Page 26 - CinemaRecord Edition 3-2003 #41

Going Mental at the Movies
Harold Aspinall

The Kew Asylum opened in 1872. Today Willsmere is a trendy residential address

One of the most unusual projection The first time I went there with Ron This group was interested in
jobs to come my way was the result of it was, I have to say, a shock. A bit like everything about movies, and I used to
a phone call back in the early 1960s. being in a school-yard, except these talk to them quite a lot.
Not only was it unusual, but it turned were adults. The inmates were very I sometimes thought, ‘These people
out to have unexpected and very shabby and unwashed, and the smell are just as sane as most I meet outside’.
welcome side benefits! took a bit of getting used to. There But of course this was not the case.
My friend Ron McCracken had a were quite a few ‘white coats’ around Sometimes Bill would be absent and
regular gig showing films at the Kew and occasionally they would spring into others would tell me he was having a
Mental Asylum. This was a magnificent action and cart some poor individual bad day and even give the ‘screw loose’
mansion - Willesmere, atop the Kew away. sign.
hill, a vantage point visible across Despite all this I accepted the job At this time I was newly married
much of Melbourne. and settled in. The films were shown in and living in our first home. The
Every Tuesday afternoon Ron a large hall. A portable screen (4:3 ratio children had not arrived yet so there
would go out there and run a feature for only) was set up on the stage and a was lots of spare room in the house. I
the patients. The show had to start at large speaker enclosure on wheels was had acquired a Powers 35mm projector
two pm and finish no later than four. placed down the front. The projection (vintage pre-1920), modified with a
Ron was having trouble making it room was built on stilts at the back of Bevan sound head (see CinemaRecord
each week and asked me if I’d like to the hall. Inside was a pair of 59, page 24) and had built myself the
do every second Tuesday. There was no Raycophone J3s with Hamilton & complete sound system feeding into a
pay other than expenses, it was a Baker carbon arcs. There was even a Wharfedale three-way speaker system
voluntary thing. However the expenses non-synch record player for the with the 15 inch woofer bricked into
amounted to something similar to what preliminary mood music, a German the fireplace!
a projectionist would get for such a job Dual turntable - quite something for the The projector was mounted on a
anyway. So it was a nice little tax-free day. There was a separate rewind room universal base and housed in the second
earner. and plenty of spare spools and bedroom. The audio cables ran under
everything needed to put on a good
The projectionist was the one who the floor to the living room. From the
show.
chose the program. The deal was to bedroom the projection throw was
select a film, call the exchange and A dedicated group of inmates used across the hallway, through a glass
make the booking, collect it on Tuesday to meet me when I pulled up in my partition, and down the length of the
morning, go out and put on the show, Mini-Minor out the front. I remember a living room to the screen, which hung
and return the film the following large burly character called Bill who above the fireplace. I had a mark where
morning. Films were charged to the used to whisk the film trunks out of the to hang the screen. That was the only
Asylum’s account. boot as if they had no weight at all! set up needed, as everything else was in
place.

26 2008 CINEMARECORD