Page 27 - CinemaRecord Edition 3-2003 #41
P. 27

A Raycophone J3 unit similar to the one at
          the Kew Asylum.
          Photo: Ross King Collection.

            A Powers is a noisy machine, but
          the glass partition and the distance
          spared the ears of my audience.
            Thanks to my association with Kew
          we had some wonderful movie nights at
          home for a period of about 18 months.
            The year was 1964 and I was
          running 35mm prints of Dr No,
          Breakfast at Tiffany’s, The
          Americanisation of Emily, Donovan’s
          Reef, George Pal’s The Time Machine
          and more. I even had Alfred
          Hitchcock’s The Birds. When I booked
          this one the exchange queried whether
          it would be suitable. I said, “They’ll
          love it” - but I did have my doubts.
          However the only comment I got was
          from one patient who said, “That film
          was a load of bulls- !”
                                               Projectionists often volunteered
            On one occasion I talked Warner  their services on a roster basis at a
          Bros. into letting me have Palm Springs  number of government institutions.
          Weekend, starring Troy Donohue. This
                                               In CinemaRecord 49 (p32) Mel
          was by no means one of Hollywood’s
                                            Elliott wrote about projecting for the
          great epics, but at the time it was still
                                            inmates at the Mount Royal Psychiatric
          screening in the city. I was proud,
                                            Hospital.
          therefore, to be screening
          simultaneously with the Regent Collins
          Street!
            Much later, and out of the blue, I  Images top and right: Fingers beware -
          was offered a loan of a 35mm print of  a Powers’ projector head!  As well as
          Oklahoma. I scrounged an anamorphic  exposed gears, Powers had a unique
          lens from somewhere and set up a  intermittent movement, not the usual
          screen that was as wide as the living  Maltese Cross. (Brian Quigley makes a
          room. A crowd of us sat down and  comment about these machines in his
          watched nine spools of great music and  story on page 13)
          colour.                           A Powers 6B in the home of film exhibitor
            Alas, the Asylum dropped film   the late Jim Ness in 1934. The sound
          screenings sometime in 1965, in favor  head is Raycophone and the lamphouse is
          of television. I wondered if the patients  Harringtons.
          noticed the difference. ★         This image: Ross King Collection.




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