HOME MOVIES: MONTREAL EXPO '67

Genre: home movie

Year Published: 1967

Format: 16mm

Description: Shot during the 1967 International and Universal Exposition (also known as Expo '67) this 16mm silent home movie shows various scenes of the fair, including the Buckminster Fuller designed geodesic dome. The film begins elsewhere as a chartered GM bus leaves for the Expo. A road trip follows, with shots out the windows of the bus of a highway, and the Canadian border at 1:47. At 2:11 the fair can be seen from the highway as the group enters Montreal. Some parts of the fair including the Canadian Pavilion appear to be still in scaffolding (2:26). At 4:30 the fairgrounds is shown up close, including the USSR Pavilion at 4:50, people movers, Canadian National pavilion (6:40) and more. At 7:49 a hovercraft is seen on the move, and at 7:55 a subway or light rail train, Place des Nations and more. The India pavilion is seen at 10:50, and Thai pavilion at 12:22, and the Cinema at 12:32. See other pavilions of interest? Mention them in the comments. The film concludes with a visit to tourist sites in the Montreal vicinity including what appears to be St. Joseph's Oratory. The 1967 International and Universal Exposition or Expo 67, as it was commonly known, was a general exhibition, Category One World's Fair held in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, from April 27 to October 29, 1967. It is considered to be the most successful World's Fair of the 20th century [1] with the most attendees to that date and 62 nations participating. It also set the single-day attendance record for a world's fair, with 569,500 visitors on its third day. Expo 67 was Canada's main celebration during its centennial year. The fair had been intended to be held in Moscow, to help the Soviet Union celebrate the Russian Revolution's 50th anniversary; however, for various reasons, the Soviets decided to cancel, and Canada was awarded it in late 1962. The project was not well supported in Canada at first. It took the determination of Montreal's mayor, Jean Drapeau, and a new team of managers to guide it past political, physical and temporal hurdles. Defying a computer analysis that said it could not be done, the fair opened on time.[2] After Expo 67 ended in October 1967, the site and most of the pavilions continued on as an exhibition called Man and His World, open during the summer months from 1968 until 1984. By that time, most of the buildings — which had not been designed to last beyond the original exhibition — had deteriorated and were dismantled. Today, the islands that hosted the world exhibition are mainly used as parkland and for recreational use, with only a few remaining structures from Expo 67 to show that the event was held there.

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