Issue 3 2007

Watch For This One
To celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Cannes Film Festival, 35 directors were each given free reign to produce a three-minute film on the topic 'the movie theatre'. The compilation, To Each His Own was screened at the Festival.

SOUTH AUSTRALIA
Openings and Closings
Managing Director of Wallis Theatres Bob Wallis passed away on Friday 22 June after a long illness. Almost 400 people attended a memorial service at the North Adelaide Picadilly cinema, Mr. Wallis's favourite. Daughter Michelle, now managing director of the company, is steering the business through busy times:
Mitcham 7 Cinemas closed on 7 June.
Academy Cinemas, Hindmarsh Square were sold and closed on 8 August. This sale will fund expansion and upgrades at other locations, including the possibility that the drive-in at Gepps Cross will become a twin.

Roy Denison
Country cinemas identity Roy Denison, known as the Picture Show Man, has died aged 81. Mr. Denison bought the Ozone at Victor Harbour from Hoyts in 1970 and ran it until 1995.
He owned drive-ins at the Port Elliott and Murray Bridge, running the latter from 1990 to 1998.

BCC closed the Toombul Cinemas complex at the Sandgate Road Shopping Centre on Saturday 30 June. The centre is to be redeveloped.

Regional Notes
From the S.A. Riverland John Fitzsimons reported:
Barmera: Former Bonney theatre. A rather spartan late 30s art-deco interior is well maintained. Only the foyer of the original gallery remains. Library staff are prepared to open it for visitors.
Berri: the former Rivoli is now a performing-arts centre. The original facade has gone, replaced by the Barmera-Berri Council offices.
Eudunda hall still has the bio-ports and well kept stage curtains.

VICTORIA
Drive-ins Classified
The decision by the National Trust (Vic.) to classify the Coburg and Dromana drive-ins gives them a status alongside the grandest of old buildings.
The Age writer Daniel Burt suggested that the people at the Trust must have 'got a choc-top rush' when they did it. According to Burt, 'Talk to people about the drive-in heyday and their eyes get foggier than the windscreen of the now deceased FJ Holden'.

Metro Changes Hands
The Metro nightclub, formerly Palace theatre, later Metro Bourke Street (amongst other names) is now the property of developer Jerry Pilarinos.
Mr. Pilarinos says that he intends to maintain the Metro as a club venue. A heritage overlay protects the facade, but the rest of the building does not have Heritage Victoria or National Trust (Vic.) classification.
The Victorian Theatres Trust is working to gain heritage protection for the building.

Kino Dendy Celebrates
Kino Dendy Cinemas, Collins Place celebrated 20 years with a party for film biz guests on 28June and a weekend of discounted tickets.
Mark Sarfaty, in partnership with Frank Cox (cofounder of the film distribution companies New Vision and Hopscotch) transformed the theatre in 2002 from two screens to a luxurious four-screen complex.

Stage Demolished
There's nothing regal now about the former Rex Daylesford, with the back of the building open to the elements. Plans for the redevelopment, which do not include a cinema, seem to be on hold.

Nautical Night At The Sun
A documentary on the sailing ship James Craig, restored in Sydney over the last 20 years, premiered in Sydney in May.
The Melbourne premiere was held at the Sun Yarraville on 7 June. The invited audience, mainly people associated with heritage work and charter vessels, were welcomed on the footpath by cinema owner Mike Smith, in full impresario garb.
A week of public screenings followed.

TASMANIA
Theatre Royal Hobart
The grand old lady celebrated her 170th anniversary in March. Sir Lawrence Olivier said in 1948, 'We appreciate playing in it, not only because it is a beautiful little theatre; it is more than that'. It has atmosphere and the secret of atmosphere is antiquity. Don't let it go!.

NEW ZEALAND
Napier: The city has its Readings multiplex, but it is the small touches at the Century, such as staff in uniform, that show it has a feel for the past.
Rotorua: The Basement has two screens and uses DVD projection for art-house films. Cinema One seats 22 and cinema Two 11, in very comfortable lounge-type chairs. Is this The Smallest Show On Earth?
Havelock North: Cinema Gold is a three-screen show with a large cafe. Built in 2003 it is linked with a company in Palmerston North
Dannevirke: The Regent claims to be the oldest cinema in the region still operating. Built in Spanish Mission style in 1919, it appears to retain its one screen.
Te Puke: The Capitol, built in the 1920s, is now four-screen, including one lounge cinema.
Pahiatua: The community has reopened their cinema, which is also used for live shows.
Te Awamutu: To commemorate 75 years of operation in March 2007, The Regent was chosen for the NZ premiere of Miss Potter, with Rene Zellweger. It is the Waikato's only surviving provincial cinema; now five screens.
Wellington: The historic Paramount in Courtney Place Central Wellington was sold by tender and the Queens / Time building at 181 Cuba Street is also for sale. Closed as a cinema in 1951, it has retained original features. Like the Paramount, it is on the council list of historic buildings.
Both theatres were designed by architect James Bennie, who was also a co-owner of the Queens.

CORRECTIONS
Metro Adelaide was in Hindley Street, not Rundle Street as stated in the last Newsreel.
Regent Dunedin was the third Regent opened by F.W. Thring/J.C. Williamsons, not the second (main story, last issue). First came South Yarra, then Auckland.

Letters

The State, North Hobart
I worked at the State North Hobart (CinemaRecord 55) for a short time as a relief projectionist in the late 1980s. The two Bauer 16mm Selecton projectors mentioned were from the State Library of Tasmania.
Upgrades to the main projection room not mentioned in the article include a SPECO platter and digital projection. Cinema Two has been open for a while and I believe there will be a third screen. All have, or will have digital projection.
Stephen Jones Hobart

Reporting by: Colin Flint (S.A.), John Fitzsimmons (in S.A.), Roderick Smith (Vic.) Ray Peck (Tas.) and Tony Froude (N.Z.)