Nine million tickets sold annually, with big Saturday nights, at 131 South Australian film theatres before WWII

The art deco Metro cinema in Hindley Street, Adelaide, was built in the 1930s for MGM according to an American design and imported fittings.
Image courtesy State Library of South Australia
 

Before World War II, South Australia had 131 permanent picture theatres. About nine million attendances at films during 1938 represented every one of the 598,000 South Australians going to the pictures 15 times a year.

During the 1920s, the professional live theatre in Adelaide remained popular but it lost out to the cheaper cinema in the 1930s Depression. Some vaudeville artists were reduced to performing at cinemas before the feature film.

By 1936, with the state’s centenary being celebrated and the Depression easing, there was more money for entertainment. Picture theatres in the suburbs began to show films on some week nights as well as on Saturdays.

To attract audiences, the New Empire Theatre in Grote Street, city, advertised that it was “up to date, cool and hygienic”. The hygienic element became significant in 1937 when an outbreak of polio (which recurred in the early 1950s) reduced audiences.

The New Empire offered three and a half hours of first-class “talkie” entertainment at the cheapest admission prices in Adelaide: one shilling two pence in the dress circle and one shilling in the stalls on Saturday nights. It was even cheaper for the mid-week Wednesday show.

Another setback in cinema business towards the end of 1945 came with electricity cuts affecting most suburban cinemas.

“Going to the pictures” on a Saturday night remained a regular outing for many people into the 1950s. It was still regarded as an occasion for dressing up and even the theatre manager of the theatre wore a dinner jacket. Most films were family entertainment because Australian censorship cut or banned any extreme violence or horror.

Children attended Saturday afternoon matinees to watch Western serials, cartoons and the like while eating Fantales and Jaffas bought from tray boys.

In the mid-1950s, drivein theatres sprung up on vacant land in the suburbs and country towns. By 1960, there were driveins at Christies Beach, Berri, Loxton, Murray Bridge and Kadina as well as eight opened in the suburbs by the Wallis family group. Even Radium Hill had an open-air cinema, although a car wasn’t compulsory.