Page 23 - CinemaRecord Edition 3-2003 #41

The projector was hand driven and Jack Stirling would
operate the early C&W (Cummings and Wilson Junior
Projector) complete with carbon arc lamp. Not being a
romantic he would speed up the love scenes while slowing
down the run during the exciting cowboy scenes of the ever
popular “Tom Mix”.
Talkies brought with it problems regarding sound
projection so they tried hanging strips of blankets every
6feet (1.8m) in an attempt to baffle the sound and stop the
echoing. Successful as it was it still needed to be developed
and that was something that was to challenge the Architect
of the final theatre design.
As Jim Dorman already owned property on Mountjoy
Street at the corner of Grove Street the four owners of the
Lorne Picture Company agreed that the Company should
purchase the land and then build the fourth and final theatre
for Lorne. Following the purchase of his land Jim Dorman
retired from the Company and left the new venture to
Anderson, Jarratt and Stirling.
As “talkies” were beginning to eclipse the silent films
and people were suddenly being exposed to the raw voices
of their ever popular silent stars. Jack Stirling, a builder and
father of historian Doug Stirling and lifelong resident of
Lorne, together with the Company commissioned Charlie On the
Fraser, a Melbourne Architect to design a new talkie theatre.
He had the task in 1936 of coping with the aura of sound
transmission inside a large closed space emanating from a Scenic
small strip at the edge of the nitrate film reel through an
amplifier still in its primitive stages of development. Great
While the design was being refined and developed
preparation was already in place on site with Jack Stirling in
charge of a team of men hand making tens of thousands of Ocean
bricks. These were stacked on the site ready for the successful
builder to start work. In early 1937 Bob Owen, a Builder from Road
East Malvern started construction. Specific specifications at
the time called for sound absorption materials and while the
first two sections of the auditorium ceiling were fibrous
plaster to reflect the sound, the rest of the ceiling was lined in
canite. The rear walls were clad in special 18” square .2inch
thick porous tiles to absorb sound rather
than to deflect the sound back to the
screen while all the exposed brick walls
inside and out were rendered.
Two large “Grand Opera “speakers
designed by Les Yelland of Ripponlea
were installed beside the screen and
they had a special control system for the
volume. A person sitting in the back row
of the dress circle in front of the
bio/projection box could by a pulley
wheel increase and decrease the output
of the sound amplifier.

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