Running the Cinema: the many challenges!

Many of our older readers would remember Macquarie Cinema on the corner of Browne and Queen Streets. There are many fond memories of the Macquarie that are regularly recalled, like in last week's library social media post. But what was it like to own the cinema? In 1979 Fred and Ida Eves were interviewed about their time as operators of the Macquarie Cinema. Interestingly, Fred and Ida were interviewed in August that year- only four months before the former cinema building was demolished, yet at the time of the interview both had no idea of the pending fate of the building.

Fred and Ida Eves bought the cinema from a Mr Holdsworth in 1930. The building was owned by Dr Mawson. Fred's father owned a theatre in Bathurst where Fred was living before he moved to Campbelltown.

Taken in 1932 at a Saturday night dance in the cinema

One of the early perils experienced by the Eves' were when the "talkies" arrived and with the sound that accompanied them. Fred Eves explained: "They used to have a record with the soundtrack on it. When you started the machine with the film in it would automatically start the record with it. As it spun around, and the film came on the screen it was synchronised with the record. The trouble with that was if anyone walked into the operating box and bumped the door the needle would jump across the record. It would throw it out of synchronisation and it became a comedy. When John Bowles was supposed to sing there wasn’t a sound and as he walked off he would sing. Then a lady would come out to sing and it would be a man’s voice. It would be all mixed up and you couldn’t do anything about it until that reel eventually ran out." You couldn't lift the needle to move it because there was nothing to tell you where to put it. Therefore, everything came out of sync and it was hilarious!  Instead of becoming a drama it became a comedy and everyone loved it!”

Another problem was when the records were cracked. The records came from the city on the train, and they would be packed like glass. If you bumped them, they would crack and then you would be in trouble.

The viewing of the Melbourne Cup was a big deal in those days, and everyone wanted to see it run that night. It would come up by plane. They would process the film, send it up to Sydney, send the cinema a copy and it might go to Nowra and Fred would drive down to get it. He would drive anywhere to give the people of Campbelltown the Melbourne Cup that night. Sometimes they would have a reel to reel switch with Camden and when the reel came off Fred would drive back and forth to Camden. Of course, the community didn’t know anything about that and what went on behind the scenes.

An undated photo of a Saturday afternoon matinee

 

Macquarie Cinema had no air conditioning and therefore was freezing in winter and stifling hot in summer. According to Fred: “We thought we had to do something, and we put some fans in. We put them right around the walls. There were about 8 of them but that didn’t seem to make much of a difference with the circulation. So, the audience decided to have some fun with them. They would throw lollies into them and when they hit them, they used to go off like a cracker. We used to try to stop them, but it was terribly hard. We used to call them hair raisers of the dark because they would do it in the dark. We always used to warn them and if we caught them playing up, we wouldn’t let them in anymore. We would walk up and down the aisles and if we caught them, we told them to go out and stay out. That was the worst punishment you could give them. When they would come up to buy their ticket, we would tell them that they were barred for three months. They would ask how they could come back again. We would tell them that when they came and apologised to Mr Nickless and say you are sorry, he will give you a sentence. That was the only way we could control them. If they didn’t cut it out, they could stay out because we weren’t interested. We could do that. If they didn’t stop it there would be nobody there at all, people wouldn’t come. People would complain why couldn’t we stop it. That was the only remedy we had. One time we had 20 on the blacklist, they could not get in. They used to try to sneak in and we would chase them up the hill.”

 

One point that the Eves’ made was the problem with soldiers during the Second World War. It was so bad that you had to pull the shutters down so they couldn’t get in. They would muck up because they were free from the restrictions they were experiencing in the camp. During the war years there was a soldier who was about 6 foot 6 inches, and he was up in the middle of the circle, and he was screaming out at the top of his voice. He was disrupting the whole house. The usherettes came down and said they couldn’t get him out. He was screaming all the time. Nobody could listen to the picture because of him. Fred went up and he said what do you want. He didn’t answer him. He couldn’t think how he was going to get him out. Fred went past him and said if you don’t shut up, I will take you outside and belt you. He said you will? and Fred said yes come down the stairs. With that he ran down the stairs and he chased him. He couldn’t find Fred as he had gone back into the theatre. That was the only way Fred could get him out. He wasn’t a local- he came from the camp. The next day Fred was in the office, and somebody said there is a chap that wanted to see him. He was the same soldier from the camp. He was asked to come in and he said if he could have seen Fred the other night, he would have knocked his head off. Fred said I know but how else was I going to get you out. The soldier said he was a brave man.

Religion also could be an issue. Often churches would ask not to show a particular picture. One such picture was called Wild Rice which Fred regarded as very mild. It was not uncommon to have to cut the offending part of the movie out.

Written by Andrew Allen

Source:

Fred and Ida Eves Oral History Interview, August 1979

Work Safety in the 1960s

This photograph demonstrates how far we have come with Work, Health and Safety! This worker is perched high up on the steel frame of the new council administration building. He has no safety equipment whatsoever! The photograph would be taken in either late 1963 or early 1964. The administration building was the first high rise building built in the Campbelltown CBD and became a notable landmark in many photographs taken in the years to follow. Every other building in this scene has been demolished. The Macquarie Cinema is the large building in the centre of the photo. It was turned into a roller skating a few years after this was taken and continued until 1968. The building went into decay after this. The Queen Street frontage was turned into shops, whilst the auditorium became warehouse space for Downes Department Store. The building was demolished in December 1979.

Written by Andrew Allen

A City in Need of a Cinema

As a kid growing up in Campbelltown in the seventies I particularly recall Mawson Park with its tube-steel merry-go-round, a toy shop crammed into the back of Allen’s newsagency and the indoor roller-skating rink. But what we all really craved was our own cinema.To see the latest Bond adventure or sci-fi blockbuster meant a trip to Sydney and that meant begging parents to take us.

With fifty families moving into the area a week, Campbelltown Council saw the need too, and after unsuccessfully trying to interest private backers decided to build it themselves. Using money from council’s trading operations to avoid using funds from rate payers the council engaged the services of Centennial constructions and Harmar Theatres to build the twin cinema complex at Dumaresq street.

Dumaresq Street Twin Cinema in 1993

 

It was opened in October 1981 by Ald. Guy Thomas with Bill Collins in attendance at a screening of "Gallipoli" – on both screens.
From 1981 on we could go and see, without any parent pestering, Poltergeist, Jaws 2 and Raiders of the Lost Ark as many times as we liked as long as the pocket money held out. Movies became a fortnightly treat rather than semi-annual. The eighties, for us was the golden age of cinema.

Of course what I hadn’t known then was that there had previously been two cinemas in Campbelltown. Sidney Bragg operated one in the old Town Hall, initially with a hand-cranked silent projector.  After becoming fully electric in 1920 it operated for a further six years, under various management, before closing in February 1926. The building of a new cinema, the Macquarie, was well underway at this time on the corner of Queen and Browne Street and I wonder if this had any bearing on the last movie chosen to play at the Town Hall - “The Uninvited Guest.”

The Macquarie Cinema screened it's first double feature in August of that year with a Western and a movie appropriately called "When the doors open"

From the cover of the the Macquarie Cinema Silver
Anniversary programme, May 1956

The Macquarie Cinema was built by local Doctor William Mawson largely from the sandstone bricks of the demolished Kendall’s Mill. Mindful of the Town Hall cinema's limitations, Mawson and the local architect A.W. Moule purpose-built this cinema with auditorium and stage, seating over 450 which rose to 700 with later improvements. Sadly, the building would be freezing cold in winter and boiling hot in summer. Fans were installed in the 1930’s but did little to cool patrons who instead threw lollies at the spinning blades for entertainment.

On occasions, the sound of a Ford Prefect motor could be heard as a back-up generator during Post War electricity strikes.

At the height of its popularity the Macquarie Cinema showed a newsreel, travelogue, two feature films and sometimes a cartoon, totalling 3hours of entertainment all for of one and nine pence.
The decline of the cinema began with the introduction of TV and in 1966 the Mawson estate sold the cinema to “Skatelands” for approximately $20,000 and for a time it became a roller-skating rink run by local bicycle shop owner Jack Hepher.

The Macquarie Cinema on the corner of Queen and Browne St in April 1977

Sadly the building began to decay and after being used as storage for Downes department store it was demolished in 1979.

 

Written by
Michael Sullivan

References:
The Macquarie cinema by Juleanne Horsman
The Macquarie Cinema Silver Anniversary programme, May 1956
Only a bird in a guilded cage by John Daley Local History Librarian, Campbelltown City library. Sep 1982
Campbelltown-Ingleburn News p29, 20 October 1981
Campbelltown Cinema 1917-1927 by Norm Campbell
Campbelltown City Library Oral Histories online

Armed Apes

I was reading about the new movie 'Dawn of the Planet of the Apes' and how a scene of an ape firing a gun has shocked fans. The controversial scene depicts an ape who pretends to befriend two armed humans before stealing one of their guns and shooting them both. This scene reminded me of a similar incident in Campbelltown's history which caused similar horror from a movie audience involving an ape.

During the 1930s the owner of the old Macquarie Cinema often staged bizarre Vaudeville acts as an added attraction. One such act involved a live ape shooting at a piece of fruit suspended on stage. The act went haywire when the ape bit the owner and began pointing the rifle at the audience. After eventually taking a rather wild shot at its target, the bullet was eventually fired harmlessly into a nearby wall. This left a bullet hole which remained until the building's demolition in 1979! I'm assured this is a true story and in fact old timers still recall the remarkable event.

The Macquarie Cinema was on the corner of Queen and Browne Streets in Campbelltown.

An undated photograph of an audience at the Macquarie Cinema watching a Saturday matinee

Written by Andrew Allen

Sources:

Daley, John 1982
"Only a Bird in a Gilded Cage: The Macquarie Cinema, Campbelltown, 1920s-1979
In Grist Mills, Vol. 1 No. 1

McGill, Jeff 1993
Campbelltown Clippings
Campbelltown: Campbelltown City Council

We Need Your Help!

Campbelltown Library recently had some photographs donated to us. One of these photographs (above) is of a Fisher's Ghost Festival street parade in the early 1960s. The image shows a large group of girls in front of a banner that reads "The Flying Garlands" (click on the image for a larger view). Behind this banner are others that read Please Help! Note the young girl at the front about to perform a hand stand.

The photograph is taken in Queen Street near the corner of Browne Street. In the background is the old Macquarie Cinema demolished in 1979 and a house now also demolished.

Does anyone know who the flying garlands were? Please let us know.

Written by Andrew Allen

Update

One of our library staff located a State Library photograph of a group of girls performing acrobatics in the same parade on the same day. The photo has a caption of "Parade and fete in Campbelltown to aid the Beverley Park Orthopaedic Hospital for handicapped children". It is dated the 5th of September, 1957.