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CINEMARECORD

Cinema Jfistory No:76 'By £es Tot£

TUMUT Montreal Theatre

The Montreal is located in Russell Street and opened on 2 with the three stepped down loge boxes on each side to-
April 1930 (1). It was built for local businessman John wards the proscenium. Apparently these contained cane
Learmont, the name Montreal being an anagram of Lear- furniture etc, when the theatre first opened. The ceiling
mont. It was built as an investment on land adjacent to (probably the best feature) is lattice and caneite, with re-
Learmont's clothing and drapery store. The theatre was movable panels in the diamonds to pull up the (since
initially leased out to G Laurantus and B Cummings, (from removed) opalescent school bouse style light fittings to
February 1930) who also built the Athenaeum Theatre in change the globes.
Junee and operated the Lyceum in Junee as well. (2)
Interestingly, there was extensive use of neon on the entire
Architects for the theatre were Kaberry and Chard. Both the front facade (too damaged for us to use, unfortunately,
interior and exterior are distinctive of their work, the former including outlining the concrete lettering That spelt Mon-
with the side scalloped boxes along the walls, and the latter treal horizontally across the centre. Blue and red alternating
containing their trademark sloping tiled awning between sections of neon outlined the awning, under the soffit, along
two turrets at each end of the facade. with three glass White Way lights.

The theatre was licensed 9 May 1930 to seat 840 on two The front doors have black~and-white light panels in the top
levels. (3) section, the foyer is panelled and originally had damask wall
paper in the panels - probably a deep mustard gold from the
On 24 April1932, at 3.10pm in the afternoon, the Montreal traces I have found. The timber was all originally stained in
suffered fire damage and was fortunate not to have been the 20s style and the ceiling is caneite with timber beams.
completely destroyed. Plumbers were repairing the roof and
a spirit lamp came into contact with the tar paper used as a The box office between the two sets of stalls doors has a
lining under the roof, and set it alight. The roof timbers and reasonably nice copper grille.
iron roof were slightly damaged by the fire, as well as the
auditorium ceiling, and the contents of the building suffered
some water damage as a result of the fire brigade's actions to In the 1950s (after CinemaScope was installed in May
extinguish the blaze. As a result repairs and renovations 1955) the theatre got the traditional Brakell CinemaScope
were undertaken over the following months, but the theatre treatment that included a great looking wall to wall red
was given permission to remain open. (4) velvet scalloped valance, with gold fringe and braiding, and
red velvet curtains. This necessitated the removal of the
By 1937 it was leased to Peter Stathis, who was Laurantus' decorative arched exit fins between the third box and the
son-in-law, then to Stathis' two sons, who each held one half edge of the proscenium. The new screen was placed across
share. In 1965 it was leased toR Duffus, who ran the theatre the front wall in front of the pressed tin proscenium (which
until1970. (5) is still there) on a new ·extended stage platform, covering the
orchestra pit. The side walls from the boxes and above the
It then saw a series of openings and closings as different valance to the ceiling line is painted matte black.
operators came and went.
CinemaScope sure looked good! Junee and Leeton still have
In the early 1990s, it was operated on Saturdays only by the side arches. At Tumut, the left arch was an exit as well
Dennis Howe, who travelled down from Sydney, taking the as access to the outsiide gents, through the exit and the right
films with him, screened and stayed overnight in the theatre, side is just a normal size door for access to the outside
then returned to Sydney the following day. For the little ladies - a big downfall or drawback in the 90s, as we found
return he was making out of the venture, no refurbishment out.
was undertaken. (6)
For some reason during the CinemaScope installation, some
In 1991, John Learmont, (Jnr), executor of the family estate, seats were removed from the rear of the stalls and the
operated the theatre for some time in an attempt to keep it partition wall was built to form the closed off crossover
going while it was up for sale. (7) passage. The manager's office is entered off this on the foyer
side and is under the circle stairs. There is a rear stalls exit
In February 1992, Stephen Walsh and Dennis Davis leased on the opposite side and a generator room under the left
the theatre from the Learmont family under the Pacific hand stairs.
Ozone banner, and stayed there for approximately two
years, progressively refurbishing the theatre. (8) There was a large stage (notwithstanding the too narrow for
Scope proscenium, about 29 feet I think, the whole theatre is
Stephen Walsh gave this description of the theatre in 1997: about 45 ft wide). That was set up originally with light
The auditorium is very similar in style to the Leeton Roxy,

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