Page 14 - RD_2015_12

intimate room in which to view films,
decoration is minimal, and the screen is
either blank or a great expanse for
images of varying interest.
How different was the earlier
approach when the picture palace was
planned to give its patrons a few hours
of luxury, beauty and wonder, to take
them out of their daily lives.
So we have the final anticipatory
climb up the vomitorium stairs from the
foyer, feeling as much as hearing the
throb of the most versatile musical
instrument ever devised, with a
tantalizing glimpse of a richly decorated
ceiling and then the revelation of a
sweeping proscenium clothed with
elaborate drapery as the focal point of a
sea of comfortable seats.
Costly Viennese crystal chandeliers
glittered, soft ever-changing colours
washed coffered ceilings or a huge
central dome from concealed globes,
and windowed walls gave an illusion
that a velvet night sky lay just beyond.
Hand woven tapestries and murals
filled plain spaces, and deep, custom
woven carpets cushioned the feet of the
wondering temporary kings, queens,
princes and princesses as they were
shown to their seats by glamorous lady
servants and handsome, smartly clad
page-boys.
Even in those inevitable moments
when the film palled, there was joy to
be found in gazing about the
surrounding glory, dimly lit by the light
from the screen.
All of our great cinemas shared these
characteristics, though Greater Union’s
theatres were distinctly different,
ranging from the French Empire decor From top: : the initial decor and wall
of the State, Sydney to the statued finish of the Art Gallery;
pleasure gardens of the ‘atmospherics’. The staff poised for Opening Night;
Much as I admire them, (and I can attest The Register News Pictorial 3 May 1929.
from personal observation that the Images: JTC
statuary was remarkably faithful to the
original masterpieces) it was in their counterpart, where in the frieze naked
Hoyts rivals that I found my greatest Hellenic athletes engaged in worshipful
pleasure. All of these theatres were procession. From the elaborately
memorable, some more so than others. tasteful central embroidery of this dome
The first consideration was the sense hung the most magnificent combined
of space. The Regent, Brisbane seemed chandelier and candelabra of all.
to be wider than it was deep, which is But it was in their ideal proportions
not good for viewing a flat cinema (close, I would think, to the golden
screen, and though it was probably the rectangle*) a characteristic shared by
most richly decorated of all the Regents, the Regents of Collins Street, Fitzroy
it suffered from the impenetrable and Adelaide, that was the basis for
solidity of its plaster decoration and the their success as cinemas.
deep, and rather gloomy, bronze colour The Melbourne theatre was the
scheme. Its oval dome, fine in itself, grandest of all, and I do not except the
paled into insignificance when State, Sydney from this assessment.
compared with its Melbourne

14 2006 CINEMARECORD