​FILMS

cinemas of the past

If you live in Sydney, you will have noticed that many stand-alone cinemas have disappeared to be replaced by multiplexes. When I first started going to the movies in the early 1980s, the only multiplexes to be found were in the city. Now they are just about everywhere. It's just so convenient these days to see a movie in the suburbs. With fewer cinemas back then, it wasn't a shock that some movies were still screening after one year of inital release. Movies like Crocodile Dundee and Raiders of the Lost Ark come to mind.

 

I still remember going to the Barclay Cinema which was close to Chinatown. I remember seeing Raiders of the Lost Ark there. The sound was so loud that a patron complained. There was the Forum which was near Railway Square. In Pitt Street, there was the Pitt Centre which had three cinemas. There was also the Lyceum Theatre which was just down the road. It just seems like yesterday when I saw Back to the Future there. The State Theatre on Market Street was used exclusively for movie screenings. Now it's used for concerts and special events like the Sydney Film Festival. I watched Beverly Hills Cop there in 1984 when there was a teachers' strike. Next door was State 2 which was more like a theatrette. I remember when there were some Alfred Hitchcock re-releases which I managed to catch there in the mid 1980s.

 

On George Street there was the Hoyts Entertainment Centre which had seven screens. That was considered huge back then! There was an usher at every door to check your ticket. Gone are those days. I still remember the layout, cinemas 1 and 2 on the ground floor with the other cinemas upstairs. Next door to the Hoyts Entertainment Centre were two theatres in the Rapallo and Paramount. Eventually these made way for the Greater Union George Street Centre which initially had three screens. I think I saw my first movie there in 1986. There was also the Village cinemas next door. All of those cinemas amalgmated to eventually form the Event Cinemas which exists today.

 

Even though there are cinemas close to home, I still go to the George Street cinemas as free tickets are occasionally given away to advanced screenings there. I was actually there on Thursday, yesterday and today for some movies screening at the Sydney Film Festival. Who knows that will be there in another 30 years?

(Written on Sunday 7th June, 2015)

 

                                                                         George Street cinemas circa 1992