Pic: The Ritz
80 Years of the Ritz Cinema, Randwick
Profile by Rob Clarkson
A winter’s evening, 1937. Australia drags itself from the Great Depression. Europe inches towards another war. The Coogee tram staggers along congested Belmore Road, Randwick. Once past the shops, it gains speed along Perouse Road and comes to The Spot; a small intersection of shops tucked away from the main streets. The tram turns left into St Pauls Street and is lit from the lights of a new cinema, The Ritz.
The trams are gone but this commute from the city to the beach remains. Passengers on the m50 or 373 busses will always gaze to their left when heading past the moviehouse to see what’s showing and to envy those moving inside for a screening.
The Ritz’s opening night is advertised in the Sydney Morning Herald, 20 July 1937
A Sydney Morning Herald advertisement from 7 December 1937. Note the ad above it from the Rockdale Acme. ‘The first NSW demonstration of television’. The prisoner displays the executioner.
Cinemas in the 1920s and ‘30s sprung up in the suburbs of Sydney like toadstools from dung. They were easier to find then than a Coles is now. The Ritz wasn’t even the only cinema in Randwick. From an age of smartphones, it’s almost impossible to imagine how profound seeing a movie must have been then. Talkies (film with sound) swept the world in the early ‘30s and, you could argue with a reasonably straight face, had a global cultural impact in the league of the invention of the printing press. So the flicks gave patrons not only the chance to see the outside world but to hear it. The musical fashions of London or Los Angeles arriving in the burbs of Australia would have been dazzling for local patrons.
The Ritz in its earliest of days. ‘Woman Chases Man’ was released in 1937. From this perspective there are now two screens added to the left of the building and three to the right. The balcony has been converted to outdoor seating for the bar. (Photograph: the Ritz Facebook)
Television came in the 1950s and suddenly, while munching your chips and chops, the rest of the world was with you at your home. After-hours entertainment options broadened and suburban cinemas perished at a great rate. There were few survivors by the 1980s.
The interior of the original cinema has remained remarkably unchanged (Photo: The Ritz)
In the late 70s, Dianne Darwon, took over the lease of the Ritz. (The place, oddly, had been owned since the early ‘60s by the Brigidine nuns of the convent next door). It’s said her management was revolutionary, not only for the Ritz but for independent theatres across Australia. She introduced all-night screenings and discounted ticket packages. The phrase ‘Tight-arse Tuesday’ may not have been hers but it seems the concept was.
From the University of NSW student publication ‘Tharunka’. The photo, bottom right, is of the Ritz entrance.
The Ritz remains one of the cheapest places to see a movie anywhere in the country. It’s still independently owned. The person who programs the screenings actually works in the building. Lachlan MacLeod, General Manger, can hear what his customers like and don’t like. And while, at face value, the day-in-day-out offerings are very mainstream the special events at the cinema are immensely diverse. There may be anything from a fundraiser documentary for the Asylum Seekers Centre to a dress-up, late-night ‘Anchorman’ screening. And, this year, The Ritz will be one of the venues for the Sydney Film Festival, which is great news for the Ritz but, also, very good for the festival itself which often has screenings in less-than-inspiring venues.
Inside the projection room. Here is the 70mm projector. Behind it is the new digital projector.
The Ritz 80th birthday celebrations will run all year. The first slice of this birthday cake will be the Classic Hollywood Series screenings, shown every few weeks on Wednesday mornings and Sunday afternoons. There are plenty to choose from but the pick of them, I think, are ‘The Graduate’ and ‘Some Like it Hot’. Tickets are (get this) only $10 ($8 if you’re a Ritz member).
The unused 35mm projector
The plaques near the entrance to the building. The 1997 refurb added three screens. The additional two came a few years later. A.M. Bolot was an architect based in the city. The builders, however, were local: C and BJ Williams of Coogee. As a result, partly, of moves to demolish the cinema in the mid-1980s and redevelop the site, the building has been under a Permanent Conservation Order since 1993.
The eastern suburbs of Sydney, with its stunning coastline and gorgeous beaches, are, sadly, a culturally fetid swamp. Tell people around here that you like indie bands and they’ll probably assume you mean a rubber ring you swallow to suppress your appetite. To see a movie at somewhere other than the Ritz requires a trip to a shopping centre or, the Truman Show-like theme park of Fox Studios. Geez, you can even battle to get a beer in these parts for $10.
The plate on the 35 mm projector
The now-redundant light switches for the curtain and screen area.
And so, the Ritz is important, not for what it once was, but for what it is. Its independence is to be cherished, its survival vital for the cultural wellbeing of the area it services. Go and have a look at one of the 80th birthday celebration screenings. Or even that goddam Lego Batman thing. Whatever. But we can’t afford to take places like this for granted. May the lights of St Pauls Street never dim.
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GIVEAWAY!
We have 3 double passes to any of the films in the Classic series!
See more for details and program: http://www.ritzcinema.com.au/Promotion/Classic-Hollywood-Series
To win, email us through the contact form on this site with your preferred film and date and we will leave their tickets at the box office under your name! START YOUR EMAIL WITH “I LOVE THE RITZ”!
BUT you’ll only nab ’em if ya get in quick! Time’s a-wastin’!
