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Long-lost Sydney picture palace brought back to life

By Linda Morris

Fifty years after its ignominious demolition, one of Sydney’s finest picture palaces has been brought to life in a new documentary that warns of the dangers of neglect for the city’s last surviving historic cinemas.

Film distributor and cinema historian Paul Brennan was brought to the dilapidated Summer Hill Grosvenor Theatre by his parents as a 16-year-old. The front doors were smashed open, and he scrambled through the rubble salvaging pelmet curtains and ornamental plasterwork.

The loss to Sydney of such a historic landmark, in the same decade as the opening of the Sydney Opera House, struck him as an epic tragedy.

To draw attention to the fate of Sydney’s still standing cinema treasure boxes, Brennan has gathered hundreds of images of the cinema and self-funded a grand digitally enhanced walk-through of the lost theatre by CGI technician Adam Young.

His documentary, The Mysterious Disappearance of the Grosvenor, shows how the cinema might have looked on its gala opening night, October 29, 1930, when it screened High Society Blues.

For sheer luxury it was unmatched in Sydney. “It was part cathedral, part Portuguese galleon, with Balinese and Spanish tiling, an El-Cid Moroccan fantasy interior and spanned four blocks of land,” Brennan says.

What happened to the Summer Hill Grosvenor must never again happen to any Hollywood-era surviving theatre, says filmmaker Paul Brennan. What happened to the Summer Hill Grosvenor must never again happen to any Hollywood-era surviving theatre, says filmmaker Paul Brennan. Credit:Wolter Peeters

“It was sumptuously fitted with massive Arabian light fittings, gorgeous velvet staging, iron balustrade terrazzo stairways and fantasy plasterwork that included Mermaid Kingdom encrusting with Green Man forest faces. It was topped with fleur-de-lis shields, eerie castle braidings and motifs, and a sun dome overhead of an awesome scale.

“Never had any Sydneysider seen the likes of it on this scale when it opened: seating for 2000 people, movies six days a week, and perhaps a secret Masonic meeting on Sundays.”

Contributed by Greg Lynch - dimensional1bigpond.com