An edition of the nightly 15-minute Network Ten current affairs program Telescope, featuring a story on the last days of the Prince Edward Theatre in Castlereagh Street, Sydney.

Footage includes exterior shots of the theatre, focusing on the facade, and interior shots of the foyer, ticket box and dress circle.

Backstage, interviewer Tony Ward talks to the electrician and the projectionist, both of whom have been with the theatre during most of its 40-year life. He also interviews the manager and highlights the role of the organist.

The Prince Edward Theatre opened on 22 November 1924 with Cecil B DeMille's The Ten Commandments (USA, 1923). It closed on 4 December 1965 with a return season of War and Peace (King Vidor, USA, 1956). Guests of the theatre over the years included Bob Hope and Alfred Hitchcock.

Notes by Stephen Groenewegen

In a burst of colour, eight children of various ages happily stream out of a suburban house and pile (miraculously) into a car waiting outside. The film then cuts to the children getting out of the other side of the car and running across the street. An exterior of a Hoyts cinema reveals their destination, and a title card with the double bill matinee Pack Up Your Troubles indicates the 2pm screening.

On entering the cinema, the footage switches to black and white, which reveals the rows of chairs, and the stage in the front. The cinema screen fills with the picture. We then cut to inside the projection booth and watch the projectionists hard at work. From inside the projection booth, we can see the screen.

Outside the cinema the children climb back into the car. A point-of-view shot of the car driving down the street shows it pass by a tram down a suburban street. The car pulls up before cutting to the final shot of the children (almost 18 of them now) spilling from the car, back home after their day's outing. Summary by Poppy De Souza

Children with their dogs gather outside the Orpheum Theatre in North Sydney and the nearby Cremorne Orpheum on Military Road, Cremorne in Sydney.

The dog show was part of a promotion for the short film Wanted: A Master (Arthur J Ornitz, Gunther von Fritsch, USA, 1936), about a dog which tried to find an owner to avoid being destroyed as a stray dog. The film was nominated for Best Short Subject (One Reel) at the 1936 Academy Awards.

The Orpheum in North Sydney opened in 1913 before it was renovated in 1923 and again in 1927. It was demolished in 1962 to make way for the Warringah Expressway.

The Orpheum in Cremorne opened on 3 October 1935. It eventually fell into disrepair and was sold to developers who turned it into a shopping arcade and gym. Bought by Mike Walsh in 1986, it was lovingly restored and reopened in December 1987 as the Hayden Orpheum Picture Palace. It is still in operation.

This footage also appears in a compilation in the Roger McKenzie Collection, Theatre and Cinema Building History in Australia (NFSA: 393899).

Notes by Stephen Groenewegen

A Cinesound Review newsreel from 1958 showing guests arriving at the official reopening of the Barclay Theatre in Russell Street, Melbourne.

Screening is the Melbourne premiere of The Ten Commandments (Cecil B DeMille, USA, 1956), with proceeds going to the Yooralla Society of Victoria which supports people with disabilities (and is still in operation).

The President of the Society, Mrs Leo Curtis, welcomes guests in the foyer. Sir Dallas Brooks, the Governor of Victoria, performs the official opening ceremony.

The newsreel narrator stresses the importance of seeing 'a big film in a big theatre', a comment on the threat posed to cinemas in the 1950s by television (and not much different from the modern rhetoric of cinema associations when talking about 21st century streaming services).

The Barclay Theatre was built in 1908 as a live theatre. It was converted to a cinema in the early 1940s, reverted to live theatre and then returned to screening films. 

It was demolished in 1976; the last film that screened was One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (Miloš Forman, USA, 1975). The Greater Union Russell Cinemas opened on the site in 1978 but was itself demolished in 2014 for a hotel.

This footage appears in Cinesound Review No. 1416.

Notes by Stephen Groenewegen

A short film segment with inter-titles highlighting the benefits of the newly rebuilt North Sydney Orpheum Theatre.

Notable features include a lounge, cloakroom and – more unusually – hat clips on the back of every seat. There are also special 'hygienic chairs', which have carbolic blocks to destroy 'vermin and germs within the precincts of [the] chair'.

The Orpheum opened in 1913 before it was renovated in 1923 and again in 1927. It was demolished in 1962 to make way for the Warringah Expressway.

This footage also appears in a compilation in the Roger McKenzie Collection, Theatre and Cinema Building History in Australia (NFSA ID 393899).

Notes by Stephen Groenewegen

The Roxy Theatre in Leeton, NSW, photographed at night, date unknown.

The Roxy is Leeton's only cinema and opened on 7 April 1930. In 1933, a stage was added for live performances and the theatre was officially opened by singer Gladys Moncrieff.

The theatre still operates as a cinema, screening films on weekends and during school holidays. 

The Roxy screen is one of the largest roll-up mechanised screens in Australia, measuring approximately 16 metres wide by 8 metres high.

Notes by Stephen Groenewegen

This silent newsreel from 30 July 1948 shows Sir Laurence Olivier and his wife Vivien Leigh attending a charity matinee of Hamlet (Laurence Olivier, UK, 1948) at the Embassy Theatre in Sydney.

A crowd gathers outside the theatre in Sydney as Olivier arrives by car to attend the Sydney premiere of his film. The screening is in aid of charity and in the foyer of the theatre, Movietone lights and cameras are set up to record the event. A bearded Chips Rafferty, seen giving a thumbs-up sign, is among the patrons.

Vivien Leigh is accompanied up the theatre steps by Mr Ernest Turnbull, Managing Director of Hoyts Theatres. They are followed by Olivier and the theatre manager.

The Embassy Theatre opened on 1 June 1934. It was located at 97 Castlereagh St, Sydney, and could seat 998 patrons. It closed in 1977.

Notes by Stephen Groenewegen

An intertitle invites viewers to 'see for a brief moment’ the sound equipment for talking pictures. Then a Hoyts Talking Pictures Roadshow sound unit truck is seen coming down the street. Two uniformed men open the back doors and begin unloading the sound equipment. More intertitles follow promising to embody ‘every sphere of talkie entertainment’ with News of the World in sight and sound; as well as 'music and dancing by famous international stars’. Summary by Poppy De Souza

This silent advertisement promotes the new ‘Touring Talkie Show’ truck operated by Hoyts – with sponsorship from Studebaker Car Corporation and the Shell Oil Company.

A fleet of Studebaker sedans along with executives from Shell, Studebaker and Hoyts meet the ‘Talkie Truck’ as it pulls in to Melbourne. The executives shake hands with the sound technicians and engineers.

The truck then pulls into a service station and fills up with 'Shell Spirit and Oil’. People gather around to watch. The truck then pulls up outside the Regent Theatre where it is farewelled as it embarks on its tour of country centres.

Summary by Poppy De Souza.

The first public film screening in South Australia took place at the Theatre Royal in Hindley Street, Adelaide in October 1896. The short films screened featured dancers and American folk heroes and were about one minute each in length.

Pictured here in 1881, the Theatre Royal had opened in 1868 before being rebuilt in 1878. It was reconstructed in 1913–14 and hosted the premiere of The Woman Suffers (Raymond Longford, Australia) in 1918.

The Theatre Royal was principally a venue for live theatre and performers over the years included Sarah Bernhardt, Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh.

Bought by a department store, it was demolished for a multi-storey car park in 1962.

Notes by Stephen Groenewegen

This clip looks at the closure of Canberra’s independent Electric Shadows art-house cinema in December 2006. Dr Paolo Cherchi Usai, former head of the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia, says that Electric Shadows was an intellectual and subversive force. Summary by Lynden Barber

A Cinesound Review newsreel story about the premiere of UK-Australian film The Overlanders at the Lyceum Theatre in Sydney on 27 September 1946.

Seen in this clip are some of the film's stars – John Nugent Hayward and Helen Grieve – as well as visiting American radio broadcaster Norman Corwin, Dutch director Joris Ivens, artist William Dobell with Mrs Chips Rafferty, journalist David McNicoll, the ABC's Charles Moses and Herc McIntyre of Universal Pictures.

Actor Ron Randell, star of the recent biopic Smithy (Ken G Hall, Australia, 1946) about Charles Kingsford Smith, is besieged by autograph hunters.

The Overlanders was made in Australia by English director Harry Watt for Ealing Studios, at the request of the Australian Government. It starred Chips Rafferty as a drover who undertakes an epic cattle run across Australia during the Second World War, assisted by a motley crew.

The Overlanders was an unprecedented box-office hit at the Lyceum (and wherever it played), continuing its run into February 1947.

The Lyceum Theatre in Sydney's Pitt Street opened in 1892 and screened the first Lumière productions in 1896. Rebuilt and reopened in 1918 as Hoyts Lyceum Theatre, it showed a number of notable Australian silent and talking pictures as part of its program.

It was refurbished in a New Deco style as the New Lyceum Theatre (now managed by Greater Union) in 1941. The cinema was closed for two years by fire in the mid-1960s and then closed its doors in 1987. Today, the site is part of the Wesley Centre, which opened after extensive renovations in 1991.

Notes by Stephen Groenewegen

The interior of the Ambassadors Theatre in Perth, Western Australia showing seating in the upper circle.

The Ambassadors Theatre was designed as an 'atmospheric picture palace' and opened in November 1928.

Other atmospheric theatres built by Australia’s Union Theatres Ltd in the late 1920s were Sydney’s Capitol Theatre and Melbourne’s State Theatre.

The theatre included elaborate detailing inspired by ancient Greece and the ceiling was painted with the sky.

Hoyts removed much of the Greek statuary and decoration, and repainted the ceiling, after taking over the theatre in 1938. The Wurlitzer organ was sent to Melbourne in 1946 to replace the organ in the Regent Theatre which had been destroyed by fire.

The Ambassadors Theatre closed on 2 February 1972 and was demolished.

It was replaced by a Hoyts cinema complex that lasted until the 1990s; shops now stand on the site.

Notes by Stephen Groenewegen

A newsreel clip about a special preview of the film King Rat (Bryan Forbes, USA, 1965) at the Barclay Theatre in Melbourne. The film portrays life in the Changi prisoner-of-war camp in Singapore.

At the invitation of Columbia Pictures, former Australian prisoners of the camp attend the screening. Managing Director of Columbia Pictures, Colin Jones, talks with Brigadier 'Blackjack' Galligan who was in command at Changi.

Calligan later addresses the audience before the viewing, stressing that the film is fictional. It starred George Segal, Tom Courtenay, James Fox, Denholm Elliott and John Mills.

The Barclay Theatre was built in 1908 as a live theatre. It was converted to a cinema in the early 1940s, reverted to live theatre and then returned to screening films. 

It was demolished in 1976; the last film that screened was One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (Miloš Forman, USA, 1975).

The Greater Union Russell Cinemas opened on the site in 1978 but was itself demolished in 2014 for a hotel.

From Cinesound Review No. 1790.

Notes by Stephen Groenewegen

The Star Theatre in Darwin at night. The cinema billboard advertises the world premiere of Charles Chauvel's Jedda, starring Ngarla Kunoth and Robert Tudawali, in January 1955.

The Star Theatre opened on 14 September 1929 and was a partially open-air cinema – only the back rear rows and upper dress circle were under cover.

Cyclone Tracy destroyed the cinema on Christmas Eve 1974, though it is now commemorated by a plaque at the Star Village shopping arcade on Smith Street.

Notes by Stephen Groenewegen

An excerpt from a silent colour home movie by Ron Newman showing the Skyline Drive-in on Burwood Highway in Burwood, Victoria. 

The Newman family shot the home movie while on holiday in Victoria in 1964.

The clip shows the drive-in entrance and a sign announcing that evening's program, including features The Story of the Count of Monte Cristo (Claude Autant-Lara, France, 1962) and Onionhead (Norman Taurog, USA, 1958), as well as newsreels and cartoons.

The Skyline Drive-in opened on 18 February 1954 and closed on 22 June 1983. It was the first drive-in to be built in Australia and, within a couple of years of opening, had expanded to accommodate 700 cars.

The site eventually included a diner, Western-themed BBQ area with a lake and steakhouse, a children's playground and a 'walk-in' area for patrons without cars.

The location is now home to the council's electricity supply yard. The brick ticket box is a BBQ shelter; other structures that remain intact include the lake (now drained), steakhouse and walk-in area.

Notes by Stephen Groenewegen

Crowds of people line the footpath and cross the street outside the State Theatre in Sydney for a nighttime screening of A Town Like Alice, circa 1956.

The State Theatre opened on 7 June 1929 and has been the home of the annual Sydney Film Festival since 1974.

While the State Theatre hosts red carpet film premieres, since the 1990s it has predominantly become a venue for live music and musical theatre performances.

Notes by Stephen Groenewegen

A Movietone News newsreel story about the premiere of the Oscar-winning In Old Chicago (Henry King, USA, 1937) at the Regent Theatre in Sydney on 21 May 1938.

Guests at the premiere include the Lord Mayor of Sydney, Mr Norman Nock and Mrs Nock, and NSW Premier Mr BSB Stevens.

In Old Chicago was nominated for six Oscars, includng Best Picture. Robert D Webb won the prize for Assistant Director and Alice Brady was named Best Supporting Actress.

Brady had appeared in five other films in 1937. She played the mother of three sons (actors Tyrone Power, Don Ameche and Tom Brown) and the owner of the cow that accidentally started the great Chicago fire of 1871.

The Regent Theatre in George St, Sydney was the premier movie palace for Hoyts in Sydney. It opened in 1928 and hosted many blockbuster films and notable premieres into the 1970s. During the 1970s and '80s, it became predominantly a site for live entertainment.

When owners in the 1980s looked to redevelop the site, the government placed a heritage order on it. Despite considerable protests, the theatre was later approved for demolition and demolished in 1990. 

Notes by Stephen Groenewegen

The North Sydney Orpheum Theatre is demolished in 1962 to make way for the construction of the Warringah Expressway. A map illustrates the first section of the planned route from the Sydney Harbour Bridge through North Sydney. It is designed to reduce traffic on the streets of the northern suburbs. A San Francisco engineering consulting firm prepares specifications for the expressway. Nine million dollars is spent acquiring land for the 500 buildings demolished to make way for the expressway. Buildings demolished include North Sydney landmarks such as the Orpheum. Enough demolition was carried out by mid-1964 that preliminary construction could commence.

The North Sydney Orpheum – the blue corner building seen prior to demolition, and then from its partly-demolished interior – was just one of the landmarks demolished to make way for the expressway. The Orpheum was built in 1913 and run by the Virgona family who also opened the Hayden Orpheum Picture Palace in Cremorne in 1935, which is still operating after more than 75 years. The North Sydney Orpheum Theatre was rebuilt in 1923 and 1937, before being demolished in 1962.

Summary by Poppy De Souza

In 1925, Paramount Pictures employed Australian film director Franklyn Barrett (The Breaking of the Drought, A Girl of the Bush) to manage the North Queensland tour of the silent film blockbuster The Ten Commandments (Cecil B DeMille, USA, 1923).

Barrett conducted the music and directed the live prologue that was performed on stage by local actors before the film commenced – pictured here.

He toured the film and stage show to towns and cities in Queensland including Brisbane, Cairns, Gladstone, Malanda, Rockhampton, Warwick and Barcaldine.

Notes by Stephen Groenewegen

This segment from an Australasian Gazette newsreel from approximately 1920 shows injured soldiers from Caulfield Military Hospital attending a special matinee screening of a film, arranged by the management at Elsternwick Theatre. Injured soldiers travel in wheelchairs or are pushed in mobile hospital beds to Elsternwick Theatre, Caulfield.

Elsternwick Theatre, now known as Classic Cinemas, is the longest continuously operating cinema in Victoria. The site, purchased in 1888, was initially a community hall and occasionally housed a makeshift cinema. The property was sold in 1911 and converted to a picture theatre before closing in 1929 at the start of the Great Depression.

The building reopened as a dance palais during the 1930s and '40s before becoming the Esquire Theatre in 1946 (and later the Sharon Theatre). It has operated as Classic Cinemas since 1971.

Summary by Elizabeth Taggart-Speers

Canberra’s first purpose-built cinema was the Capitol Theatre, which opened in 1927 with more than 1,000 seats.

It presented a mixed program of theatrical acts and films, a formula that was popular for many years.

The Capitol was managed by Franklyn Barrett, a well-known former film producer, director and cinematographer.

The original building was demolished in 1980 and Event Cinemas, Manuka now stands on the site.

In May 2020, Manuka's Capitol Cinema announced it would not be reopening after closing during the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020.

Notes by Stephen Groenewegen and Adam Blackshaw

This silent clip begins with a title card announcing that the Wintergarden Theatre is the 'first theatre in the world to present a completely new invention in Talking Picture Equipment’. This is followed by an exterior shot of the Wintergarden Theatre with banners for the talkies on its awnings and flags decorating its façade. This cuts to a closer shot of one of the signs advertising the gala opening and the talkies program. Another title card introduces the Raycophone invented by Ray Allsop, a sound system that has been installed at the Wintergarden. Footage of Allsop concludes the clip. Summary by Poppy De Souza

The Minerva Theatre on Orwell St, Kings Cross in Sydney, after it opened in May 1939.

Named for the Roman goddess of wisdom, it was principally a live theatre venue and was flanked by a cafe and nightclub.

The theatre stands on the site of Orwell House, a colonial mansion that was demolished in 1937. 

Orwell House was built by John Stephens, who later became the first Solicitor-General of New South Wales. It occupied the first land granted by Governor Darling in the Kings Cross-Potts Point area and was the first house built (construction began in 1829) along the ridge of the Woolloomooloo Peninsula.

After ten years as a stage venue, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) bought the Minerva Theatre in 1948. Now known as the Metro Kings Cross, it played first-run films before being sold to Greater Union in 1969.

It reverted to live theatre with the blockbuster stage musical Hair, which successfully ran for two years. The Metro alternated film and theatre in the 1970s before Greater Union sold it in 1979.

Briefly a food outlet, Kennedy Miller Mitchell Productions (Mad Max, Babe, Happy Feet) acquired the premises in 1982 and is still there 35 years later.

Notes by Stephen Groenewegen

The 'galah premiere' of Buckeye and Pinto (1979) and Terror Lostralis (1980) at the Valhalla Cinema, Melbourne. 

Footage of the ‘Galah’ Valhalla premiere was inserted into an original newsreel that screened before the films, hinting at their tongue-in-cheek tone.

Buckeye and Pinto and Terror Lostralis were themselves short film spoofs of – respectively – a western and a disaster film. They played a long season as a double bill at the Valhalla in Melbourne, as well as in Sydney and Adelaide. 

At the 1980 AFI (Australian Film Institute) Awards, Buckeye and Pinto and Terror Lostralis were both nominated for Best Short Fiction Film and Buckeye and Pinto received an additional nomination for a Kodak Cinematography Medallion for Gaetano Martinetti’s ‘Creative and innovative use of camera’. 

The Valhalla Cinema in Melbourne opened in 1976, on the site of the Crown Theatre (opened in 1913) and Victoria Theatre (renamed from the Crown in 1946).

The Valhalla attracted cult audiences to long-running seasons of audience participation films like The Blues Brothers (John Landis, USA, 1980) and The Rocky Horror Picture Show (Jim Sharman, UK-USA, 1975). It also became known for it 24-hour movie marathons.

The Valhalla relocated from Richmond to Westgarth in 1987 after the original venue was sold and demolished. The Valhalla closed in 1996 but the Palace Westgarth cinema complex now stands on that site.

The Valhalla Social Cinema continued to screen cult films at various locations in Melbourne in the 2010s.

Learn more about the makers of these Authentic B-Grade short films, Buckeye and Pinto and Terror Lostralis.

Notes by Stephen Groenewegen

The Burlington Picture Theatre in Bathurst, date unknown.

'The Burlo' opened on lower William St in 1907. It relocated to upper William St in 1913, was modernised in 1934 and renamed The Tudor in 1952.

It closed in 1961 and was later demolished. A Mazda car dealership now stands on the site. 

Notes by Stephen Groenewegen

This short piece of actuality footage shows people at St Kilda including at the entrance to Luna Park, Daylight Pictures Cinema and a jetty at the beach.

Casino Daylight Pictures was – as suggested by the name – an outdoor cinema. It specialised in comedy shorts and was in operation on the Lower Esplanade from 1913–15.

It used ‘daylight screen lantern slides or moving pictures … projected through darkness by covering the projector with a dark cloth’ (Ina Bertrand in Cinema in Australia, A Documentary History, p16).

Summary by Elizabeth Taggart-Speers

A crowd outside Goulburn's Empire Theatre with a hoarding advertising The World in Motion and posters visible for Les Miserables.

The Empire Theatre began operating in 1914 but was extended and renovated as an 'atmospheric' theatre in 1930, in the style of Sydney's Capitol Theatre, Melbourne’s State Theatre and Perth’s Ambassador Theatre.

Greater Union bought the theatre and renamed it the Odeon in 1948.

It closed in 1967 and was later demolished to make way for the Phillip Court Motel and then the Goulburn Plaza shopping centre.

Notes by Stephen Groenewegen

Workers on the roof and outside a Christian church in Paisley Street, Footscray, prepare it for demolition. A sign at the front of the church reads, 'This land has been secured by the Federal Picture Company for the erection of a picture theatre’. Inside the church, men strip the walls and fittings from the rooms. Long beams are used to knock down the remaining façade. Men stand close by as they watch the building crumble.

The theatre that was subsequently built on this site was the Grand Picture Theatre, one of the best known and loved art deco picture palaces in Australia. It remained open until 1987 when it was converted to a bingo club, which itself closed in the mid-2000s to be replaced by several retail stores. Summary by Poppy De Souza

Crowds line the footpath of the Grand Cinema in Footscray. A bicycle’s sign advertises a children’s talent quest grand final. Jack Perry (Zig) and Doug McKenzie (Zag) perform their Zig and Zag clown routine for a crowd of delighted children. The clip ends with Zig and Zag waving to the camera.

The Grand Theatre opened on the site of the Church of Christ on 15 November 1911 (watch footage of the church demolition to make way for the cinema). It remained open until 1987 when it was converted to a bingo club, which itself closed in the mid-2000s to be replaced by several retail stores. Summary by Poppy De Souza