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Memoirs of a

FILM DISTRIBUTOR

by Peter Broome
Part Three - A 16mm Interlude

When the President of 20th.Century Kingscliff hotel. At this time the hotel
Fox Spyros Skouras visited in 1952 he and surf club were the only buildings.
was surprised that we had not entered The hotel was in a paddock facing the
the 16mm field, so haste was made to ocean. Try and find a car park in Authority had quite large theatres in
do so. This ‘substandard’ film gauge thriving Kingscliff now! towns like Cooma and Cabramurra
was popular with large firms and Clients like the Navy and the where thousands of men were
organizations responsible for the Prisons Department were fair in seeing employed, and portable equipment
welfare or entertainment of people in that we got our share of business, but moved by jeeps for the remote
isolated situations - the Navy, cruise competition in the private sector, the locations. Winter or summer, they
ships, freighters, NSW Penal Service, clubs and the Snowy Authority was travelled to dozens of locations to put
Snowy Mountains Authority, The fierce. We had some interesting clients on a show.
Australian Antarctic Division - as well like jockey George Moore, Captain Running all this was the Amenities
as film societies and individual film James Patrick of Patrick Shipping, and Officer, Bill Joyce. I would fly to
enthusiasts. Sir Garfield Barwick, who was general
Cooma and be picked up at the airport
Fox was last into this field. Our counsel for Hoyts.
by Bill, return with him to his office
main competitor was the well- Sid Albright, who now took a where a deal took all of thirty minutes.
established 16MM Pty. Ltd., a personal interest in 16mm due to the Bill always offered an invitation; “What
subsidiary of BEF and Greater Union, instruction to “get with it”, called me to would you like to see?”
Columbia and MGM. Soon, the RSL his office one day and told me that Jack With his four-wheel drive to get us
and Leagues Clubs in NSW wanted Davey, who narrated Movietone News, through the roughest terrain, I tramped
16mm for Sunday-only screenings of wanted to screen 16mm on his cruiser, all over the emerging Adaminaby Dam
feature films. and I was to give him anything he and went to the bottom of the T2 power
In 1956 I was seconded to the needed at no charge. Sid explained that station.
16mm Division to drum up business. I Jack was paid ten pounds ($20) for his
The first indication that we had
moved around the business and first narration, and since then had
completed the descent was the noise of
industrial sectors of Sydney seeking always refused to take more. Jack's
the skip hitting the empty kerosene tin
contracts from wealthy men who could reasoning was that Movietone had
at the bottom of the shaft.
afford a projector at home. Standard made his name in Australia, for which
The Authority was probably the
rental for a feature and two shorts for a he was grateful. And so it remained; for
greatest organisation set up by any
home screening was four pounds ($8). Jack’s last newsreel he still received ten
Australian government and the shame
Meeting with some success, I was then pounds.
is we did not keep it intact for other
sent to Melbourne and Brisbane to The arrival of CinemaScope brought bold engineering feats like turning back
establish markets and appoint managers the challenge to convert clients to the the North Queensland rivers and
for the new business. new medium. The definitive lens was
tunnelling Sydney effluent out west to
All established safeguards and manufactured in Chicago by Bausch
the semi desert.
aspects of commercial distribution were and Lomb and was not cheap. My
For the 16mm release of A Man
applied to 16mm. I met many friend Keith Stevenson secured the
Called Peter, church groups became an
interesting people, including Tom dealership for Australia and a colleague
obvious sales target. As most
Halbert an exhibitor at Surfers’ of his began to specialise in
congregations did not have projectors
Paradise. At this time Surfers construction of the large screen frames
or screens, we took the film and our
comprised sand dunes with the hotel, needed. Not long after, Tom Halbert of
equipment to them. At the Central
theatre and a few shops making up a Surfers Paradise invented the Paradise
Baptist Church, Sydney we screened on
small town. lens, which was about half the price of
percentage for eight consecutive nights.
Tom owned a spare cottage behind its competitor. So now Bill Kessler and
Years later I was to devote many
the theatre, which he made available to I sold the concept, the lenses and the weeks to sitting on anti- piracy
friends at no charge. To escape the programs - a complete package.
committees in Australia and Asia,
November heat in Brisbane, my First major client was the Snowy
combating the theft of copyright
appointee drove us to Surfers to cool Mountains Authority, whose boss Sir
material made so easy with the
off each weekend and enjoy a Saturday Hudson Fysh insisted that even a small
invention of video cameras and tape,
lunch of prawns bought at the Co-op diamond drilling camp of or three men
but the first example of this form of
and a few beers on the verandah of the was to have a weekly film. The
lawlessness was in 16mm.
10 2006 CINEMARECORD