Page 38 - CinemaRecord #82

AS I REMEMBER IT
Early days at
Oakleigh
DRIVE-IN NIGHTS
s a kid growing up in Oakleigh (Vic) I
Ahave fond memories of the Metro Twin
Drive-In at Clayton where my family and I saw
mostly Disney films: Swiss Family Robinson,
Na�onal Theatre
101 Dalmatians etc. and in later years, The
Long Ships, Grease and The FJ Holden.
As kids we would sometimes look out the rear
window of the family car and see what was
showing in the other theatre. Our father would
buy us the Choc-Top ice creams which were a
favourite. There was always a traffic jam after
the movie trying to get out on to Blackburn
Road to drive home.
My family and I also used to go to the Hoyts
Skyline Drive-In at Oakleigh, back in its single
screen days. Two movies we saw that stand out
were The Beatles film HELP! and The Sound
of Music. The latter took ages to get into with a
huge line-up of cars that night. We saw quite a
few movies at Oakleigh and loved the smell of
the hamburgers coming from the diner.
I remember the men in white overalls guiding
cars to the ramps.
One year I got a free pass to the drive-In in
Melbourne Show bag and pleading with my
father to take us so that I could use it.
Driving back home from the beach on a
summer’s night you could look across the open
paddocks and see the giant screen at Oakleigh
Drive-In with a movie in progress.
Sadly these days have gone, but still have fond
memories as a kid at the drive-in.
Max Pert
Invermay Park (Vic)
Clayton Metro Twin‐ later Village
Oakleigh Skyline
38 2 0 1 4 C I N E M A R E C O R D
BOOVAL DAYS
rowing up in Booval (Qld) brings back
Gmany happy memories...
We had pictures at the National Theatre
which was a hall that had been all done up as a
picture-show with a projection room built over
the front verandah. Further up there was also
the Alpha Theatre in Station Street.
(Today the National is a community hall, and
the Alpha was replaced by a chemist).
Later we shifted from Raceview to North
Ipswich. Back in those early days my friend
Nancy was the pianist for an orchestra which
played for the silent movies in town.
She was really only a young girl when she
was playing in the orchestra at Ipswich’s big
Wintergarden Theatre.
Her father was also in it with a couple of
other people, and whilst it wasn’t a full-blown
orchestra, they always had wonderful music at
the start and interval and also at different times
during the movies because the films didn’t
have any sound in those days.
I think they also had an orchestra at Bossie
Martoo’s Olympia Theatre, but don’t know
whether the Parkside and the Lyric theatres,
Lyric Theatre and also the Rialto at North Ipswich and
Alpha had that luxury.
When the talkies came in, the theatre orchestra
finished, but many years later when the Little
Theatre movement began here and they started
putting plays on in the Town Hall, a Little
Theatre Orchestra was formed to play. It was
a very nice and went on for quite a few years.
I fondly remember those early picture-shows,
the movies, the music and especially those
lean-back canvas seats that you could really
recline back into.
Myfanwy Sullivan.
Ipswich (Qld)
Wintergarden Theatre