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8 October 1941, but war time building year. To compensate for this loss, Hoyts closed its doors on Thursday night 30 March
restrictions meant no further theatres would be negotiated to use Her Majesty’s Theatre as a 1967… a very sad loss to the city indeed!
built for many years. movie house during this time, and also joined
forces with Greater Union to upgrade the I was keen to see what had been done to the
Then tragedy struck. Dan Clifford died fairly Piccadilly to a first release 70 mm Theatre. Piccadilly, so on the first Saturday after it
suddenly in December 1942. Clifford family For this new role, the Piccadilly was given a re-opened as the Forum, I went along to see
members continued with the business until name change and, after the necessary Mad World, and must have really enjoyed it,
1947, when the theatre circuit was sold to conversion work, re-opened as the Forum for my film scrapbook for that year indicates
Greater Union Theatres Pty Ltd. They Cinema on Thursday 2 March with It’s a that I had returned to see the same film again
continued trading the Clifford circuit under Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. As the much on 15 May. Mad World ran for twelve weeks,
the name of ‘Odeon Star Theatres’ The larger curved 70 mm screen was positioned in and the cinema continued very successfully
Piccadilly retained its name for another 20 front of the original proscenium, seating under its new first release policy. There were
years and, as it became looked upon as a capacity was reduced to 914. The Regent long runs with such films as The Agony and
flagship theatre in the circuit, it was well the Ecstasy, The Battle of Britain, Anne of a
maintained.
There were some changes along the way,
however. One big event was the arrival of
CinemaScope on 4 July 1955. (This,
unfortunately, meant the removal of the
‘waterfall’ curtain) The first movie shown in
this new format was the Oscar winning Three
Coins in the Fountain with Clifton Webb and
Dorothy McGuire.

A significant change occurred in 1967. In the
city, Hoyts had decided to radically change
and redevelop their flagship theatre, the
Regent. This was to involve putting a
shopping arcade through the ground level of
this magnificent theatre, which meant closing
not only the Regent, but their Plaza Theatre
behind the Regent while all of the
redevelopment work took place, leaving them
without their prime city sites for well over a
Right: The stylish Cinema 3

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