Page 18 - untitled

LETTERS

I have been cleaning out the memory bank and offer a few more 'tit bits' for consideration or verification.

REVOLVING STAGES Two of Hoyts Theatres had revolving stages, the Padua, Brunswick which was used
for a variety of professional and semi-professional performances, mostly in association with a feature film. Was
there another revolving stage anywhere else on the metropolitan circuit? I think so.

REAR PROJECTION As memory serves me, very few cinemas had rear projections. From recollection
either the old State Newsreel (Mailier St Sydney) or the newsreel below the Odeon Melbourne were se equipped
due to lack of space to permit forward projection. Can anyone throw any light onto that question?

As you are probably aware, the Princess, Spring Street, also ran commercial movies during its 'dark' periods.
These were usually 'off circuit' local productions such as the Leyland Bros Outback series etc. which could not
gain conventional commercial exhibition.

CATHS LISTINGS You show Hoyts Broadway, Burke Road, Camberwell as shutting down in 1964.
thought it was more like 1984? You show the Pumpkin Theatre at St. Ignatius Hall. They probably used this for
some productions. This church hall has been used for a number of amateur live shows. Pumpkin had a separate
small theatre 60-1 oo seats in a nearby street - I have been there. Any verification of specific location?
Your Melbourne listings do not show the "Viaduct Theatre" which was a live theatre group performing in under
the railway viaduct in the buildings in Flinders Street (south side).

THE CAPITOL Swanston Street was regarded by 20th Century Fox as the best designed and most
spectacular theatre in the world. It was the first to employ long playing records, synchronised to the action on
the screen.

TRAMWAYS During the 1920's both the Victorian Railways Commissioners and the Melbourne and
Metropolitan Tramways Board, became concerned at the declining number of passengers using public transport.
The advent of the 'talkie' created a whole new movement of about 25 million passengers travelling to cinemas.

Chapel Street is a good example of the loads offered. Prior to 1954, the City to Prahran and Prahran to North
Richmond services required 12 cars to maintain a ten minute evening service on both routes giving an interval
between trams of 5 minutes after 8.00p.m. To move all the theatre crowds required an additional 8-10 cars to
be despatched by Kew Depot from about 1 O.ISp.m.

As if by magic, the cars would be positioned outside the cinemas in Richmond, Windsor and Prahran (and South
Yarra) to take up the traffic as the cinemas disgorged their human cargoes in less than five minutes. Twenty trams
on the route at 1 0.45-11.45 could move a sizeable proportion of the short-distance traffic with a seating capacity
of about 1 040 and a crush capacity of over 1 000 cinema goers.

Whilst the collapse oft he suburban cinema and total cinema attendances was principally due to television, about
1 0% of the loss was directly attributable to other factors. In 1954/55 the then Cain Government refused to allow
suburban bus operators to increase fares. As a result, overnight about 50 metropolitan bus routes servicing
cinemas shut down. (They were never reinstated even during daytime.) And those remaining, severely curtailed
all evening services.

The changing pattern of personal household expenditure also means that greater proportions were being spent
on electrical goods, cars and household soft furnishings. Despite what has been said, the 'silver screen' would
have died a slow death worldwide, even had television not emerged and been taken up so rapidly as it was by
Australian households.

TheCA THS listings show an important aspect of alternative land uses for cinema sites. All Australian cities were
grossly over-seated in terms of cinema capacity with most suburban cinemas lucky to run an evening show six
nights a week; or Saturday afternoon matinee for the kids with an occasional 4-45p.m. Intermediate on a
Saturday. It was not surprising to find many closures attributable to more profitable land use as supermarkets,
furniture warehouse sales or white goods outlets.

At shareholder meetings of the J. Arthur Rank Organisation in Britain in the early 1960's, it was admitted that
most of the cinemas being shut (in England) were still marginally profitable, but that the profits derived from
alternative land use were far greater.
Russell J. Nowell