Page 27 - CinemaRecord Edition 3-2003 #41

A Raycophone J3 unit similar to the one at
the Kew Asylum.
Photo: Ross King Collection.

A Powers is a noisy machine, but
the glass partition and the distance
spared the ears of my audience.
Thanks to my association with Kew
we had some wonderful movie nights at
home for a period of about 18 months.
The year was 1964 and I was
running 35mm prints of Dr No,
Breakfast at Tiffany’s, The
Americanisation of Emily, Donovan’s
Reef, George Pal’s The Time Machine
and more. I even had Alfred
Hitchcock’s The Birds. When I booked
this one the exchange queried whether
it would be suitable. I said, “They’ll
love it” - but I did have my doubts.
However the only comment I got was
from one patient who said, “That film
was a load of bulls- !”
Projectionists often volunteered
On one occasion I talked Warner their services on a roster basis at a
Bros. into letting me have Palm Springs number of government institutions.
Weekend, starring Troy Donohue. This
In CinemaRecord 49 (p32) Mel
was by no means one of Hollywood’s
Elliott wrote about projecting for the
great epics, but at the time it was still
inmates at the Mount Royal Psychiatric
screening in the city. I was proud,
Hospital.
therefore, to be screening
simultaneously with the Regent Collins
Street!
Much later, and out of the blue, I Images top and right: Fingers beware -
was offered a loan of a 35mm print of a Powers’ projector head! As well as
Oklahoma. I scrounged an anamorphic exposed gears, Powers had a unique
lens from somewhere and set up a intermittent movement, not the usual
screen that was as wide as the living Maltese Cross. (Brian Quigley makes a
room. A crowd of us sat down and comment about these machines in his
watched nine spools of great music and story on page 13)
colour. A Powers 6B in the home of film exhibitor
Alas, the Asylum dropped film the late Jim Ness in 1934. The sound
screenings sometime in 1965, in favor head is Raycophone and the lamphouse is
of television. I wondered if the patients Harringtons.
noticed the difference. ★ This image: Ross King Collection.

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