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After All….

The Capitol in Swanston Street
inspired two slogans, both with staying
power. The Theatre Magnificent was
the pre-opening tag that Paramount
liked and stayed with after they had
taken a long-term lease. Before this
was settled, and in the hurly-burly of
the change to sound After All There Is
Only One Capitol made a tentative
appearance.
The origin of this superior tag is not
known. Most likely the work of an
advertising agency, it could have arisen
in conversation. The Capitol was third
in line amongst the prestige Melbourne
theatres to convert to sound. Meetings Its first outing was in the final days A year or two before the Paramount
of the theatre board were likely to be of ‘The Tempest,’ the last silent film at lease expired, management decided to
subdued affairs at this time, with a sense the Capitol. It appeared on and off wean the public off the idea of the
of losing ground to their rivals. With a through the long season of the Capitol as Paramount’s home and After
copy of The Herald open at the page inaugural talkie, Fox’s ‘In Old All… was re-instated in newspaper
where the Regent and the State were Arizona’. For a while after this, every advertising.
trumpeting their new achievement, one major studio put films into the Capitol, When Hoyts took over the lease in
director may have said in extenuation, and each one accepted it on the logo. 1940, they liked the sentence so much
“After all, there is only one Capitol.” When the theatre became an exclusive that they made it a fixture on the
Could it have been a ‘Eureka’ moment? Paramount house it was dropped in Swanston Street awning. All other text
“That’s it, we’ll use it!” favour of Theatre Magnificent. was changed with every change of
The slogan works because it is program, but not the bottom left panel.
jaunty, conversational and asks the And even in the theatre’s diminished
reader to make a personal interpretation state today, the sentiment is as true as
of what is so special about the Capitol. ever. – I. S. ★

First appearance:
The Herald 21 March 1929.

CINEMARECORD 2005 17