Today's travel programs are hosted by Anthony Bourdain-type figures who purport to show you the lesser-known jewels of a place, but back in the '60s they were all surface and shine set to a groovy soundtrack and narrated by a person talking in some sort of accent that just doesn't exist in modern times. That's exactly what this mini-travelogue of South Florida produced by British Pathé is, and it is a delight.
"The big discovery that changed everything is that in Florida," our cheeky British narrator explains after noting that this once all swampland. "There's no such word as winter. Ever since the news broke, people have been hurrying south at the first site of frost."
The film is jam-packed with little nuggets of the way things were.
Here, for example, is what a stretch of Biscayne Boulevard in downtown Miami used to look like.
And who knew that Lincoln Road used to feature a tram service, or as the documentary puts it "the tiny canopied tram car"?
And a reminder that there was a time when Miami was even more obsessed with neon.
You can watch the full thing below. There are a few detours down into Key West and over to the Everglades, but everything starts and ends in Miami.