to be that that has caused the pulling-over by failing, don’t you think?” [the last rhetorical only, no real question mark – or need, really – and pron. ‘ay’].
…and then there’s New Zealand:
Goofy should probably learn to how to drive Strine on the freeway. 😉
That’s an old favourite of mine! (“Box-car effect” FTW)
And Goofy isn’t the only one who need to drive Strine, Popeye and Olive should learn as well. 😉
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6jfavr
Few Australians have that accent anymore. Last time I heard a really strong Australian accent (outside of a comedy skit) was in the early ’80’s from a taxi driver in Sydney.
But “Lets Stalk Strine” is still hilarious. We used to have great fun working out what the words written in the book were really saying:
Mare chick = magic.
Sag rapes = sour grapes
Terror souse = terrace house
etc. etc.
The best thing was, if you said what was written quickly with a strong Australian accent it usually began to make sense.
Thanx for all the old safety flicks ~ i remember the Disney ones .
-Nate
Noticed that the street signs with distances and speeds (and the speedo from the Holden) were all in MPH. Must have been before Australia went metric.