Theatrical traditions: stage and screen in Bendigo

18
The Rose
Stereograph Co.
Armadale, Victoria
1880 - current
Eaglehawk Town Hall,
the Rose series p3143
1918
postcard
Collection Dennis
O’Hoy
Retired projectionist Michael Purden
began his career at The Plaza at the age
of 15. Eager to get a job in the theatre,
he remembers pestering the managers
of the Plaza, Lyric and Princess to
initially get a job as a lolly boy carrying
a tray of lollies and ice-creams around
the auditorium during interval. The
manager of The Plaza gave him a shot
and from his lolly boy beginnings, in
1959, he became a trainee projectionist.
Moving from The Plaza to the Golden
Drive-In in 1962, he completed his
training, sitting for his full operator’s
license when he turned 21. Michael
remained working as a projectionist
until he retired in 2009. 38 He was one
of six long serving projectionists at The
Plaza including Bob Johnson, Perc
Woodyard, Max Morse, John Leggo
and Ken Hill.
As initially hoped, The Plaza was a
popular theatre and many who grew
up in Bendigo have fond memories
of ’going to the pictures’ there. Jack
Campbell affectionately known as
‘Plaza Jack’ features in many of these
memories. Campbell worked at The
Plaza for more than 25 years, bill
posting, working in the projection
room and acting as a bouncer keeping
rowdy kids in line. Theatre and film
were his life.
EAGLEHAWK PICTURES
Moving pictures were being shown in
Eaglehawk from the time they arrived
in Bendigo. As mentioned earlier, in
the early 1900s, West’s Pictures and
later Lyric Photo Plays Ltd as well as
Tait’s Pictures screened films in various
locations in Eaglehawk, namely the
Town Hall. Films were regularly
screened here until the 1950s.
When he was a boy, Eaglehawk
resident Graeme Kirkwood went to the
pictures at the Eaglehawk Town Hall
every Saturday night. He remembers
getting up to all sorts of mischief with
his friends in the theatre like playing
hide and seek and flicking balls of paper
at the screen with a slingshot; an antic
that once saw him banned from the
theatre for 12 months.
He remembers before the feature
started there was always a cartoon and
after the first feature an interval, and
then a second film was played. At this
time, the Eaglehawk pictures were run
in conjunction with the Lyric who
supplied the films. The first film shown
on the program in Bendigo was the
second shown in Eaglehawk and vice
versa. The reels were exchanged during
interval travelling out to Eaglehawk
and back into Bendigo by tram or
motorbike. Graeme remembers many
nights when the tram was running