Beautiful Melbourne (1947)

In the 1940s, Brotherhood of St Laurence founder, Father Gerard Tucker, commissioned three short, silent films which were screened to audiences in the affluent suburbs of Melbourne and rural Victoria. 'Beautiful Melbourne', 'Gaol Does Not Cure' and 'These Are Our Children' were made on a shoestring budget between in 1946-47. 'Beautiful Melbourne' with its raw scenes of the pre-gentrified Fitzroy near Melbourne’s CBD exposed the living conditions of families living in overcrowded, dilapidated and vermin-infested housing.