Boxoffice-July.1997

Irish Extra:
With Albert Kelly, Irish
Exhibition Legend
President
of Ireland's
Independent Cineina Owners Society,
Albert Kelly is
came up in what he considers to have been more fiercely
a soft-spoken, hard-hitting business man who
competitive Irish times. "When I started there was a cinema on almost
every block," he says. "Now you can see the same movie in every
multiplex, while back then, with the same amount of screens and all
playing different films, I feel competition was stiffer" As one of the
foremost figures in Irish exhibition, his over five decades plying the
screen trade make him a sort of pocket history of growth and changes
within the industry.
In 1940, Albert, who had started life in the cinema business as a
projectionist, bought some 16mm soccer coaching films and offered
to show them to local football clubs. He would show them for a fee,
and some clubs who loved the
idea of seeing the top players of
the S[X)rt giving instruction put
the word out about him.
Due to the club by-laws, Albert
was not allowed to show the
films to members of the general
public or to advertise his product,
but word got out and he
soon had packed houses. Ironically
for a future exhibitor,
"This was not what I wanted,"
says Albert, "and on arriving at
the town I was amazed to see
posters stuck up [by the club
members] on every tree." So
successful was this operation
that Albert went to the Nation;il
Film Institute and hired out additional
films for golf societies
and other special occasions.
Inevitably, Kelly took to
;
cial ftinctions, which proved to
[be very popular. This gave him
an insight into how to book
product, which was to be useful
screening feature films for spe-
at a later stage in his Life. He went back and worked in several cinemas
before getting an opportunity to work for a company called Sundrive
Cinemas Ltd. The proud owners of three suburban cinemas, Sundrive
had 18 members on its board and a managing director who hated
managers (he thought them an unnecessary e.xjjense, being an exjTOJectionist
himself). One day he offered Albert the job of manager
in one of the cinemas and it took him four weeks to decide ifhe would
take it or not. "As far as I was concerned," Albert says wryly, "this
was the nearest position to the door."
Because Sundrive was closing one of its cinemas and Albert saw
this as a potential threat to continuing job stability, he took the
managing job. The Kenilworth was a cinema that held 1 , 1 1 5 patrons.
Under Albert Kelly's stewardship, Sundrive was able to keep the
house almost full most of the time.
One day Albert found Sundrive's managing director dead in the
chair in his office, hiunediately, his circumstances changed. "This
was not the ideal way to get a promotion, but while I knew there were
a lot of directors in the head office, not one of them knew how to
book a film."
The years Albert .spent hawking films around the clubs and
booking feanires and shorts sto