Preston’s first picture venue, the Star Theatre on the south-eastern corner of High and Gower Streets opened on September 28, 1922, the evening of the Show Day holiday.
The audience was entertained by one of the cinema swashbuckling sensations of the day, “The Mark of Zorro” starring Douglas Fairbanks, Marguerite De Le Motte and Noah Beery.
The movie was based on the 1919 story “The Curse of Capistrano” by Johnston McCulley, which introduced the masked hero, Zorro – to date, it has been re-made three times, in 1940 starring Tyrone Power, as a tele-movie in 1974, and again in 1998 starring Antonio Banderas with Anthony Hopkins and Catherine Zeta-Jones, the latter also having a sequel, “The Legend of Zorro” filmed in 2005.
The masked hero also starred in a highly popular series in the early years of television in Australia.
In a scoop, the new Star managed to screen “Zorro” a week before the Westgarth Theatre in Northcote which had been operating for just on a decade.
Despite the local patrons christening the theatre on the holiday, the “official” opening wasn’t until the following evening when the Shire Council led by the Mayor, Cr. George and Mrs Robinson and various local dignitaries gave the enterprise their municipal blessing.
The Chairman of Directors was Mr. George Apsted.
The Apsted family had been builders around the Preston areas since the mid-1880s.
George was regarded for several years late in the nineteenth century as the crack shot of the Preston Rifle Club, winning many club competitions and trophies in inter-club and State tournaments.
The company secretary was given simply as Mr. Lascelles the company secretary, and Frank Ludlow (the father of several sons that contributed to the Preston and Northcote football and cricket clubs) was listed as a director.
Credit for the design and construction of the building was given to Mr. Alex McDonald, but later reports suggest that the true heroes behind the theatre’s construction were the brothers Messrs W.E. and W.H. Edmonds who had run regular movie sessions for some 18 months in a hall hired at the Shire Hall, the enterprise earning the pair enough capital to buy the theatre site and proceed with the formation of the company, wich had a paid-up capital of £12,000 including 25 preference “syndicate” shares of £100 each.
W. H. Edmonds remained manager of the Star for many years, still being in the position when the theatre was renovated early in 1935.
The Star is credited in part (along with its proximity to the Town Hall) as being one of the reasons that High Street became the main shopping strip in Preston during the boom times of the 1920s, replacing Plenty Road’s prominence in earlier years.
Despite the instant popularity of the theatre, the company struck problems some six months later when it applied to the Council for permission to run “entertainments” on a Sunday evening “after church hours”.
The Shire had been under pressure for some time to prevent the playing of sports on Council controlled property and a predictable delegation of church leaders and a hastily arranged “congregation” packed the Council chambers to ensure the application was rejected, Cr. Lewellyn Jones the only to vote in favour of the proposal.
Lascelles the following week wrote to the Leader, complaining that his company had been somewhat misrepresented.
The “entertainments” were not to be moving pictures (their respectability still a little open to question) and he emphasised that the whole proceeds “without any deduction whatsoever” was to be handed to the Shire for whatever charitable purpose it saw fit.
Like most other theatres, the movies (and later “talkies”) were not the only “entertainments”. Even the unofficial opening night featured “violin selections and a lady soloist” and similar performances kept the patrons happy while projectionists worked to change reels of fragile film, some of which had to be packed and driven to a nearby theatre for re-screening the same night.
A couple of years later, the Gowerville Theatre in Plenty Road just south of Bell Street opened to provide some competition for the the Star. (Probably the same company)
Just who hit on the idea first is not clear, but by 1927, patrons of the two theatres were invited to vote for their best (Star) and fairest (Gowerville) footballer from Preston’s match on the previous Saturday at the Monday evening screening.
Obviously this helped the theatres boost crowds on a traditionally “off” night and provided the players with an extra incentive.
The final results for the year saw Danny Warr win the Star Theatre award with 2447 votes from Jack Watt with 2384 and Arthur Ludlow (a son of one of the original Star directors, Frank Ludlow) a distant third. For the somewhat less glamorous “fairest”, the Gowerville patrons went for Dave Holliday on 2715 votes, a clear winner from the 1926 “Recorder Cup”, now the J. J. Liston Trophy winner, “Bluey” Summers on 1863.
The Star later became the St. James and operationally, was the longest surviving movie theatre in Preston, lasting until the mid-1960s despite the obvious counter-attraction of television and rock ‘n roll dances at the Town Hall and the converted Circle Theatre further north in High Street.
The Gowerville closed a year or two earlier, both theatres being demolished for (at the time) modern shops and offices.
The only original theatre building remaining is the Rivoli in Gilbert Road. The theatre lent its name to a local junior football team that played next door – the original Preston Boys club of the late 1940s changing its name to Rivoli Stars around 1950, boasting amongst their “Stars”, later Collingwood premiership captain and one of the super-stars of the late 1950s and early 60′, Murray Weideman.
