CAARP
Cinema and Audience Research Project

Travelling shows from 1898 - 1927

In 1927 local motor garage proprietors William and Walter Godfrey came to an arrangement with the School of Arts committee whereby the brothers would supply the township with affordable electricity in exchange for sole rights to operate a cinema in the hall.

In 1942 the lease alongside the right to supply electricity to the township was sold to the Murrell brothers who operated the business for a further decade at which time the School of Arts committee took over the management of the cinema.

The cinema continued to flourish under the management of the committee and in 1953 the hall was extended and the seating capacity increased to 350. Cinema-going remained a popular activity throughout the 1950s however from the early 1960s audience numbers began to decline. The committee struggled to keep the cinema going however by 1967 lack of profitability forced closure.

CinemaScope was introduced in 1959.

References:

Hanson, '"Electrical wonders of the present age": cinema-going on the Far South Coast of NSW and rural discourses of modernity', Screening the Past, 24, 2009, pp. 1-9.

Parkinson, R 2010, Picture Shows on the Far South Coast of New South Wales, Robert Parkinson, Sydney.