1929 - End of the Golden Era: Into
the Depression
From the opening programme, State Theatre, Sydney
By now, excitement was growing in Sydney, as there arose in Market Street,
on a prime piece of central city real estate, the loveliest and most
opulent theatre ever built in the Southern Hemisphere. While the State
Theatre, Sydney, was not Australia's largest cinema (it seated 2775, as
against 3371 at the State Theatre, Melbourne) [both these theatres were
claimed at their respective openings to seat 4000!], it was certainly
the most lavish.
The State Theatre, Sydney, was the epitome in Australia of the "hard top"
school of cinema architecture, and was (and still is) sumptuous to a
degree parallelled and exceeded only in America. When it was originally
planned, in February, 1927, construction cost were budgeted at £400,000,
[Sydney Morning Herald, 16 February, 1927] at a time when the basic wage
was £4/10/0 a week, a peak it did not regain for another thirteen years
[Alan Sharpe, Nostalgia Australia, Sydney, 1975, p.93]. However, it
seems that the final cost of the whole building, far exceeded that
amount:
"The bill for the erection of the State Theatre (which also incorporated
an office and shopping complex) came to a million pounds. In comparison,
the £500,000 which Union Theatres spent on the Melbourne State seems
almost modest. The major Regent theatres each cost approximately
£300,000 - quite an advance on the £14,000 outlay required to construct
Hoyt's first theatre." [Diane Collins, Hollywood Down Under, North Ryde,
NSW, 1987 p. 116]
 
Its (mostly) Louis XIV-style interior represents a quality and dignity far
surpassing the "atmospheric" interiors of the Capitol Theatre, Sydney,
Ambassador's Theatre, Perth, and State Theatre, Melbourne. Its art-deco
functional exterior contrasts not unfavourably with the State Theatre,
Melbourne's ostentatious oriental fantasy.
The State Theatre, Sydney, was equipped with an equally luxurious
Wurlitzer organ, a twin to those at the Regent and State Theatres in
Melbourne. Like them, it had twenty-one ranks of pipes. It was shipped
with a second console and a grand piano; however, there was no room to
install the second console, and space was so restricted that the piano
was soon removed. Its "French" style console, painted white and gold
from opening day, reflects exquisitely the graceful curves of the gilded
gateways recessed into the proscenium walls. In few theatres in the
world was such a happy match achieved. Opening night, 7 June, 1929,
found Price Dunlavy at the console as it spiralled gracefully out of its
pit.
Organ, dance band and two pianos at the State
 
Hoyt's completed their series of major "Regents" in the mainland State
capitals on 8 November, 1929, when the Regent Theatre, Brisbane,
opened.
In many ways, its architecture and colour scheme were the most attractive
and elegant of all the Regents. It housed a three-manual, fifteen-rank
Wurlitzer organ, which was opened by Stanley Wallace. The instrument was
unusual in two respects. First, it had the only three-manual "French"
style console on an Australian Wurlitzer. Second, it was the only organ
console in Australia prior to the 1960s to be installed on an electric
lift; all other lifts at that time were hydraulically operated. It was
also the last new Wurlitzer pipe organ to be sent to Australia.
Regent, Brisbane
By now, the storm clouds were gathering for the cinema exhibition
industry. Just over a week earlier, on 29 October, 1929, the New York
stock market crashed, bringing instant ruin to millions, as stock values
plummeted along with brokers who jumped from nearby buildings. Perhaps
the worst catastrophe to strike the developed world had occurred. The
Roaring twenties ended, and in came the Turbulent Thirties, and with
then the Great Depression. Along with the rest of the Western World,
Australia suffered as badly as, if not worse than, other countries.
Before all this broke, the cinema industry in Sydney noted a minor
sensation in late September, 1929, when Hal Carleton (General Manager),
Eddie Horton (Organist) and T W O'Shea (Projectionist), all employed at
the Prince Edward Theatre, Sydney, resigned from that theatre on three
months' notice to take control of a new theatre to be opened in
Parramatta "early in December" [ Everyone's, 25 September, 1929, p.7].
The Roxy Theatre, Parramatta, was not to open until 6 February, 1930, part
of the delay being caused by the late arrival of the Christie organ from
England [Letter from John Hurst & Co., Chartered Accountants, Sydney, to
Eustace Ingram, Hill Norman & Beard, Ltd., London, 11 December, 1929].
This was a three-manual, ten-rank, instrument, which many consider to
have been Christie's best Australian installation. The excellent
Spanish-style architectural treatment, complete with a pleasant
courtyard forming the approach to the theatre (similar to that at
Grauman's Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood), which is well set back from
the road, caused it to be regarded as "probably one of the most, if not
the most opulent or richly-designed suburban picture palace in
Australia". [Ross Thorne, Cinemas of Australia via the USA, Sydney,
1981, p. 323]
A couple of months later, another Spanish-style theatre opened in Sydney.
This was the Plaza Theatre, Sydney. The Plaza opened on 11 April, 1930,
and in it was installed a Christie organ, not a new one, but the organ
from the De Luxe Theatre, Melbourne, which it is believed was originally
installed in the Regent Theatre, North Perth. Eddie Fitch was at the
console. The theatre was perhaps the last (apart from the rebuild of the
Regent Theatre, Melbourne) of the lavish 1920s-style picture palaces to
be built in Australia, and its elaborate interior made a fitting end to
an era we are unlikely to see repeated.
 
Plaza, Sydney (1999)
Why were such lavish and costly picture palaces built? Was it merely the
result of the exhibitors' wish to please patrons, as the publicity
material would have us believe?
Some revelation came in Stuart Doyle's evidence to the NSW Government film
industry inquiry in 1934, that Union Theatres' construction programme
was "created at the request and virtually under threats from certain
American film distributors, for the purpose of finding an outlet for
their pictures, which, in their opinion, would earn greater revenue ...
in larger modern theatres." [Diane Collins, Hollywood Down Under, North
Ryde, NSW, 1987 p. 116]
There were also other more political reasons:
"The erection of handsome picture palaces - the pride of any town - served
as a concrete rebuff to the idea that reformist groups propagated of an
insidious, grasping and morally decadent picture industry... While
parliamentarians debated the need for a government inquiry into the
industry, a representative of Hoyt's thought it at least politic to
state that their recent efforts in the cinema building field were partly
'directed towards making the Commonwealth Government realise that they
were trying to do something in Australia for the benefit of all
Australians'." [Diane Collins, Hollywood Down Under, North Ryde, NSW,
1987 pp. 117-8]
When all was said and done:
"In the 1920s, new and powerful rivals to the cinema emerged in the form
of automobiles and radios, and other diversions became more accessible
with the spread of affluence. Thus the picture palace, with its
inimitable blend of novelty, luxury and exclusiveness, served as
powerful propaganda for the special character of film entertainment. Not
only were the picture palaces potent means of getting people out of
their homes and away from the wireless, but also their exotic
environments rivalled any landscape through which the motorist might
drive. In short, the luxury cinemas gave movie-going a sense of occasion
- one thing that a rival like radio obviously lacked - and the buildings
lent a new sense of visual excitement to the familiar images on the
screen." [Diane Collins, Hollywood Down Under, North Ryde, NSW, 1987 p.
120]
Christie's advertisement on 7 May, 1930, included a partial list of their
installations world-wide. This list included theatres in England,
Scotland, Wales, Czechoslovakia, Austria, Germany, New Zealand and
Australia. They ranged from their magnum opus of 37 ranks at the Regal
Theatre, Marble Arch, London, to the exotic Metropol Theatre,
Bratislava, redolent of middle-European intrigue, and the more plebeian
Lido Theatre, Islington (London). The Australian installations listed
are:
Lyceum, Sydney
Victory, Kogarah
De Luxe, Melbourne
Plaza, Sydney
Ritz, West Concord (NSW)
[Everyone's, 7 May, 1930, p. 43]
An omission is the King's Theatre, Gordon, NSW, where an eight-rank
Christie had been opened on 14 October, 1929. A further omission is the
Roxy Theatre, Parramatta (NSW). Interestingly, both the De Luxe Theatre,
Melbourne, and the Plaza Theatre, Sydney, are listed, although the same
instrument had been removed from the former and relocated in the latter.
The Lyceum Theatre, Sydney, organ had 9 ranks, and was unusual in
including two Diapason ranks. The large Diapason and the Clarinet were
unenclosed, the remaining seven ranks being housed in a single chamber.
The theatre was (and still is) used by the Methodist Church for services
on Sundays. During the week they lease it for use as a cinema. The
instrument is still in situ and used for Sunday services. It
miraculously survived a fire in the 1960s which destroyed most of the
auditorium, after which it was completely rebuilt with a new
("straight") stop-key console and considerably reduced unification. It
has been said that this organ has never been used for film shows, and
has been played only for church purposes (and concerts), but the writer
has been unable to confirm or deny this.
The Ritz Theatre, West Concord, housed a small 5-rank organ which was soon
removed and installed in enlarged (8-rank) form in the Melba Theatre,
Strathfield, NSW.
The economic impact of world events soon began to be felt in Australia,
and for a time few new theatres appeared.
In 1931, a Christie organ of seven ranks was built and set up as a
demonstration instrument in Hill, Norman & Beard's factory in Clifton
Hill, Melbourne. Most, if not all, of this instrument was constructed in
Melbourne, and it differed in many ways from Christie's earlier
Australian installations. The instrument was even broadcast from the
factory, and in 1932 it was installed in the Duke of York's Theatre,
Eastwood, NSW.
Despite Christie's 1928 statement that parts of their organs were then
being constructed in Melbourne, very little, if anything, actually was
at that time. This can be seen clearly from the shipping manifest for
the King's Theatre, Gordon, organ, which even includes such trivial
items as "6 balls twine, 3 pkts 3/8"x2" screws, 3 pkts washers, 6 pkts
insulated staples, ground frames, passage boards..." [Hill, Norman &
Beard Ltd., shipping manifest, Case No. 33, dated 29 July, 1929]
However, the announcement on 3 April, 1930, by the then Prime Minister,
Jimmy Scullin, that a duty of 50%, in addition to duties already
imposed, was to be levied on a range of imported goods, including
musical instruments [Manning Clark, A History of Australia, Vol. VI,
Melbourne, 1987, p. 340], meant that no more theatre pipe organs were
imported, and all subsequent new instruments were constructed in
Australia (apart from the Hammond electronic organs installed from the
late 1930s in a few theatres). Christie (Hill, Norman & Beard) had a
well-established organ factory in Melbourne. No other manufacturer of
theatre organs had any construction facilities in Australia; thus
Christie's already significant price differential against Wurlitzer was
increased to the extent that it was the only economic source of new
instruments for a market which had all but dried up.
The general effects of the Depression hit the Australian cinema circuits
at the worst possible time, for they had only just completed the massive
construction programmes described above, and what they needed above all
was a few years of steady business, boosted by the arrival of talking
films, to recoup their vast investments. It was the city theatres, with
their high overheads, which were particularly hit, and in many cases
orchestras were cut or dispensed with altogether, to reduce costs.
"2000 picture-show musicians were unemployed by December, 1929; in
Melbourne, 64 theatres had abandoned their orchestras; in Sydney, the
figure was around 100; every cinema in Adelaide had dispensed with
orchestral entertainment. Within two or three years all of Perth's
picture-show orchestras would likewise be disbanded. In some cities
sincere but impotent attempts were made to alleviate the musicians'
plight which worsened daily with the coming of the Depression. In
January, 1930, in Sydney 40,000 people gathered in the rain at Bondi
Beach to listen to an orchestra of 100 unemployed musicians under the
bâton of Will Prior. Other benefit concerts were organised in the
Botanical gardens and Hyde Park, and people, plainly saddened, attended
these in growing numbers. Plans were also drawn up to produce a record
featuring the finest of these now destitute musicians, and here and
there forlorn attempts were made to fight the demise of live music. In
1930, the Musicians' Union black banned work on the Australian talkie
"The Cheaters", because of the union's opposition to "canned" music. For
a while some exhibitors clung tenaciously to full orchestras. In vain,
the manager of the old West theatre, the Olympia, had leaflets
circulated in a desperate one-man battle with the talkie." [Diane
Collins, Hollywood Down Under, North Ryde, NSW, 1987 p. 96]
Organs, however, not only had popular appeal, but represented large
capital investment, and thus could not be economically phased out at
that stage. They also only required the employment of an organist and a
deputy, so the wages saved would only represent a few pounds a week.
The arrival of sound films, boon as it was to the city cinemas, had the
opposite effect on many smaller country theatres. These were in many
cases unable to afford the installation of sound equipment at a time
when audiences were decimated by unemployment of over 30 per cent, and
they were unable to continue for long as silent houses, since the supply
of new silent films soon dried up. The result was that they just closed,
and between 1930 and 1935 the number of cinemas in operation throughout
Australia fell from 1250 to 1090, despite the opening of several
suburban "supers" during that time [Robertson, Patrick, The Guinness
Book of Film Facts and Feats, Enfield, Middlesex, UK., 1980 p.205]. Even
the Capitol Theatre, Sydney, went "dark" for several months in 1932-33;
other cinemas, particularly in the cities, were converted to miniature
golf courses, to cater for a new craze.
Special thanks to
http://theatreorgans.com
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