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I was just a brash young fella
around town who had the picture bug,
fought with his father over it, decided
to go into Hoyts and ask for a job. And
I was given one; shunted out to
Camberwell as an assistant operator
when ‘Hollands’ opened as Hoyts
Camberwell on September 19, 1925.
The greatest change I have seen in
the industry was from ‘silent’ to
‘sound’. It was a jolt, an upheaval.
When it happened I had moved to the
Regent Collins Street, the mighty
Regent, still the best theatre in
Australia, possibly. But it opened silent,
in February 1929 with Ronald Colman
and Vilma Banky in Two Lovers. The first talkie at Hoyts De Luxe, 13 July 1929 looked good in the ads: ‘Here’s drama
Across the road at the Athenaeum too big for words. Secrets of the Ocean’s Depths! Shoals of a Woman’s Heart!’
Al Jolson was singing ‘Mammy’ in the
new-fangled talking pictures. That’s One Saturday night at the Regent -
An extract from My First Fifty Years
what people wanted. They didn’t want a packed house and just before Interval
With Hoyts, an interview with the late
any more ‘silents’. - reel two of one of the Our Gang
Bert Harris, on radio 3MA in 1975.
Then there was a rush to get comedy series was on the screen, with At the time Bert was manager and
equipment. Some of it wasn’t very all the kids yelling their heads off. The projectionist at Hoyts 16th Street
good. Most of us didn’t know much sound for this second reel was of Drive-In, Mildura. The recording was
about it. They brought out American course, on record two.
kindly supplied by his daughter
so-called engineers to teach us. They Interval. Then the feature, a murder
Margaret Curnow.
were a bit dark, very foggy at times. mystery with Norma Shearer, The Trial
Many silent pictures were hastily of Mary Dugan. We had shown part one
given sound effects. There was one with the part one disc. Okay. Swung over
picture we called ‘The One Percent to part two and yes, there was a part-two
Talkie’. Jack Holt was the actor, disc on the turntable. On the screen
Submarine the film. It was Prosecutor H. B. Warner was addressing
synchronised sound - all the crashes the jury but the sound was kids yelling
and aeroplane noises were going all the their heads off! Result: the whole
time, but it was really a silent picture projection staff in Hoyts head office on
with the usual intertitles. Towards the the carpet Monday morning. ★
last reel I think, Jack Holt went out into
the street to buy a paper and he called
to the paperboy - “Boy!” That was the
only word in the picture.
You see, those pictures had labels -
Ten Percent Talkie, Fifty Percent Talkie
etc. - but within a few years silent
pictures were gone.
Sound in The Jazz Singer was on
gramophone records, each a fourteen-
and-a-half-inch disc, the Vitaphone.
The needle started in the middle and
worked out to the edge, the reverse of
what we are used to.
You put one frame of film in the
projector gate at the point marked
'Start', the record on the turntable
below, started the projector motor, then
held your breath and crossed your
A tense Norma Shearer is defended by
fingers and hoped that the image and
her brother, Raymond Hackett in The Trial
sound stayed synchronised, which often
Of Mary Dugan. This was MGM's second
they didn’t. There could also be big
talkie. It opened at the Regent on
mistakes.
Saturday 22 February 1930

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