Oswald St, Kalgoorlie
VIEWWAY DRIVE-IN THEATRE/ ACE CINEMAS
The View-way was one of the Ace chain of drive-ins, designed
by William T and Garry Leighton. It opened with provision for 430 cars in July
1960, managed by Frank English. John Pye, manager of Ace Theatres, described one
eventful evening there:
I can well remember one of my chaps ringing from Kalgoorlie:
´Mr Pye, there's been a cloudburst up here. All the roads are awash,
there's four feet of water on all the corners. Don't you think I could close the
drive-in down tonight? No-one could possibly get here. If they did their cars
would be swept away.'
I said: ´So, that's the way it is? If anyone turns up,
even yourself, put your own car up on the ramps and the car of any staff who
turn up, and turn all the lights on if there's town lighting, turn on the
auxiliary plant and light the place up, and even if no-one else comes, put the
whole show on.'
´Why?' he said, ´It'll be a waste of time and it
will cost us $300 quite apart from the staff wages.'
´Put it on,' I said, ´And tomorrow morning the whole
town will be talking about those silly idiots who put on a show on in the middle
of a cloud-burst. And from then on they'll never have to worry whether the show
will go on or not: from then on they'll know it's on. They only have to get
there, no matter what the elements are like. But put the show on and let me know
how you get on.'
At half past ten he rang me to say he didn't know how they got
there, but 37 cars turned up, paid for admission and thought it was marvellous
in the drenching, tearing rain, with the wind blowing all over the place and the
whole area saturated. I suppose the young bloods decided that they could boast
about it the next morning - how they went to the stupid drive-in in the middle
of a cloud-burst!
On 5 October 1983, a hardtop cinema, seating 344, was opened
on the same site, sharing the bio-box, the concession and the toilets, but
screening different programmes from the drive-in: often a film would be shown
first in the hard-top, then in the drive-in. The drive-in closed in 1986, but
opened again quite soon, and till 1999 both continued, the hard-top screening
two sessions each day, and the drive-in screening one session each
day.
From 1 July 1998, the venue was known as Ace Cinemas,
Kalgoorlie - in line with the other Ace cinemas in Midland, Subiaco, and
Southland. By this time, the ‘Way’ chain was no longer in
existence...
When the venue was built it was in the middle of nowhere -
halfway between Boulder and Kalgoorlie: by 1999 the two towns had merged, there
was a shortage of land for building and the value of the land was too high to
justify its use as a drive-in while attendances were declining. For, despite a
boom in hard-top cinema attendance in the late 90s, drive-in attendance had
declined dramatically - partly because of the increasing technical
sophistication of films designed for cinema release, partly also because the
encroachment of other buildings around the site which meant that light
(particularly from floodlighting) interfered with viewing. So, on Sunday 1
August 1999, the drive-in closed and the land was purchased by
Safeway.
The hardtop, however, was expanded to three screens (seating
320, 235, and 148) with the car park extended to provide enough parking for the
larger venue. There was plenty of product available to keep this larger venue
supplied.
Sources:
Film Weekly Directory 1959/60 - 1971
Public Health Department, building permit, Battye 1459
Max Bell, Perth, a cinema history, The Book Guild Ltd, Lews, Sussex
1986, p.141
Vyonne Geneve, ´William Leighton, Architect', Kino, no.25,
September 1988, p.14
Film Weekly, 28 July 1960, p.9
West Australian 1969 - 1986, 1995
Interview (Ina Bertrand): Alan Larkin (1985), Morris Hansen (1999)
Interview (Colleen Pead): Noel Dunning (1986)
Interview (Ina Bertrand & Bill Turner): John Pye (1981)
Photos:
1 exterior (drive-in), colour, 1997, Graeme Bertrand Link to image
1 exterior (drive-in and theatre), colour, 1997, Graeme Bertrand Link to image
1 exterior, b&w, 1995, Aaron Bunch, National Library of Australia Pictorial Collection, nla.pic-an11579947-8
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