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REGENT AND PLAZA (Postscript) by Bertie Bertram

Little did I think on that Saturday morning in March 1929, when mother dressed me in my neatest clothes
(actually there was not really much to select from) and I rode the cable tram from Richmond to the city, with two
sixpenny pieces in my pocket to see the first Saturday morning concert at The Regent theatre of Collins Street,
that I would be walking up those elegant marble steps 64 years later to view what is now a shell of a classical
theatre of The Golden Age of Hollywood's greatest movies.

Well thanks to the Melbourne City Council and the dedication of the Cinema and Theatre Historical Society of
Victoria Inc., the people of Melbourne have been granted the 18th and 19th September, 1993 to relive - or
endeavour to recapture - some of the magic which was The Regent of those long gone years.

In groups of 20 or so we were shown through the gently sloping auditorium, now bereft of it's enormous amount
of seating capacity -the Front Stalls and the Back Stalls (which cost threepence extra for patrons). We were
walked down to where the Wurlitzer Organ and orchestra leader Daniel Mas and his Regent Theatre Orchestra
of top musicians daily and nightly played the snappiest music of any theatre orchestra in Melbourne. Our guide
then led us up those crenellated marble steps, past the archers and bowmen at Agincourt and the ladies of the
French Court to what used to be the Dress Circle Foyer.

Had it not been for the photographs displayed there by the good people of C.A.T.H.S. Inc., to show that large
room in all it's pristine glory, one would have thought they were in a shearing shed on the Murrumbidgee!! We
traipsed past those knights of Camelot and Agincourt and I suppose some were from Cressy ...... as a school-
boy I always thought that word had something to do with watercress .... We kept climbing and then were in what
was once the Dress Circle and The Lounge; talk about being on a high - looking down to a bare and eerie stage
I started to experience vertigo. Our guide then took us into the Projection Room with all it's apertures for lights
and films. What a scene of activity that room must have been with the projectionists scurrying back and forth
- playing their spotlights on that spacious stage and the performers; They were great men at their job.

Slowly we wended our way down those bare boards, bare concrete steps, down to the ground floor where our
extremely competent guide bade us farewell. I stood there trying desperately to project my mind back over
that waterfall of memories - back 64 years to that helter skelter day which was my first visit to that wonderful
theatre and frankly not being a Keith Dunstan or a Hans Christian Andersen I was a dismal flop- the past was
so long ago. Looking into that bare auditorium where once thousands of happy girls and boys cavorted and the
mighty Wurlitzer shook the rafters with crescendos of magnificent music, was an unreal feeling.

I tried hard to visualise the sea of happy faces on the night when the Final of the P. & A. Parade was held in the
30's - when the Regent was packed with Melbourne's radio audience all jammed in together - with good old
Eddie Balmer (Dapper Eddie) as Master of Ceremonies- oh boy! Even walking up to that Circle Lounge with
it's paintings, gilded enclaves, Louis XIV furniture and the glamorous patrons in their smart lounge suits and
attractive frocks, elegantly drawing on an Abdullah or Ardarth - was quite a normal scene, but when I saw it
after a break of 60 odd years it resembled a large empty Queensland shearing shed- no wonder that lady from
the vanquished Daniel Mas in his snappy cream suit gently waving his baton in front of his show-stopping
orchestra of twenty or so musicians (does one really know how many were In that orchestra?) was just another
exercise in futility.

I stood by the old entrance to The Plaza and tried to imagine I was about to enter Hilliers - Cave of Delights -
but when I looked at what used to be, alii could see were a couple of happy "Crows" supporters, but of course
that was before 5 p.m.!!!

The real test came when after my stroll through the dimly lit Regent shell, I stood atop the marble entrance
steps searching for the surging Shirley Temple look-a-likes. Sadly there were no little toe-tapped darlings
hanging on to Mum - no hundreds upon hundreds of ringlet curly tops screaming out - no frantic mothers
pushing their mop-tops towards the judge, definitely no police riding down from Russell Street on their bikes, no
bank-up of trams, no pandemonium of any kind - just a group of old chaps like myself with their 'better halves'
pottering about while they bought their ticket to have a look at what used to be.!!!

The Cinema Historical Society must be congratulated for displaying the wonderful photos of the Regent and
the Plaza in their hey day; to look at those pictures brought everything back to the patrons of yesteryear ..... and
to all the young people who came along to look and wonder on the 18th and 19th September, here's hoping you
get the same enjoyment from the Regent when it is restored to it's former glory.

(Bertie Bertram is a regular contributor of historical articles in Melbourne newspapers)