Page 15 - CinemaRecord #10R.pdf

and the theatre must have been in full swing by 1927, because then Adeline Mims was playing piano there in
the orchestra which accompanied the Silent Films.

The Regent was initally leased by Hoyts, but in 1937, Hoyts built their own cinema in Olive Street. Hoyts
Cinema cost $60,000 to build and seated 1164 patrons in an atmosphere which was described as not only
comfortable, but luxurious. It even boasted something no other cinema in Albury ever had- a "crying room",
presumably for the use of mothers with recalciterant infants, but I suppose if the film was all that bad, adults
could sneak into the room and shed a few tears of frustration.

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Alas with the onset of the "one eyed monster" (television) and the "sprocketless-terror" (videotape) Hoyts
Albury closed in 1973. The site is now occupied by a supermarket.

The Albury Regent

When Hoyts relinguished the Albury Regent, the theatre was purchased by C.H. (Pivot) Smith, and it is still
owned by the Smith Family. Members of C.A.T.H.S. visited the Regent two years ago. We know that the
original theatre is still in excellent condition, and is a wonderful example of the evocative design and good taste
that was typical of theatre planning in the 1920's and thirties. Unfortunately what we didn't see on our visit was
the roof garden in it's hey day. In 1993 it was and probably still is an eyesore.

But when I was working in Albiury in the mid-sixties, one of the joys of going to the Regent was being able to
stroll through the roof garden at interval time on a warm night. To take in the piazza, the Romanesque columns,
the trees, the flowerbeds, the 30ft high floodlit waterfall cascading over rocks to its small pond below and as if
to form a planned back drop, Albury's trademark, the floodlit white war memorial obelisk on Monument Hill
surmounted the scene to complete the vista. It was magic.

Albury Regent Development

Right now, there is movement at the Albury Regent. Last year, Mr. Tony Smith, Managing Director and grand-
son of Pivot Smith, announced the expansion of the site to a six cinema complex. The original magnificent
auditorium will be retained and five smaller cinemas were to be built alongside in Dean Street, Albury City's
main street.

The six screen centre will be the biggest outside the Metropolitan area, bigger than Launceston's Cinema
Centre and the Ballarat complex.