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These prestige theatres screened the
support first and the feature after
interval, switching with a lesser house,
which ran the feature first. The New
Malvern always showed the feature
second and switched with the Crystal
Palace Caulfield.
Hoyts and its affiliates had some
handsome theatres well out of the city,
such as the Regal Hartwell, but
architectural merit did not alter the
distance rule.
By the late 1940s some venues were
definitely ‘hard-luck houses’ by reason
of time and position. Some of them had
never been anything special. The
Alhambra, Brunswick, Victory,
Malvern, Town Hall, Coburg and
Memorial, St. Kilda were ‘spill-over’
or ‘fill-in’, venues, meant to capture
every segment of the film-going
population. Programming at these
outlets often seemed independent of all
else that was around.
Locally, these theatres were viewed
with affection. Programs at the ‘Memo’
were usually first release B features
deemed unworthy of St. Kilda's
prestige houses, the Palais Pictures
and Victory (Hoyts). A ‘Memo’
program ran for a week, whereas it was
three days at other down-market
venues.
Time and location could eventually
tell against a big theatre. The Empress
Prahran (1915), a fine theatre in its day,
and one which could hold its own against
contemporary rivals - the Lyric and
Royal - also in Chapel Street, was later
outclassed by the independent Astor
(1936) and Hoyts New Windsor (1937).
The same thing happened to the
Barkly, Footscray. Programs changed
every three nights with two B features
at the weekend and the repeat of the
Trocadero program mid-week. Later
the Barkly was upgraded and the
policy modified.
Hoyts in the 1950s was in the
enviable position of holding the suburban
release contracts for films from Columbia
and Universal, in addition to the rights to
films from most other studios. The only
films Hoyts didn’t show were those from
MGM, new releases from Paramount,
and releases under the banner of British
Empire Films.
In the 1940s Hoyts benefited from a In a class of their own. Top: The Alhambra Brunswick.
contract dispute which gave them the Centre: Town Hall Coburg. Hoyts vacated this venue in 1950.
Paramount’s old films for programs at Bottom: Inside the former Memorial St. Kilda today. The theatre is one part of a
the Town Hall Coburg (weekends) substantial commercial building.
the Alhambra (week nights) as well as
at the Empress Prahran.
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