New Mentone Theatre

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A trip down memory lane. THE NEW MENTONE CINEMA Balcombe Road Mentone 60 years ago. Written so beautifully by Phil Reid of the Mordialloc Chronicle

For many, few will remember Balcombe Road 60 years ago. At the end of the road was a lumberyard, with a milk bar next door, and across the road was the Mentone Picture Theatre, which was built in the best tradition of art deco, in 1928. I went to one of the last movies shown there, “Little Abner,” released in December 1959. It was a shocker of a movie, but we were watching colour, something that wouldn’t occur on TV, until March 1974.

If you were lucky enough to afford Dress Circle, there were luxury sofa chairs. These chairs became part of the Squash Courts across the road, when the theatre closed.

Milkshakes were a big hit in those days, and the milk bar next to the picture theatre made the best Blue Heaven milkshakes around. But things were not always flash in those days. “Living the life of Riley” came at a price. Often the billy cart would be stacked up with bottles, and taken down the road to the local bottle-o to make a few pennies.

In those days, the milk was delivered early, by horse and cart. I’ll never forget one morning at the end of Balcombe Road, a horse decided it had had enough and took off. Running behind him was the poor old milkman yelling, “Stop Stop….”. It took him a few blocks, but he eventually got the horse to stop - Contributed by Greg Lynch -