Note Below, for Another Title on the Subject.)

Document title: “Distributing Popular [Movie Film] Culture by Rail: The case of the decade of the 1950s in New South Wales.” (See also note below, for another title on the subject.) Author/s: Ross Thorne. Summary / abstract: Film-hire documents from 1950 to 1968, discovered at the Strand Theatre, Canowindra, NSW, some 4,500 despatch notices, advance booking lists, telegrams, etc., were processed to form a database for those of the decade of the 1950s. From this database it became obvious that virtually all films were delivered to, and sent from the Canowindra cinema by rail. It was not that all the films came from and were sent back to the distributors in Sydney, around half of them arrived from another town in New South Wales, and were sent off to another town in the state. Calculations are included in the paper that provide an idea of how many film deliveries were made each year across New South Wales by the railway network before many of its main and branch lines were closed. Key words: Cinema history; Railway history; Film distribution. Illustrations: Examples of film-hire and associated documents found in the projection box of the former Strand Theatre, Canowin- dra, NSW, thirty years after closure of the cinema. Photographs of the theatre in c.1960 and 2000. Unpublished paper: Presented at the National Railway Conference, Tamworth, NSW, 28th - 30th September 2005. Complete / extract: Complete. Copyright owner: Ross Thorne 2005. Copyright is expunged upon death of the owner except for simple acknowledgement. Note: A more developed article on the topic is: Thorne, R. (2007), ‘Rethinking distribution: developing the parameters for a micro-analysis of the movement of motion pictures’, Studies in Australasian Cinema’ 1:3, pp.315-331. INTRODUCTION This paper is principally concerned with the movements of films across NSW by rail in the 1950s. It is for that decade because the data upon which it is based comes out of a discovery of film hire documents for the screening of movies from January 1950 until the closure of the cinema at Canowindra in the Central West of NSW. We’ll return to the documents and what they tell us, but a brief mention should be made of the use of the railways to transport other popular culture and entertainment that overlapped the The Strand Theatre, Canowin- introduction and development of the motion picture exhibition dra, a few years before closing industry. as a cinema. I remind the reader that country roads and road vehicles up until the 1930s were fairly primitive. If one goes back to the late 1920s, motor trucks were still being advertised in newspapers with solid, hard rubber tyres. Broken axles, burnt-out clutches, and broken leaf springs were always a problem. For country travel, by passengers and goods, rail was smoother and more reliable than road. Before a comprehensive network of railways was built, theatrical shows and circuses travelled by horse-drawn wagons1 using four or six horses per wagon. Many circus and other entertainment companies travelled well beyond the developing railways, so horse-drawn vehicles, later, primitive motor vehicles, prevailed. Larger theatrical companies, who travelled with up to 400 tonnes of scenery, used the railway. Or, they might hop between coastal steamer and rail from Sydney to Cairns. E. I. Cole developed a system to suit both transport worlds. He designed a number of cars, similar to carriages without wheels, for his Bohemian Dramatic Company. They were carried on flat-bed rail trucks and offloaded onto horse-drawn flat top wagons for travelling beyond the railway 2. In research into theatre and cinema at Junee NSW – a railway junction on the North-South mainline from which were branch lines to the Riverina towns of Hay, Jerilderie, Leeton and Griffith – it was found that in the early years of the twentieth century there were frequent visits by touring theatrical and variety companies, some showing the new medium of motion Mark St Leon, Spangles and Sawdust: The Circus in Australia, Richmond, Vic: Greenhouse Publications, 983, pp 33, 92, 30. 2 Barbara Garlick, “Touring”. In P. Parsons (ed.) Companion to Theatre in Australia, Sydney: Currency Press, 995, pp. 609-62. pictures3. How they travelled is not mentioned in the available local newspaper items until 1929: Fullers’ Theatres were touring the full production of the musical comedy Rio Rita. As in its (for then) long run at the St James Theatre, Sydney, it was the original cast production starring Gladys Moncrief. TheCoolamon- Ganmain Farmers’ Review noted that the special train was coming from Narrandera, would pass through Coolamon at about mid- day on Tuesday 4th December on its way to Junee 4, where, in the evening at the Athenium Theatre, there would be a performance. On the next morning, Wednesday, the train travelled to Young to unload for a performance at the Strand Theatre that night5. According to Moncrief ’s memoir Rio Rita toured for two years across Australia. Discovering the Rio Rita special train schedule in State Records has been elusive, but the train for another of Fullers’ Theatres tours was found. It was in a special train notification for 5th July 1929. The notification seemed innocuous enough. It announced a Special Relief Express from Parkes to Broken Hill. Why a relief express from Parkes to Broken Hill, rather than from Sydney? It only had four carriages and a van. In the description at the bottom of the notice was the note, after the description of the carriages, that it will “convey Theatrical party from Parkes to Broken Hill”. It was due in Broken Hill at 9.00am Saturday (NSW time), 13th July. If a newly advertised show was to be performed in the city it would possibly be by the travelling theatrical party. The only new show advertised was Sir Benjamin and John Fullers’ London Musical Comedy Company that commenced a short season of seven nights at the Crystal Theatre on the Saturday of arrival. It was advertised as comprising 4 performers9. Two of the four carriages were sleeping cars that each possessed 10 two-berth cabins. A third was another sleeping car while the fourth was a composite first and second class with seats only. These would accommodate the 4 performers plus any mechanists while the 3 Ross Thorne, “A Study of the Type of Historical Research Needed to Establish Heritage Signicance: The Case of Early Theatre and Cinema in Junee, NSW”, People and Physical Environment Research, No 58-60, 2006, pp.5-23, citing the Junee Southern Cross and Coolamon Advertiser, 17th February and 19th September, 900, p.3.. Coolamon-Ganmain Farmers’ Review, Friday 29th November 929, p.2. 5 The Daily Witness, Young, Wednesday 27th November 929. 6 Gladys Moncrieff, My Life of Song, Adelaide: Rigby, 97, p.6. 7 Special Train Notice No 37, dated 5th July 1929, State Rail Archives, State Records Office, Kingswood, NSW. 8 Barrier Daily Truth (Advertisement), Saturday, 3th July 929. 9 Ibid., Friday 2th July 929. van would house costumes, rolled backdrops, properties, etc.10 This was 1929. Picture theatres were in the process of converting from silent pictures to sound. The Great Depression was about to start. Both events caused live theatre to decline considerably. From estimates of cinema attendance there was a Depression hiccup early, but from a brief low point the attendance rates steadily increased until a high in the 1940s and early 1950s for capital cities and throughout the fifties in country areas where television was not introduced until 19311. From these figures it appears that, on average every man, woman and child in NSW attended a picture theatre 1 to 20 times per year12. The number of films in a program and how the films were moved about the state from either cinema to cinema, or from the distributor to the cinema, came to light in 1999 at the former Strand Theatre, Canowindra. During a visit to Canowindra there was an inspection of the former cinema that closed around the end of 199. Since the early 190s it has been a carpet warehouse. In the projection box and rewind room little had been removed. The projectors were there, and on shelves were dust-laden manila folders in which were film-hire documents – advance (booking) lists, despatch notifications, telegrams, pro-forma letters and personal letters that advised the theatre manager of a loss of film, or change of despatch of a film. A large cardboard box also contained a pile of similar documents. There were also price lists for maintenance items, theatre tickets and spare parts for projectors etc., and inspection certificates from insurance and safety organizations. A cursory glance at these documents indicated that they might provide a picture of the operation of a cinema that would be replicated throughout city suburbs and country towns. There was no reason to think that Canowindra would be different to any The former auditorium of the other town in its film hire procedures. The documents seemed Strand Theatre, Canowindra, for to be mostly for the 1950s but, as I would later discover they many years a carpet and furni- were also for the 190s, as the theatre limped to a close following ture warehouse. the introduction of television in country areas. A question was 0 On the Special Train Notice No 37 the van was type VHO, two sleeping cars TAM, one sleeper being VAM with composite car being an MCX. The TAMs were 12 wheel 10 two berth first class cabins according to D Burke, Great Steam Trains of Australia, North Ryde, NSW: Methuen, 978, p.6. Television commenced in the major capitals cities of Australia in 1956.

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