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A Selection of Photographs from Members Ads and News Snippets from the Past

SCANDAL HITS

OUR

PICTURE-SHOWS!

Who’d have believed that the nice folk from
the silver screen didn’t live entirely pristine
lives? Well, nobody after 1921, when Roscoe
“Fatty” Arbuckle, perhaps the biggest star of
ABOVE: The projection room and foyer of Greater Union’s Russell Cinemas in Melbourne in the 1980s. Projectionist John Brown (in white overalls) the moment – certainly physically – spent
seen here shifting a film print, and at a foyer display, is still showing movies in his 80s! From the collection of John Brown. most of that year in front of a jury charged
with raping and accidentally killing a young
starlet at a boozy party.

Not that he actually did it, being
completely exonerated after three
mismanaged trials, with the case
somehow not collapsing under a shower
of unreliable witnesses and a sad-if-not-
entirely-spotless victim.

Although a world-wide ban on his films was
lifted within a year, Arbuckle only worked
sparingly through the 1920s. He died in his
sleep of a heart attack, aged 46, in 1933.

ABOVE: The former Brunswick Pictures at Brunswick Heads (NSW) in January 1993.
The theatre closed in 1985 and now stands disused. Photograph by Peter Woolnough.

The Melbourne Argus, September 28, 1922.

ABOVE: Projection equipment from the old
Paronella Park Picture-Theatre at Mena Creek
(QLD) in museum display.
From the collection of Terry McCulloch.

Contributions for CinemaRecord to:
Email: cinemarecord@hotmail.com
Post: Kevin Adams, P.O. Box 535,
ABOVE: Former Roxy Theatre at Kyogle (NSW) in 2007. The theatre closed in 1969 Carlton North. Victoria. 3054
and is now in use as The Christian Life Church. Photograph by Peter Woolnough.
Charters Towers TIVOLI, 1918.

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