Page 32 - CinemaRecord Edition 3-2002 #37

Marvellous Memories

YOUR PERSONAL MEMORIES & REMINISCENCES OF AUSTRALIAN THEATRES

In Issue 38 Don Kennedy wrote of the projectors in Hoyts Regent Collins Street. Here they are in a
1948 photo – three matched Centrex projectors with Peerless arcs and Westrex sound. The picture is
one from the series to commemorate the reopening of the theatre. They were taken during the run of
Great Expectations, the second film to come into the rebuilt Regent.
The Regent was the only Hoyts city theatre to have three projectors. Beyond the projectors the
biobox had space for follow spots for any live entertainment. The biobox extended into the circle. The
visible door opened (and still does) on to the floor of the last row of circle seats. The slide projector
near this end looks antiquated. The rewind room was outside camera range at this end. Also out of
range was the spiral staircase down to the foyer. The door at the far end goes out to the back of the
circle. House lighting was carried out from the stage by the duty electrician.
Hoyts only installed 70mm at the Regent so that they could screen Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. With
the Esquire and former Lyceum tied up with other 70mm long runs, Hoyts had to equip the Regent or
lose product to Greater Union. This happened with Irma La Doucé which United Artists took off Hoyts
and screened at the Bercy. Distributor politics also reared its head in the fifties when Hoyts ran the
first live show in the Regent since pre-war – the Tibor Rudas production Ca Cest Paree. Despite doing
excellent business, it closed earlier than planned as certain distributors threatened to switch their
product elsewhere.
Ian Williams, Balwyn.

32 2002 CINEMARECORD