Paris Theatre

Hello,
Well done on your Cinema Treasures.
I was very please to see the information on the Paris Theatre as I have been trying to track down the Picture Palace Theatre for my research in my family tree and could never find it until now.

My Great Great Grandfather was the only Celebrated Irish Piper in Australia in 1863, with his brother they were Entertainers/Actors/ musicions and had played in the Picture Palace and of course elsewhere in Australia.

It has pleased me to no-ends to have read your web page, and now I can prove that there was a place called the Picture Palace and can add it to my research and place the picture of my ancestor with his bag pipes in a family story.
Would you know how I can find early stage plays show's that were played between 1863 to 1920 in Australia.

I know his brother's stage name and I have a piece of info on one of their performances when they came to Australia, as the add was placed in a newspaper in Melbourne in 1863.
As for anymore on there stage plays I just dont know where to look.
Can you please guide me in the right direction.
Thankyou for enjoyable web page to browse.
K.

From 1954-77 The Paris was a very well run first release operation by Hoyts with TODD-AO installation as part of its celebrated profile. It premiered AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 DAYS, CAN CAN, THE ALAMO, MAGNIFICENT MEN IN FLYING MACHINES and a long moveover of SOUND OF MUSIC. Having 70mm meant all types of roadshow releases appeared, even scary the 1973 musical LOST HORIZON. I last went there in 1975 and saw SHAMPOO, and the Legend Of hell House (!)
Hoyts closed all their best cinemas, city and suburbs in a binge during 1977 after they opened the George Street City concrete box multiplex. The shuttered cinemas like the Mayfair, Town, Century and in the subs at Chatswood and Bondi Jct were their longest serving and best designed and operated cinemas - all deco and all renovated even as late as 1973. Madness.
Now, of course all they are gone and the George St horror remains. The Paris was a long and rather narrow, but the celebrated Walter Burly Griffin design was such a feature and a success it assisted they eye to see the huge floating screen. Not even being a WB Griffin design could save it from the stupidity of 70s demolition. Today a big apartment block is there.

I remember seeing Davy Crockett with my Dad way back in the 50s at the Paris. later I can remember seeing Tom Jones ther ein the 60s when I was a teenager.

The Paris stopped being a movie house and became, briefly, a live theatre before it disappeared. I saw a Saturday matinee of a tw0-hander called Songs from Sideshwow Alley with Robyn Archer and Maggie Kirkpatirck. I think there were only 5 or 6 of us in the audience. The show was about nostalgia for the old days of Sidenshow Alley at the royal Easter Show and similar shows around the country. Now the Paris itself is part of the nostalgia.

Although I had been to numerous other Sydney theatres and drive-ins, the Paris holds a special place in my heart. Living way out in the suburbs, as a boy, when I got my very first job delivering papers for the local newsagent, I spent my first week's pay on a trip to the movies in the city. It was also my first time going out somewhere without adult supervision. I saw a few James Bond double-features at the Paris. I vividly remember trailers for the Japanese film "The Bullet Train" and a pirate movie starring Robert Shaw. This would have 1976, so not too long before it ceased showing movies.

My Dad was a huge movie buff and amateur filmmaker, so he took me to movies from the time I was knee-high to a grasshopper... my earliest memory at a huge theatre being a family film of some description late 1967. I'm so grateful to have lived at a time when cinema going was so much more of an event -- a huge night out.