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ALL IS

NOT

GOLD

By Ian Smith

A TALE OF TWO SISTERS and a THEATRE THAT NEVER WAS

f the classified pages of Melbourne’s Work began on what was The directors beat a retreat back to
I The Age newspaper were once provisionally called the Tooronga their anchor project, the Waratah
‘Rivers of Gold’, something similar Picture Theatre, situated on the north- Theatre in Ascot Vale. It opened in
used to be said about owning a picture east corner of Tooronga and Malvern June 1925, but seemed dogged by poor
theatre. Roads. management, poor attendances and a
This probably was true for some It was a reasonable site in a small seeming inability to comply with
shrewd independent operators, but in shopping strip, with a tram past the simple demands by Health.
the 1920s the tightening grip of the big door and train station within walking Only two months after opening, the
players could stymie ambitions. This distance. company secretary was forced to write
story is pieced together from The walls were almost to the roof an abject letter to the Health
correspondence to the Board of Health. when the directors realised that the big Department: ‘We would ask you to
In the early twenties the directors of combine Associated Theatres Pty. Ltd. treat this matter leniently [completion
the company that would become the had broken the ground for a deluxe of safety requirements] in view of the
Waratah Picture Theatre Ltd. in the Regent Theatre near the corner of fact that this company is already
north-west suburb of Ascot Vale Burke and Malvern Roads in the nearby suffering considerably, owing to the
(Melbourne), searched out localities not suburb of Gardiner. fact that we have had to request the
serviced by a picture theatre and spoke Realizing that their modest building Chairman of Directors and past
with local Progress Associations. had no hope of competing with a Secretary to hand in their resignations,
The directors promised at these Regent, the directors sold the partially and a good deal of gossip has been
meetings that if enough people were to completed building. going round the district in regard to the
theatre, making it exceedingly difficult
become shareholders, preliminary work From the mid-1920s until the fifties,
for the Board to re-establish themselves
on building a theatre would begin it was a garage with residence above.
in the confidence of the local public.’
immediately. It’s still there, but in a different guise.
Their pitch reached receptive ears at
suburban Tooronga, in the city of
Malvern.
Above Left and Below: Tooronga.
Above Right: Ascot Vale Waratah.

20 2011 CINEMARECORD