Page 15 - CR

Growing up at the pictures. While living in Brisbane for a year I
When I was a kid growing up in the went the Camp Hill Planet Cinema to
Queensland mining town of Mount Isa, see Woodstock, and the Morningside
I always went to the Star Theatre. This Astra for Myra Breckenridge.
was back when the entrance was from I used to frequent Capalaba Drive-
West Street and the screen was where In, and went to the Keperra Drive-In
the projection box is now. Then they to see Easy Rider.
revamped it and put the screen where I remember going to the Grove
Mt.Isa Star.
the old entrance was – which was then Drive-In at Mackay – a great little
converted into the Star Gift Shop with a drive-in on Horse and Buggy Road and
dentist upstairs. When I did my apprenticeship watching Creepshow – and also going
They also put in (onions) whirlybird (hand and machine compositor) I went all the way out to the Moranbah
air-vents on the roof and hessian bags to the morning (10:10am) movie every Drive-In on the night they screened
the full length of the roof as a ceiling. Tuesday and Friday at the Star. The Mutant!
Around 1965 they closed up for I always loved Labour Day as it Over the years I also went to
around four weeks and put in a stage was always a Free Movie Day and movies at the Yeppoon Rainbow;
and an all-new ceiling, reopening with always a Tom and Jerry Cartoon Babinda’s Munro, the Mareeba Rodeo
The Sound of Music which ran for Festival which included those Pete Drive-In (movie Mission Yuck), Cairns’
around a month. Smith Specials. Coral Drive-In (for the movie Smokey
On Friday nights I used to go to the When Norm Smith at Mount Isa and the Bandit); Townsville’s Norline,
BSD Movies over on the mines side of refused to run The Beatles movie A Stuart and Range Drive-Ins and then
town. This was the former Base Supply Hard Day’s Night we all had to go to to the Stardust here in Ayr. The rest is
Depot – left from when American Cloncurry to the Bio Cinema to see it. cinema history…
troops were based in Mount Isa. I also went to the Camooweal
It was an open-air cinema with free Cinema every now and then, and it
admission and you got one newsreel was fun to see the occasional cockroach
and sometimes a cartoon and one run across the screen.
movie! Projection was all on 16mm I remember seeing the racy movie
equipment with carbon-arcs. No Sex Please We’re British at the
Saturday arvo at 1pm, it was off to Richmond Cinema, and attended the
the matinee at the Star with one serial: Regent and Royal in Charters Towers.
Captain Silver; The Shadow; Phantom; Other cinemas I attended were the The Jerkic family.
Black Hawk or Jungle Queen, then a Civic in Gladstone, the Tivoli,
Three Stooges; cartoon of Woody Grandview and Summergarden in With wife Suzzi (a published author
Woodpecker, Casper The Ghost or a Bowen and later when I returned to of childrens books), 10 children and 18
Tom and Jerry plus one feature movie! Bowen, the Whitsunday Drive-In. grand-kids in the family – there are
Saturday night we went to the Star I also remember attending the plenty of helpers at the Stardust, in fact
and Sunday night it was off to the Eldorado Theatre in Proserpine – the projectionist is often my daughter
town’s Tropicair Drive-In. With 21 where their projectors used to sit in an Antonella, who began showing films
rows of speakers, it was the largest oil bath! here at only 15 years of age!
drive-in in Australia and its screen the Showing movies certainly does get
biggest in the southern hemisphere. into the blood. And to us its more than
a job – it’s a lifestyle!

Photographs
from the
collections of
Ian Day and
Frank Jerkic.
Mt.Isa Tropicair. Both cars and walk-in’s welcome!

CINEMARECORD 2011 15