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Two weeks later, this scene had transformed into an impressive cinema
- the Astra. It opened to the public on Saturday, 3 July 1948, screening
Child of Divorce (Fleischer, 1946) and Danny Kaye in The Kid from
Brooklyn (McLeod, 1946) with a Paramount cartoon and a Fox
Movietone Australian News. The name, Astra, was suggested by Ray
Burton who had sold Harold the RCA plant. Harold liked the name and
immediately settled on it. (Ironically, Ray opened an electrical shop on
the Port Road in later years and called his business Astra Electrical.)
Geographically, the Astra was in Park Holme, but Harold thought it had
a ring to it if he called it the Astra, Ascot Park (after the suburb across
the road).
Like other suburban cinemas, the Astra had competition. Although the
talk of a biobox being built in the nearby Plympton Soldiers’ Memorial
Hall in 1948 was to cause concern for Harold, it never eventuated. His
nearest competitor was just over three kilometres away, a small cinema
(200 seating capacity) run out of the Edwardstown Institute by Keith Harold Carlson 1917-2016. Photographed by Dylan Walker in 2013.
Gregory and Len Casson, who operated a small circuit at that time. In
1953, Cliff Johns began to run Warradale Pictures at the Warradale screen the film until 27 December 1954. Nevertheless, it was still
Institute, just under five kilometres away. There was also competition drawing good audiences.
five kilometres away at Glenelg from the Ozone, Strand (later known
as the Odeon-Star) and Seaview. These were purpose-built cinemas The Astra sourced its films from all of the Adelaide film exchanges.
which would book most attractions before the smaller exhibitors had a Some had contracts that locked the cinema into at least thirteen main
chance to screen them features (the exhibitor could choose the support feature). Harold recalls
choosing support features that would suit the district and only rejecting
To compete with the exhibitors in his league, Harold would advertise the a couple of main features that did not. “You get to know what they
Astra’s programmes in the Wednesday and Saturday issues of The wanted,” he explained. The audience demographic was mainly low
Advertiser. He arranged this through Webb Publicity a firm which would socio-economic or “a family type of area”, the term Harold prefers.
book a block advertisement under the heading of “United Independent There was a lot of public housing in close proximity to the Astra and
Theatres” (see advertisement below) making independent cinemas stand there were 250 adults with children living in the disused Warradale Army
out among the chains. This would cost three shillings per advertisement Camp, which was in walking distance from the cinema. Because of this,
on top of what The Advertiser would charge direct to the Astra. Harold Harold did not very often screen ‘A’ classified films (Adults only). He
would also ride his bicycle around the neighbourhood once a month recalls the poster for Blackboard Jungle (Brooks, 1955) carried the
letterboxing 2,000 cards listing the month’s programme. Not all small warning “not suitable for under 16 year olds”. He stopped 14 and 15
exhibitors in the southwestern Adelaide suburbs were considered rivals. years olds from entering the cinema because of the poster, but realised
Harold still had a very good relationship with Bruce Cunnew, the later that he need not have done this as the warning had no legal basis.
exhibitor at Brighton’s Windsor Theatre:
One of the Astra’s “full houses” was in 1957 when there was a
“In my early days, Bruce Cunnew carted all my film for me. Of course, re-screening of The Glen Miller Story. Harold and his wife, Joy, had
he had to pick up for Brighton so he’d pick mine up too and he had a taken a fortnight’s holiday to go on a boat trip to Sydney, leaving a
spare key of a door (to the Astra), just put it (the films) inside and they projectionist to run the Astra. He returned to Outer Harbour on the
(the Cunnews) come and pick it up on the way back.” Wednesday night and went to check on the cinema. “I go up there at 10
o’clock – cars everywhere!” Harold recalls. But with the coming of
An example of where the Astra stood in the distribution chain can be television in 1959 audience numbers dropped. The Astra closed its doors
seen from the distribution of The Glenn Miller Story (Mann, 1954). The on 25 November 1961. “I kept it going longer than I should have, but I
then-popular film opened at Wests Theatre in Hindley Street on 15 April kept it going because I didn’t want to give it up after all my hard work.”
1954 and ran for three weeks and was then sent to country venues (Clare Harold did run two more cinemas after Ascot Park – at Blackwood and
Talkies and Gawler Ozone) during the layover period. Before being Reynella, but in the television era he was never to experience the heyday
distributed in the suburbs, it screened at a second-release house in the of cinema again.
city, the Mayfair. The Odeon-Star chain was the first to screen The
Glenn Miller Story in the suburbs at its Semaphore venue on 15 July Archival documents and digital methods in new cinema history have
1954 and virtually monopolised it in the suburbs until ending its round provided a story of what was behind the establishment and operation of
at their city venue, the Wakefield Street Star in the first week of a small cinema in Adelaide’s southwestern suburbs in the pre-television
September. With a few exceptions, it was not until then that the smaller years. The personal recollections of the sole exhibitor at the cinema
exhibitors could access the film from the exchanges. The Astra did not weave those sources together to give a much richer and broader history.★
Credits:

Dollar values have been used to demonstrate the change in purchasing power
and are at 2016 prices calculated using the Australian Bureau of Statistics’ CPI
Inflation Calculator.

The Mail, 15 December 1928.
PLACE, November 2011.
State Records of South Australia, Plans and Specifications of Rechabite Hall, Ascot
Park, GRG67/33/38/1929.
Hurren, Langman and James Collection, University of South Australia’s
Architecture Museum.
Interview with Harold Carlson on 21 January 2013 and further conversation on
4 February 2013.
National Archives of Australia, Correspondence between Deputy Prices
Commissioner and Harold Carlson, AP5/1-1948/216.
Marion: A Suburban City 1945-2000, R.J.R. Donley, 2001.
CATHS Australian Cinema and Theatre Database.

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