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(particularly the real-life ones in the war-time newsreels) often stayed there for some considerable time, 12
something that would not have been tolerated, for instance, at the Palais.

In addition to the usual cinema fare (which also included here the British Gaumont News), items of local
sporting interest were featured. Film of the St. Kilda football team was shown there (with the team itself also
being in attendance) on June 19, 1931, and from July of that year the St. Kilda Captain, Harold Matthews, gave
a wee~IY. broadcast of news of the team which included a message for the patrons of the Memorial.,, With this
informality, the participation of local sporting heroes, and the physical siting of the theatre within the Returned
Servicemen's Club, it could be said that the Memorial was perhaps more of a "community" (in the word's true
sense, and not in its current debased usage as a justification for an art's grant for something from which the
community actually stays away in droves) picture-theatre than its more om ate peers which catered as much (if
not more) for "outsiders· as well as those resident in St. Kilda.

The theatre continues to function as part of the Hoyts chain, showing films on their second or third run, until its
closure in late 1958. With as little publicity as for its' opening, it showed its' last films "House Of Strangers" and
"Women Of Pitcairn Island" on Wednesday, December 10, 1958. 14 It was a time of the coming of new things
to Melbourne. On the following day the record of the hit musical "My Fair Lady" was officially released and
''The Ten Commandments" opened at the newly-refurbished Barclay Theatre in Russell Street 1s and the day
after that the first of the modern city buildings- the I.C.I. -had an open day for public visitation. 16
Although no longer a theatre, the hall continued an association with cinema, however. Until quite recently -
February 1992 - it housed the company of Pan Pacific Films, being used at times as a rehearsal area. This
company also operated a Sunday Market which ran for two years, until its closure on Sunday, March 1 , 1992.
18 At the present there are two double shops on the Acland Street frontage: "Sammy's Milk Bar" and the
"Daniel Gerard" restaurant. Although the section which housed the picture-theatre is currently empty, there are
proposals for the possible re-opening of it as a cinema in about 1996. This is in line with the current refurbish-
ment of the hall, which now has a new gaming room with poker-machines and a new restaurant- the "Albert
Jacka Bar" in what was once the downstairs foyer.

1: Cooper J.B. The History of St. Kllda Vol. 2. p.267. 2: Ibid. p.266
3: Von Hartel Trethowan. Robert Peck City Of St. Kllda Architectural Study- Buildings Post 1914 "St. Kllda Army & Navy Club" citation.
4: Cooper J.B. The History of St. Kllda Vol.2. p.267. 5: Ibid. pp.268-269.
6: Ibis. p.269. 7: The Herald (November 5, 1927) p.8. 8: The Herald (November 7, 1927) p.8.
9: Ibid. p.8. 10: Sands & McDougall PIL. Sands & McDougall Directory of Victoria For 1928 p.2100.
11: Howson John-Michael! Found It At The Flickers p.17. 12: Ibid. p.18.
13. Longmire A. St. Kilda- The Show Goes On- The History of St. Kilda Volume Ill, 1930 to July 1983 (Hawthorn 1989) p.12.
14: The Herald (December 10, 1958) p.38. 15: Ibid. p.28. 16: The Herald (December 12, 1958) p.2.

THE S'r. JUL/)A SOUHERS' MEMOnTAL HALL.