The attempted ‘modernisation’ of Melbourne in the 1950s destroyed much of the city, including its elegant cinemas an | dG1fMWw0bmVaYW1ubDA
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Short filmTranscript
00:00 (upbeat music)
00:02 - Melbourne was the fastest growing city in the world
00:08 in the early 1850s.
00:09 - It was a place jumping out of its skin.
00:12 You did things 10 times bigger
00:13 than they were done elsewhere.
00:15 - They borrowed big, they lived big, they built big.
00:18 (upbeat music)
00:21 I grew up in Essendon and I could walk to three cinemas.
00:25 - You've got suburbs that have five and six theaters
00:28 and some of these were masterpieces.
00:29 - There are cinemas that we think of as being spectacular,
00:33 like the Regent Theater in the Plaza.
00:35 - And you'd have an orchestra.
00:36 It would have been an incredible time to go to the movies.
00:39 (upbeat music)
00:41 (explosion)
00:45 - So in the lead up to the Olympic Games
00:50 when we were inviting the world in,
00:52 there was a lot of discomfort.
00:55 - Melbournians as a whole suffered from cultural cringe.
00:59 Melbourne wanted above all to be a modern city
01:01 and being modern meant having modern buildings.
01:05 (explosion)
01:09 - Television was the single biggest threat to theaters.
01:14 Some beautiful theaters were just completely demolished.
01:17 - There was not much of a preservation movement at all.
01:20 - It was just vandalism.
01:23 (explosion)
01:28 - They were huge and lavish enterprises.
01:30 Grand cafes with dining rooms especially for women.
01:34 Buildings with every gorgeous fixture
01:37 and bit of master craftsmanship you could ask for.
01:40 - But Melbourne is so very close to absolute annihilation.
01:47 It's so very nearly dull beyond belief.
01:51 (explosion)
01:53 - And these guys were just, they were acrobats.
01:55 They were like a live acrobat show.
01:58 - They didn't realize the love that Melbourne had
02:04 for the region.
02:05 - The region theater really was that line in the sand
02:08 and opposition to demolition of old buildings
02:11 just went like this.
02:12 - We've got our devastating losses
02:14 but wow, we've got buildings that we fought for,
02:17 we championed and they survived.
02:19 - There's enough there to make us feel
02:23 that we still inhabit a city
02:25 that is recognizably marvelous Melbourne.
02:28 (explosion)
02:30 [Music]
02:32 [BLANK_AUDIO]