CHRIS UHLMANN, PRESENTER: In 1932 an Australian cricket side went on a private tour of Canada and the United States. It included many of the greatest names of the era: Victor Richardson, Stan McCabe and Don Bradman.

Little is known about the tour and until now only a few photographs survived.

But after 80 years gathering dust in a Canadian archive, a film of the Australians has emerged, and with it, beguiling images of another era.

Mike Sexton reports.

MIKE SEXTON, REPORTER: For lovers of the summer game, this is one of the great sights: Don Bradman in full flight.

DON BEARD, BRADMAN FRIEND: Footwork and speed of reflexes. He used to say, "If you don't hit the ball in the air, you won't get caught."

MIKE SEXTON: While the image is familiar, the location is not. This black and white footage was shot during an almost unknown tour of North America in 1932. It's never been seen in Australia before and these runs, scored at the height of his fame, do not appear as part of Bradman's first-class record.

SIMON SMITH, NATIONAL FILM & SOUND ARCHIVE: He scored nearly 3,800 runs at an average of 102. None of these runs are part of his figures, so in effect this is film from a lost tour.

MIKE SEXTON: The film was gathering dust in Canada until recently when a copy was sent to the Australian National Film and Sound Archive. Archivist Simon Smith believes it was originally intended for educational purposes.

SIMON SMITH: It would have been seen in places like schools, churches and through film societies. So I don't think it would have been particularly widely seen in Canada because Canada wasn't a massive market for cricket.

MIKE SEXTON: Historically there had been some interest in cricket in North America. Australian sides had toured in the early 20th Century playing teams in America and Canada.

MALCOLM KNOX, CRICKET HISTORIAN: By the 1930s baseball had really eclipsed cricket in the USA and in Canada as well and so it's probably the last attempt to recover what cricket had been in North America.

MIKE SEXTON: Although only 23 years old, Don Bradman was the biggest name in the sport and was marketed to the Americans as the Babe Ruth of cricket. The tour organisers even arranged for a photo opportunity for the pair in New York.

SIMON SMITH: Canadian Pacific Railway Corporation was a dealbreaker for them. They were only going to sponsor the tour if Bradman was part of the touring party.

MIKE SEXTON: But Don Bradman had a dealbreaker of his own. He would only play if he could bring his new wife Jessie along, in effect turning the tour into an elongated honeymoon. For Jessie Bradman it meant spending the first four months of her marriage as the only female member of the touring party as her husband played 51 exhibition matches.

DON BEARD: Everyone loved her. She was well educated, a good musician and a wonderful wife. She was never deferential to Sir Donald, but it must have been terribly difficult for her.

MIKE SEXTON: While Bradman was a drawcard, the tour was captained by South Australian Victor Richardson.

MALCOLM KNOX: I love seeing footage of Richardson because he really did have the charisma and the bearing of a 1930s Hollywood star. He allegedly had a friendship with Joan Crawford. Joan Crawford certainly came to watch the team when they played.

MIKE SEXTON: The Australians were feted in Hollywood where they visited film sets and then played an 11 that features actors Boris Karloff as wicketkeeper and Charles Aubrey Smith as captain and host.

IAN CHAPPELL, FORMER AUSTRALIAN CAPTAIN: He organised for them to go to a dinner. And at the dinner there was - I think there was quite a few film stars. I think Boris Karloff was there 'cause he was mad keen on cricket. Um, but also there was Dame Mary Astor and Jean Harlow.

MIKE SEXTON: Victor Richardson was a raconteur whose style of captaincy and love of the game was passed on to his grandson Ian Chappell.

IAN CHAPPELL: But he wouldn't tell stories of, oh, you know, how this guy got five wickets or that fella made 100 runs. It was more to do with people and stories about people and they just happened to be cricketers and they were generally quite humorous stories.

MIKE SEXTON: But in the years that followed cricket seemed to have less room for humour. After this tour came the "Bodyline" summer, a deepening depression and War years. Don Bradman moved from NSW to South Australia where he deposed Vic Richardson as captain of both the state and country, leading to a lifetime tension between the pair.

IAN CHAPPELL: If somebody asked, you know, "What's Bradman like?," and Vic would say, "Great batsman." As abrupt as that. And I always thought that - I mean, I knew that that was a sign: don't ask any more questions on that subject.

MIKE SEXTON: According to long-time friend, Don Beard, Sir Donald Bradman was never comfortable with the fame that cricket brought him. He believes it was his wife Jessie who often helped him through.

DON BEARD: She was better in public than he was and she could talk on any subject and in her last 25 years she had a cancer problem and she just carried this, never mentioned it.

MIKE SEXTON: After her death in 1997, an admirer funded an oncology ward at the Royal Adelaide Hospital in her name. That was 65 years after the Bradmans had honeymooned in North America, a tour historians can at last see images of, including a rare glimpse of a young newly-married man without the weight of the sporting world on his shoulders.

MALCOLM KNOX: Probably that 1932 tour was the nearest Bradman could come to just having a little bit of a break from being Don Bradman.

CHRIS UHLMANN: Wonder how you break the news to your wife that you're going to spend your honeymoon with 11 other blokes. You would have to be fast on your feet. Mike Sexton reporting.