Page 18 - CinemaRecord #11R.pdf

62. Cinema Newton By Ramon Estrada

My early years were spent in the Erskineville/Newtown area of suburban Sydney, (not much of a place now,)
however apart from being very old, it wasn't that bad a place to live, this was during WWII and most of my family
being both able and suitable age were off at the War. One good thing - we had no shortage of Movie Theatres
-there were two "Hoyts", the wonderful old "Majestic" plus "Hub No 1" and "Hub No 2". My favourite was the
Majestic, between it and the tuck shop called the "Belgrade" Cafe was a narrow alleyway and almost magically
every Saturday arvo one could find bits of 35mm film, my treasure was about 1 foot of film showing what I later
found out was the face of Frank Thring Senior.

Later I lived at Altona in Victoria, and whilst there I obtained a Lion Vitascope 35mm hand driven projector, next
was a trip to Melbourne City to 'Tim the Tayman for some "endless" strips of film.

I visited a large theatre (State) for my Film Weekly and while there asked if they knew where I may buy some
old film, and I was given the name of a man named Jampen (now dead many years) who lived off an alleyway
at Carlton. Well off I went, I found him and what a wonderful old man he was- locally he was the wino but with
me he was an encyclopedia of knowledge on silent equipment, film (he knew all about hand colouring and two
colour technicolour), he had several hand-crank projectors, one beautiful example he said he would let me
have for a fiver (unfortunately I moved shortly after this and had to forego the offer), however I was able to
obtain about 12,000 ft of various film.

I was now in business with my Lion. The spools for this projector were between 250 to 300 ft so each 1000 ft
was cut approximately into four. Some of the titles were ''The Flower of Doom", "The New Stenographer", "A
Visit To Ugly", a heap of Cinesound Reviews circa 1934-38, some War Loan cartoons, etcetera.

The Lion saw me through various moves to Footscray, Watsonia, Eden Park, San Souci, Hurstville through to
Shepparton. On every showing wherever I happened to be, each shown full reel would be handed to a member
of the audience to rewind - no one ever appeared to mind (in fact I think it made them feel part of the event and
not just an audience.)

We skip a few years here, things like National Service, Marriage, 40 years in the Post Office etc. tend timewise
to "Fade fast Astern". I began screening seriously with a Cinevox 16mm sound projector, later it gained the
nickname, the "Tinnybox".

The Newton Proscenium