HOME MOVIES: BERMUDA VACATION 1940s

Genre: home movie

Year Published: 1930s

Format: 16mm

Description: This home movie film was made by someone on vacation to Bermuda. It includes street views from some of the towns in Bermuda, including Hamilton, St George, and Somerset. The film mainly focuses on the scenery, including beaches, vegetation, and animals during a zoo visit. There is also a short scene labelled as displaying a "Native School", highlighting the still widespread segregation in Bermuda at the time. The film appears to date to the late 1930s or early 40s; the Monarch of Bermuda ocean liner shown in the film was named that way from 1931–47, after which it became known as the New Australia and then the Arkadia. Our best guess is that the film dates to 1939, as it shows a rugby match between Harvard and Cornell, and an article in the Harvard Crimson in that year noted that "Crimson rugby players will embark on April 1 for a week's stay in Bermuda where they will play Yale, Princeton, and Cornell during the annual rugby week held there." 0:18 The SS Monarch of Bermuda liner in Hamilton Harbor, 0:45 carriages on the streets of Hamilton, 1:14 close up street shots from Hamilton, 1:44 Hibiscus plants and other types of plants in a garden, 2:12 a field of lilies, 2:33 the beach at Harrington Sound, 2:48 the Tom Moore House Tavern, 3:12 lobsters in the water, 3:25 Lili Bermuda, 3:45 a woman ready to dive with sea helmets, 4:30 a zoo visit with Galapagos Tortoises, Galapagos Penguins, colorful parrots, Toucans, and Fatula Chickens, 5:55 street scenes from the town of St. George, 6:28 a school for "the natives" in St. George, 6:44 more street scenes from St. George, 7:05 a Papaya tree and Angel’s Trumpet flowers, 7:25 an English Garden, 7:45 a beautiful beach, 8:15 different shots of a resort, 8:42 a rugby game between Cornell and Harvard University, 9:21 an aircraft flying labeled by the editor as "the China Clipper", 9:33 more scenes from the rugby game, 9:56 scenes from Somerset including flowers and the beach, 10:31 the grounds of the Bermudiana Hotel. SS New Australia was a UK-built turbo-electric passenger steamship that had a varied career from 1931 to 1966. She was built as the ocean liner Monarch of Bermuda, and had luxury berths for 830 passengers and capacity for refrigerated cargo. She became a troop ship in the Second World War and was damaged by fire in 1947. She was then refitted to carry emigrants to Australia and renamed New Australia. In 1958 she was refitted again, renamed Arkadia and served as both a transatlantic liner and a cruise ship.

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