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The stage setting in 1954. Side grilles cover ventilation ducts.

Whether by good luck or by opting to mechanically ventilate the the foyer and therein corralled some
coercion, the Rialto enjoyed a room, and continue to improve its sheep - none of them black.
monopoly on cinema entertainment in ventilation rather than rebuild upstairs One lady used the Rialto stage on
Kew for 15 years. This ended in 1936 and expel heat and fumes over a shorter Saturday mornings to train children in
when the independent Vogue opened distance. the performing arts. Every three months
directly opposite the Kew tram depot. Heating and ventilation issues the children then performed during
The site was actually on the Hawthorn dogged the theatre. The first heating interval at the Saturday matinees.
side of the road and the theatre was ten electric wall radiators installed Hoyts Suburban Theatres ran
advertised in the independent column as in 1927, followed in 1935 by piped Children’s Cinema Clubs (the CCC) as
the ‘Hawthorn and Kew Vogue’. It was water (foot-plate heating) to the centre part of the matinee program. Trevor
1.5km from the Rialto, considerably block of the stalls and to the first seven still has his membership badge 228.
further than the distances between some rows of the circle (the lounge area). The manager would come on stage
rivals in other suburbs. The following year the left-side after interval and read out birthdays and
The Rialto was unique amongst shop was absorbed into the foyer space, other announcements amidst cheering
Hoyts’ theatres in that it retained its and the distinctive entrance doors fitted. and booing; then the CCC Club song
rear stalls projection room to the day it The staircase to the upstairs foyer was was sung by the mob.
closed. In the mid-thirties Hoyts and altered and the ticket box relocated to In the early 1950s the Rialto was a
their associates began to upgrade their the left hand side. A new gents toilet ‘week three’ theatre, in the same
buildings. The changes included raising was built in the left-hand lane that bracket as the Regent Gardiner and
ground-floor projection booths to the opened off the foyer. Regent Thornbury and Robert
rear of the balcony (Broadway Trevor Fiander, mentioned earlier, Mcleish’s Northcote Theatre (see CR
Camberwell) and closing antiquated was second generation family to work 51). Trevor recalls the film couriers
sites (the Armadale and the first at the Rialto. Trevor’s father Walter who travelled by motor-bike and wore
Rivoli). ushered in both the Rialto and Palace leather helmuts, goggles, flying boots
Hoyts were forced by the health Glenferrie and his brother, Lewis, and army trench coats.
authorities to make many projection worked as a lolly boy at the Rialto. Metal boxes were mounted on bike
room and other improvements at the Trevor remembers the showmanship carriers to carry the film cans. If things
Rialto. of one Rialto manager. To promote went wrong an interrupted or
In 1929 Health wrote of this room, Walt Disney’s So Dear To My Heart incomplete screening was the result.
‘Oppressively hot and muggy - no air (1949) - a story about a black sheep - One accident en route meant the last
movement’. Yet Hoyts persisted with it, the manager installed a picket fence in reel arrived thirty minutes late.

14 2007 CINEMARECORD