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opened January 1929, was the film
scoop in the year. To the management
at the Regent, the sight of crowds
queuing across the road for the Jazz
Singer must have been galling; a
reminder of the one ingredient missing
from their programs. True, audiences
loved the stage show prologues and
thrilled to the sound of the WurliTzer,
but to have to open with a silent screen
was a bit lame.
Hoyts had tried to counter the
impact of The Jazz Singer by taking a
lease on the Auditorium, wiring it for
sound and opening with a Fox talkie on
the same night as the premiere at the
Athenaeum. The Red Dance ran for
four weeks. This film, and two Fox
talkie follow-ups, could not match the
excitement across the road where The
Jazz Singer ran for 18 weeks. At this
stage the public was not discriminating
between sound-on-disc and sound-on-
film, and the technology of the Fox
product (sound-on-film) was running
ahead of its entertainment value.
Within weeks of their opening, the
State and then the Regent were
showing talkies: a policy of two
features per show - one part-talkie or
talkie and one silent film. At both
theatres the screening policy was
weekly change. The State initially
relied on Paramount and MGM
releases. The Regent screened Fox,
United Artists, and MGM product.
The Capitol was the third of the
new theatres to convert to sound,
opening in March 1929 with Fox’s In
Old Arizona which ran for thirteen
weeks. This was followed by MGM’s
first talkie, The Broadway Melody.
Eight weeks after the opening of the Clockwise from top: The only known photo of the Strand was this trade
Regent, the Plaza opened as a sound advertisement for acoustic wall treatment when the theatre became the Mayfair. The
theatre with MGM’s Alias Jimmy interior seems to be a composite of the Paramount (above right) and the De Luxe
Valentine, which ran for 12 weeks. On (left) in its sound period, with no attempt to disguise the ceiling beams.
the same night, Union Theatres’
Majestic became a talkie house with Hoyts’ contribution to the new era Paramount and the Strand (both JCW
the first British sound film, Paramount’s was their chain of Regent theatres: Films-Electric Theatres). Second-run
Intolerance, which ran for seven weeks. Sydney and Adelaide (both 1928), houses were the Melba and Britannia
Melbourne and Brisbane (both 1929.) (both Union Theatres), the Star (JCW-
The Depression of 1930 cut into
After rebuilding Sydney’s De Luxe as ET), Empire (an independent) and the
audience numbers, killed the building
the Plaza in 1930-1931 Hoyt’s also Gaiety (Hoyts).
spree and crimped the ability to make
terminated their building program. First to splutter was the Star,
the necessary conversions to sound. At
Union Theatres in 1928-29 managing It was inevitable that the new Francis W. Thring’s early venture into
director Stuart Doyle had overseen the theatres, all equipped for sound, would film exhibition. It re-opened for one
construction of an ‘atmospheric’ theatre permanently change film-release day on the King’s Birthday holiday in
for Sydney, Perth and Melbourne and a patterns. In Melbourne the release June 1930 then closed permanently.
second superior theatre, the State for hierarchy had been based on the Almost opposite the Star, Hoyts
Sydney. Doyle’s expansive plans theatres of Bourke Street and the Gaiety (leased from the Fuller Bros.)
included an ‘atmospheric’ for Adelaide, Majestic in Flinders Street. was the next to go dark, but then did
utilizing the site of West’s Olympia, In Bourke Street the first-release get a reprieve.
but it didn’t happen. houses had been the De Luxe (Hoyts), (continued page 28)

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