Page 8 - CinemaRecord #11R.pdf

50. The Star Newsreel Theatrette by Edward Lansdowne & Brian Miller

The Star was opened by Mr. Tom & Mrs. Billie Virgona of Sydney, during February 1951 in the basement of
Carlow House at 34 Elizabeth Street, Melbourne. Mr. Virgona was an experienced Showman and Managing
Director of the Sydney Globe and World Newsreel Theatrettes, two of the five in that City. His father and family
operated the two Orpheums, one in North Sydney, and built and opened the other, the now celebrated property
at Cremorne. Later interests were the suburban Star cinemas at Panania, Padstow and Riverwood and the
Ascot, a first-run city house, in Pitt Street.

The area the Star occupied was previously the Carlow Coffee Lounge and a false wooden floor, sloping at the
rear was laid over the concrete sub-floor. An unusual aspect was that the cinema opened with rear screen
projection. The projection and rewind rooms were spacious and two "standard" projector heads were angled
upwards at about 45 degrees, showing through a large glass window to a translucent plastic screen. It was
necessary to have a certain amount of waste space between the bio-box window and the rear of the screen and
this became a storage area.

The screen and masking were kept as high as possible to avoid the audience staring into the hot-spot on the
screen created by the lenses. The RCA sound heads were reversed and films were threaded emulsion side out
to complete the back-to-front image. On the whole it was reasonably effective considering the premises were
never intended as a cinema. The building supplied forced-air ventilation, not very warm in winter or very cool
in heat-waves. Air conditioning was still rather rare in that era. Toilets on the first floor reached by a long walk
upstairs were a disadvantage.

After several years it was decided to build a conventional and somewhat smaller bio-box at the rear of the stalls
on the right-hand side. Access was through the Manager's office with an emergency exit into the auditorium.
Although the projection beam was a side-throw, distortion was almost unnoticeable in such a relatively short
distance. By demolishing the original bio-box and moving the screen almost to the back wall, seating capacity
of 238 was retained and the auditorium became L-shaped.

Not all film distributors were prepared to supply programs, however Paramount news and shorts, Warner
Brothers, Columbia and RKO radio pictures kept the business going. Columbia had a lot of unreleased 'Three
Stooges' comedies and these built up a regular following among those who liked basic slapstick humour. At
least there was no switching of films with other theatres. Programs ran around eighty minutes without any
advertising breaks which was much better value than sixty minutes elsewhere.