CAARP
Cinema and Audience Research Project

"Central Gardens, on the south-west corner of the intersection of Hannan and Wilson Sts, opposite the Town Hall, opened 26 October 1911, with Radio Pictures' screening of The Bush King or Captain Midnight, under the direction of Cozens Spencer. Radio Pictures then moved to the Cremorne Theatre in the winter of 1912 and back to the Central Gardens the following summer, and continued to be listed as occupier of the Central Gardens site in the Rate Books till 1914. After that, the site does not appear to have been in use for films for the next twenty years.

Bot Clemenger screened at the Town Hall in the twenties and thirties, and in 1926 bought the site opposite the Town Hall, for an associated gardens, but this first structure burned down.

After he formed Goldfields Pictures in 1933, the new company built the Regent Theatre on the gardens site, facing Wilson St, though its postal address was still Hannan St. The facade was divided into three sections: that on the left was a showcase for advertising present and forthcoming attractions, that in the middle provided entrance to the foyer (and thence to the theatre), and that on the right was both a ticket box and the entrance to the new gardens built next door (in Wilson St). The biobox was situated above the right hand corner of the theatre facade, so that projectors could be used from there either to the theatre screen (in the middle of the far wall), or to the gardens screen (on an angle across the far corner of the gardens). The venue was equipped with Raycophone sound gear from the start, replaced by Westrex after World War 2.

The whole site was sold in 1974, the buildings demolished and a Woolworths supermarket built there." (Bertrand 2001)

References
Cinemaweb: [http://www.ammpt.asn.au/CinemaWEB/SITE/view.php?rec_id=0000000310

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