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Tumut. At the Kings, the decorative
Top to Bottom: Detail of the ‘sand and sea’ motif at the Liberty Yass. staff at the Film and Sound Archive
The Aztec influence at the Kings Bega.
Very much the twenties picture theatre: The Gundagai Theatre and its auditorium.
The present ‘screen’ is painted on the wall. The flat floor and the industrial lights
suggest the general purpose uses of recent years.
inspiration was Aztec.
Gundagai Theatre
Surprisingly, a town renowned in
song and as a tourist stop-over, has no
cinema and now ignores the imposing
1929 version in the main street.
Built by the Masonic Lodge, the
theatre was given prime position and
the Temple built at the back of the
theatre. One of the most solid buildings
imaginable, all walls and the verandah
are poured concrete. The architects for
the building were Purvis, Lavers and
Mammat, a firm unfamiliar to CATHS
members.
The theatre has a circle foyer and
roof garden approached through French
doors, typical of the better suburban
theatres of its time.
Still in the bio-box were the C&W
model M Series 1 projectors, with Calder
automatic arcs and Raycophone sound.
This large and interesting building,
(it is for sale) begs to be revived as a
community theatre.
IT’S IN THE CAN
While most people have some
knowledge of film production,
distribution and exhibition, few know
much about film preservation. At the
National Film and Sound Archive,
Canberra it was sobering to learn that 90
percent of Australia’s film history pre-
1930 has decomposed, and fascinating to
see what it turns to: film in an advanced
state of decomposition is not a pretty
sight or smell. Keeping the remainder of
our film heritage safe and accessible is
the role of the Archive, which seems to
have equipment equal to any task.
In one demonstration of the
malleability of film to the will of the
console operator, a faded print of a
Diggers march in Canberra was
transformed before our eyes to rich
colour on the computer screen. The
only question to be resolved by the
operator was - which version of full
colour to ‘fix’ was the one closest to
reality? For subjective work of this
nature, the decision by the operator is
as much artistic as technical.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The generous input of theatre operators
and municipal staff, sometimes at short
notice is gratefully acknowledged. The
were similarly obliging. We thank Les
Tod (NSW) for the names of the
architects of the Kings Bega and the
Gundagai Theatre.
CINEMARECORD 2005 11