Page 18 - CR31R.pdf

The Haunted Screen

By Roger Seccombe

burnt it down!
can well understand the fascination Whatever truth there
with Phantom of the Opera. In the may be in such
Ilive theatre there takes place such a stories, let me say I
catharsis of emotions: drama, tragedy can almost
or comedy. Years and years of it! sympathise with the outrage! How The Maling Theatre, built by Hoyts to
Where does “it” all go? How many many cinemas, in which you lived replace the older Canterbury Theatre
great actors have actually believed in some of your most unforgettable hours, opposite, finished its days as a dance
ghosts? Plenty! They imagine all that have you seen destroyed to make way studio before being claimed by fire in
passionate emotion experienced in the for supermarkets, petrol stations or 1989.
theatre as tangible presences remaining carparks/ How did you feel when the Photos – Above: Roger Seccombe.
after the performance is over. Lurking end came? Below: Kevin Adams.
somewhere, maybe, amongst the In the magical dark, every time as
scenery, or the props department, the house lights dimmed and the
clinging to the dusty drapery of the censor’s certificate was flashed on the
stage, reverberating around the flytower parting curtains, you waited as a
perhaps? shadow-world of wonders or demons
The performance may have finished prepared to unfold. You told yourself:
but the electrical energy of it must “It’s only a story… it’s only fantasy!”
linger somewhere backstage! When the But each time you found yourself just
Tivoli Theatre in Melbourne burnt (by as gullible! How much of me, I
my memory during the season of a film wonder, was left behind in the Rialto or
around midnight on 4 April 1967), I the Broadway, the Glen or the Palace, recognisable. The remains of fanciful
recall suggestions by theatre people the Prince George or the Dendy, the plasterwork lingered on the guttered
that the transformation of a once proud Regent or Capitol, the Odeon or walls of the auditorium, mingling with
live theatre into a cinema showing, of Grosvenor? Why else did I feel I had the mindless scriblings of vandals. The
all things, a French ‘romance’ called lost something special of myself when projection ports, high on the rear wall,
Angelique, had been seen as an insult so many of these old favourite picture were dark now and the softening
to its famous history. One rumour had palaces (or fleapits) were destroyed? effects of old drapery had gone, either
it that the only way to uphold its lost This all came back to me today. Why through the efforts of recent arsonists
honour was to destroy the theatre! I else was I risking arrest for trespass to or earlier, when the cinema first closed.
remember a similar story about the old pay my respects to a much-loved ghost No seats now, but I could still, in my
Victoria Theatre in Richmond. Rather from my cinema past? The backstage mind’s eye, see row upon row filling
than see it transformed into a area had been burnt but the proscenium the vast stalls and the circle. (Hundreds
supermarket it was rumoured a film arch still stood. Inside, the ravished of upturned faces too, caught by the
fanatic from its “Valhalla” years had structure of stalls and circle was still reflected light of the giant screen that
Left: Stairs to the Circle of the Glen Theatre, Glenferrie. Photo: Roger Seccombe.
Below: Whilst the foyer and shops remain, the intimate auditorium of the Clifton
Theatre was sadly demolished a few years ago. Photo: Kevin Adams.

18 Spring 2001 CINEMARECORD