Academy International Cinema

Located in the Grey Lynn suburb of Auckland, the Adelphi Cinema was built by William and Sybil Traill as a replacement for their nearby Kingsway Picture House (see separate Cinema Treasures entry). It opened in 1928. Bands such as The Orchestra De Luxe and Edna Jagger-Smith’s Orchestra accompanied the silent films but, of course, a sound system was soon installed, around 1930-1931.

In 1948, the Adelphi Cinema closed for a year of extensive renovations. It re-opened on Friday 8th July 1949 as the Esquire Cinema, with “Spring in Park Lane”, starring Michael Wilding and Anna Neagle. It was billed as the “Pride of the Western Suburbs and Auckland’s most modern and luxurious theatre”.

In 1965, to a backdrop of the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis and the escalating Vietnam war, the Esquire Cinema was bought by a ‘mystery’ group and renamed the Academy International Cinema. Accusations flew around that Communist party funding had been used to purchase the cinema and create a propaganda ‘machine’, and there were rumours that clandestine meetings were being held in the darkened venue.

More than 50 members of the Freedom Needs Vigilance anti-Communist group protested outside the cinema on its opening night (date not known). The new directors of the cinema, Dr William Glass and Daniel Whooley, denied these allegations, although the opening night programme, which featured two Communist Polish films, including Roman Polanski’s “Two Men and a Wardrobe”, did little to assuage the suspicions!

Whatever the truth, the Academy International Cinema did not survive very long, and closed in 1968. The building became home to a Shoprite supermarket before being demolished in 1988.

A three-storey social welfare office – Oranga Tamariki: Ministry for Children – was built on the site.

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