Page 26 - CinemaRecord #81

grew up in the Melbourne suburb of Oakleigh which is about 16km south-east of the
I city along the Princes Highway and on the rail route to Gippsland.
One of my earliest memories of going to the cinema was as an excursion with my
primary school to the local picture theatre – the Paramount.

I also regularly went to the Paramount’s Saturday matinee and recall the newsreels, cartoons and
serials prior to the main feature. One of those features was the 1962 movie Hatari starring John
Wayne and featuring the memorable Henry Mancini song “Baby Elephant Walk”. Other movies I
saw there were El Cid, Elvis Presley in Kissin’ Cousins and Shirley Temple in Curly Top.

My Mum & Dad also took my sister and me there for some evening performances, which were special
because we would sit upstairs in the dress circle. I recall talking my parents into taking us to see the
Rodgers & Hammerstein musical Flower Drum Song and also seeing Seven Brides for Seven Brothers.
Both my mother and father had connections with Oakleigh long before I was born. Mum lived over a leather and shoe repair shop opposite the
Paramount in Warrigal Road in the early 1940’s. The shops opposite the theatre were all demolished when the railway overpass was constructed in
the late 1960’s.

Dad also lived in Oakleigh and remembers going to the Paramount, as well as the Plaza Cinema located in Portman Street.
I don’t remember the Plaza as a cinema as I was only nine years old when it closed. My memory of the building was as squash courts, and visiting
those courts to race slot cars in the track that was set up in the former foyer.
I moved from the area in my teens, and was sad
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walls of the Oakleigh Paramount. ;'͘ DĐ ĂŝŶĞͿ
years later that the auditorium had been destroyed
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in the Mechanics Institute which still stands
today in Drummond Street. This building is the
second Mechanics Institute on the site. The
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1905. The second Institute was designed in the
Italian-Renaissance style and was constructed
of local bricks and opened in July 1906.

The Mechanics Institute has been a Council
Chamber, a Civic Centre, a concert hall for
types of concerts, including vaudeville shows,
a picture-theatre, a ballroom, a drill hall and an
army control centre during World War I.

26 2014 CINEMAREC ORD