Victa (former Ozone) at Victor Harbor first 'talkie' purpose-built South Australia cinema in F. Kenneth Milne style
South Australian state heritage listed in 2024, the Victa Cinema (former Ozone Theatre) at Victor Harbor was part of the town's film theatres' history starting with the Griffins' Victor Theatre (top right) in Ocean Street from 1923. The Wonderview (centre right) was the parallel Victor Harbor cinema from 1923; demolished in 1991. Bottom right: Victor Ozone before Cinemascope was installed in 1955.
Images courtesy City of Victor Harbor; John Thiele; South Australia government environment and water department
Victa Cinema (former Ozone Theatre) at Victor Harbor was the first South Australian picture theatre purpose-built to screen “talkies”’ and an early outstanding example of interwar streamlined art deco cinema architecture.
The Victa was South Australian state heritage listed in 2024 as the only remaining intact picture theatre purpose-built by Ozone Theatres, an innovative and influential family-owned company that became South Australia’s largest in the 20th Century’s first half.
The Victa cinema’s origins go to about 1912 when David Griffin’s sons (Harry) and Edgar David Gladstone started touring Kangaroo Island, Adelaide Hills, Fleurieu Peninsula and Lower Murray regions with a picture show. The success of Giffins Pictures, often screened Victor Harbor Institute, led to plans to build a cinema on top of D. H. Griffin & Sons “fine and well-equipped motor garage" in Ocean Street, Victor Harbor. Advised by Thomas Edwin Smith, inspector of places of public entertainment, against that plan as “extremely dangerous”, the Griffins moved the motor garage further along Ocean Street before replacing it with the £6,000 ground-level Victor Theatre, designed by Adelaide architect Chris A. Smith.
The Victor Theatre was built using Port Elliot bricks and completed in four and a half months. supervised by J. C. Leslie Tardrew. Described as “commodious, cool and comfortable”, the Victor Theatre opened on 1923. Just under a month afterwards, in December 1923, National Pictures opened a competing Wonderview Theatre (demolished 1991) in Victor Harbor, also designed by Smith. The Wonderview on Flinders Parade had an integrated soda lounge that the Griffins matched.
In 1926, Victor Theatre was leased to National Theatres who operated both Victor Harbor film theatres until 1928 when they went to Ozone Theatres as part of a takeover. Ozone gave Victor Theatre the advantage over the slightly larger Wonderview Theatre, seating 696, by installing a £3,000 Western Electric sound system in 1930 and screening the first “talking” pictures.
Shortly after midnight on Monday, January 15, 1934, the town’s largest fire broke out in the Victor Theatre soda lounge, causing £3000 damage. Instead of repairing and enlarging the Victor Theatre with a cantilevered gallery along lines suggested by Chris A. Smith, Ozone Theatres chose to build a largely new theatre on the old site.
Architect F. Kenneth Milne’s design for the new 1,000-seat Victor Harbor Ozone Theatre drew on “modern Continental theatre practice” learned from his trip to Britain and Europe in December 1933. The taller and wider auditorium set the pattern for the sound-era theatres that followed, with acoustics considered as well as sightlines; architecturally integrated artificial lighting; and ventilation openings in the side walls. Milne’s streamlining, as applied to picture theatres, became “highly emblematic of bright, comfortable modernity and progress" around the world and was pervasive in South Australian commercial architecture by the late 1930s. Milne became Ozone Theatres architect for all South Australian projects until about 1942.
With other Ozone suburban and country venues, Victor Harbor Ozone Theatre was bought by Hoyts Ozone Theatres Limited in 1951. The arrival of television saw Hoyts Ozone Theatres sell their Victor Harbor theatre in the 1970 to Roy Denison, also operating South Coast Drive In at Port Elliot. Denison made an $40,000 investment, including a $5,000 grand piano, into the Victa before selling it on retirement to Geoff Stock in 1995. Stock also made changes including the name – from Victa Theatre to Victa Cinema – and reluctantly turned it into a twin cinema in 1998.
More changes by the next owners David and Carol Stonehill from 2005 maintained the cinema’s art deco charm. In 2020, the Victa Cinema was bought by the City of Victor Harbor.