Page 31 - CINEMARECORD-98

OZONE THEATRE, VICTOR HARBOR, SA

By Ben Bagshaw, Flinders University, South Australia

he Victor Theatre later known as the
TVicta Theatre and Hoyts Ozone began its
life on 24 November 1923 under the control of
Griffin Pictures. It is situated on Ocean Street,
the main street of Victor Harbor. The building
was originally a motor car garage owned by
prominent local businessman David Henry
Griffin who was also the founder of the moving
pictures at the Institute in Victor Harbor and
had been screening films there for the past 11
years beginning in 1912. In early 1923 he began
to develop his motor car garage into a “picture
palace”. It was designed by Mr Chris A. Smith
of Adelaide and had a seating capacity for 700
people, with arrangements in place for a dress
circle which would seat a further 300. It opened
with two feature films, The Bohemian Girl and
Mord Em'ly.
The cinema was under the management of
Griffin Pictures for only a short period of time
and within three years their final screening took
place on Saturday, 23 October 1926. Griffin adventurous career on the gold fields as a From late 1929 to late 1930, sound was in the
Pictures' final feature was A Tower of Lies. mining engineer, he became interested in what process of being installed into Ozone's
was then a young and rather haphazard suburban cinemas. On Wednesday, 26 March
On 30 October 1926, the following Saturday, business, the screening of motion pictures. At 1930, The Advertiser published an article titled
the Victor Theatre came under the control of this instigation a small company was formed “Ozone theatres Port and Enfield change to
National Theatres who, at the time, was a large which began screening films in the Port talkies” in which it states that “On Monday next
and prominent theatre group with a chain of Adelaide town hall in 1911”. In 1913 he built the last mentioned theatre (Enfield Ozone) will
cinemas around Adelaide. It is important to note the Ozone Theatre in Port Adelaide, and by be converted into a talkie house, and Prospect
that the Victor Theatre was not the only theatre 1924 his company, Ozone Amusements and Alberton, and the two Victor Harbor
in Victor Harbor during this period, as there Limited, had also built theatres in Alberton and theatres will follow at a later date”.
was another theatre named the Wonderview Enfield. His company acquired the National
which also came under the control of the Theatres circuit on 31 January 1928, which Sound was eventually installed in the form of
National group during this period. This theatre expanded the company's ownership to the a Western Electric sound system at a cost of
later has significance to the Victor Theatre's Marryatville, Prospect and the two cinemas in £3,000 in November 1930. With the onset of
history. Victor Harbor, the Wonderview and the Victor sound it was announced that the theatre would
Theatre. Waterman was quoted to have said of screen nightly with a matinee on Saturdays. The
The National Theatres group went into the Victor Theatre in the Victor Harbour first “talkie” to be screened was Sunnyside Up
liquidation in early 1928 and it was around this Times, 3 February 1928: “No great changes on Tuesday, 25 November. During this period,
time that another prominent exhibitor took will be made of a while as far as Victor the theatre was managed by Allan Woodard
control of both the Wonderview and the Victor Harbour is concerned, but for the coming who, under the guidance of the Waterman
Theatre. His name was Hugh Waterman, who season the Victor Theatre will be thoroughly brothers, worked his way up from assistant
at the time was chairman of Ozone renovated throughout and a dress circle put in, projectionist to manager.
Amusements. He was born in Semaphore and giving accommodation to 350 more people. The
one newspaper wrote that after a “rather theatre will then hold about 1000 persons.” Disaster struck the theatre around midnight on
Sunday, 14 January 1931, when a fire destroyed
much of the back section of the theatre and the
adjacent department store causing an estimated
£3,000 worth of damage. The fire is said to have
started at the back of the theatre in the soda
fountain lounge and spread through to the
adjacent storeroom of Bell & Co.'s department
store.

The theatre was then closed for a rebuild in
which time the Watermans switched their
cinema license to the nearby Ozone-controlled
Wonderview, which had been used as a dance
hall since the Victor Theatre had replaced the
Wonderview as the main theatre in Victor
Harbor. This gave the Waterman Brothers a
chance to rebuild and for some improvements
and alterations to occur to the theatre.

Under the guidance of the architect, Kenneth
Mime and contractor Mr Weetman, work was
completed around mid-December 1934 with the

CINEMARECORD # 98 31