Page 5 - cr55

New Sound
Work is underway at Launceston’s
Brighter times at Metro Adelaide. Image: Brian Pearson
Albert Hall to amplify the sound of the
rare concert organ.
Please Be Seated
Water drives a pump which
Always alert to possibilities,
compresses air into bellows which then
CATHS’ Mel Elliott said “Yes please”
feed air to the pipes.
when offered a broken cast-iron theatre
seat. On peeling back the paint, Mel The Brindley organ, built in 1861,
could read the name of the was moved to the Albert Hall in 1891.
Watch this space
manufacturer, which proved that it once ACROSS THE TASMAN
graced one of Melbourne’s most From Five to Thirteen
Melbourne Theatre Buildings for
Sale popular theatres - the Theatre Royal in Hoyts continue to screen in their
Bourke Street.
The former Metro Bourke Street is five-screen complex at Lower Hutt,
Mel is restoring the seat, after
for sale by tender. A nightclub since even though Village have opened their
which it will be presented to CATHS
1986, how much of the Henry White eight-screen Westfield just a block
for display.
interior could possibly remain? away.
CATHS’ spy is too old to join the Practising What They Preach
party-set to find out, and would The former Hoyts Mid-City Five in
probably be denied entry by the Wellington, has been taken over by the
doormen anyway, so it’s hard to know. Department of Conservation and
At street level, glimpses of the converted into an energy efficient office
marquee of the MGM years peep from building.
gaps where more recent panels have New Regent Multiplex
fallen off. A tour of the interior might
Plans have been in the wind for
reveal similar discoveries.
some time, but action is underway on a
Centenary Hall in East Malvern
multiplex development around the
hasn’t been a picture theatre since the Regent Ashburton.
Lawrence Bros. left it in the late 1940s. Eat, Relax and Enjoy A Classic
The brothers ran it as The Verne, the Hobart’s new cinema Liverpools,is Reporting By: Colin Flint,
western limit of their large circuit based marketed as a Picture House Tony Froude, Adrian Jacobson,
in Gippsland. The building is currently Restaurant, serving fine food and wines David Lascelles, Gerry Kennedy,
a martial arts academy. with the show. Ross King, Brian Pearson and
The George Cinemas in St Kilda, Fitted out in a building that was Ray Peck.
part of the Palace chain, are for sale as never a theatre (right), it now looks like
three working cinemas. one. Projection is 35mm too.

CINEMARECORD 2007 5