Page 16 - CR

There was no shortage of suitable product. The shows ran to a strict formula.
Thacker used smaller distributors such Only the dress circle was utilised.
as Robert Kapferer and Blake Films, The auditorium lighting was kept to
both with large libraries of appropriate a bare minimum. Only the very back
titles - The Seventh Seal, Rocco and His cove was used, partly to cut costs and
Brothers - and the like. There were also partly to suggest a Bohemian ambience.
plenty of suitable titles from mainstream There was full stage lighting of course.
distributors – East of Eden, The Leopard, Together with the waterfall curtain it was
South Yarra’s best feature.outh Yarra’s best feature.
The Reluctant Debutante and Victim. S
Thacker constantly had new material
at his disposal, though favourites were
repeated from time to time. He knew his
market and rarely made a poor choice.

The supper was catered for by
Rumplemayers, a popular Toorak Road
coffee lounge, and was prepared on the
Regent premises with the assistance of
front-of-house staff during the second
half of the normal evening session. The This also got the audience moving and
T
The
enabled Thacker to keep an ear on what
program e
program
It consisted of filled savoury biscuits, began with God Save the Queen was going on.
and of course, coffee. It was not at all played from a very scratchy 78rpm
bad - the assistant projectionist always record. It was apparently some sort of At one stage Thacker ran the original
hoped for leftovers for his own supper! ‘in-joke’. Only the first few bars made Batman serial, which was very popular, and
the distance, then it was on with the sometimes an item from New Faces (1952),
newsreel. Nobody was interested in the a print of which was kept permanently at
newsreel as such, but it let the audience the theatre for a period. After the newsreel
in the foyer know that something the special Late Show coming attraction
was happening, and got them into the slide was shown, then off with the cove
auditorium. lighting and on with the feature.

At the late show the movie sound was piped The Coming Attraction slide was Thacker’s
into the foyer, not a usual Hoyts practice. pride and joy and was screened at every
opportunity. It was professionally done and
must have cost a fair amount of money.
Every assistant projectionist was told that
if anything happened to that slide, it would
be more than his life was worth. It was
pink (Thacker loved pink) and had a little
box into which the type-written title of the
next attraction could be inserted written on
a piece of gelatine.

Thacker was the only theatre manager I
knew who used a typewriter. He typed at
high speed and low accuracy. If he made a
mistake he simply covered it with XXXs
and kept on going.

16 2012 CINEMAREC ORD