Context

Middle Park

Middle Park is a Melbourne inner-city suburb situated between Port Philip Bay and Albert Park Lake, half way across the western side of the Albert Park Reserve, hence its name “Middle” Park. The area was initially part of the extensive Yarra River delta, which involved vast areas of wetlands and sparse vegetation, interspersed by lagoons. Following British settlement from 1835 onwards, much of the Yarra River delta was drained to dry the land and enable agriculture and grazing. However, neither the opening of the railway line in 1857, nor the establishment of the railway station three years later prompted any residential development in the area. It was only towards the end of the century that a proper settlement was gradually taking shape and as the number of new houses increased, so did the demand for community facilities.

(Middle Park Hotel 1889, the oldest building in Middle Park. Image source: St Kilda Historical Society)

Not surprisingly, the fist commercial developments in the area occurred near the railway station. The earliest record of such development was the prominent Middle Park Hotel built in 1889, right opposite the station, on the corner of Armstrong Street. Other business gradually emerged around this hotel and by 1910 there were around thirty places of business within the Armstrong Street Commercial Precinct, servicing the needs of a growing community. Although the commercial development was grouping around the hotel, the allotment right next to the hotel stayed vacant until the later part of 1907 when a brick building was erected, owned by Watts and Chandler real estate agents. The building incorporated two front shops on its ground level, a large room above them on the first floor and a medium size hall at the back of the building, which was to become the Middle Park Picture Theatre.

(The vacant allotment next to Middle Park Hotel on the MMBW Plan from 1895. Image source: State Library of Victoria)

(The building next to Middle Park Hotel in 2012. Image by the author.)

(The hall at the back. Image by the author.)

(Click the "Sat" link on the map to see a bird's eye view of the area.)

The Hall

The Hall in Armstrong Street had a small projection box which held two projectors illuminated by oxyhydrogen gas and hand cranked until electricity was connected in 1910. An archetypal portrayal of what could be seen and heard in this cinema in its early days is depicted in a scene from the Australian movie The Picture Show Man (1977). This beautifully constructed scene, featured in the video below, portrays a typical night at the pictures in a small Australian country town in the 1920s. The scene starts with a sing-and-dance vaudeville act, before the projectionist ignites a lime pallet producing light for the projection of the film. We then see the projections hand-cranking the projector and the flickering pictures appear on the screen as we listen to the cinema pianist trying to disguise the sound of the cranking. Indeed, if its true that “a picture is worth a thousand words”, then multiply that by twenty four for every second of the following clip.

(The Picture Show Man, 1977. Video source: AustralianScreen)

According to Denzil Hawson, the first screenings in The Hall begin in 1909 but it was not until 1920 that the hall was officially christened as the Middle Park Picture Theatre, owned and operated by the cinema entrepreneur from Deepdane, Mr Alfred King Smith. The business of running the cinema was a family affair, a modus operandi not entirely extinct even today (see Croydon Cinema). The owner Alfred Smith was the projectionist, his son Frederick the assistant projectionist, Alfred’s wife Clara was the usher and their two daughters the pianist Winifred and the violinist Constance played live music, contributing to the atmosphere and giving the audience vital emotional cues. The interior of this 300-seat cinema was very basic and its most lavish detail was the Wunderlich ceiling painted khaki. Indeed, having a ceiling at all was an aesthetic feature worth a mention, for it was not uncommon for the cinemas of the day to simply have a tin roof which in cold weather produced drippings of condensed moisture and on a rainy night annoyingly amplified the drumming sounds of rain hitting the roof. However, the Middle Park Picture Theatre with its ceiling was no match for the purpose-built picture palaces rapidly springing around the area.

(Wunderlich pressed metal ceiling, still a feature in the upstairs room. Image by the author.)

By 1920, the Middle Park’s neighbouring suburbs of South Melbourne and St Kilda alone had sevencinemas each, plus a few large cinemas operating in Albert Park and Port Melbourne. One such purpose built cinema to show off the new confidence in films, was the Kinema (1920-1983) in Albert Park. Literally only a few minutes stroll from The Hall in Armstrong Street, this cinema in particular would have started to take much of the audience upon its opening in 1920, effectively forcing Alfred Smith to sell the business three years later. For the next twenty years The Hall in Armstrong Street will never entirely manage to effectively compete with the other cinemas in its vicinity. Not even after later lessees Basil and Jack Flae of Kew renovated the interior increasing its seating capacity to 340 and spectacularly installed sound some time in the early 1930s. Indeed, the attempt had been futile under the looming Great Depression and Basil and Jack decided to let it go. But the cinema survived even the Great Depression despite the fact that after Basil and Jack, lessees came and went about every three years until its very end when the venue took on a new life as a Melbourne Repertoire Theatre in 1943.

(With a modern ceiling design, the Hall is now used as a gym. Image by the author.)