Cienna development to be built on site of old Regent cinema, Southport, which opened in 1912
The Gold Coast’s love affair with the cinema began 100 years ago on a small silver screen in Southport. Now the old site is set to be transformed.
History
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THE first motion picture was filmed in the UK in 1888 and launched an art form which revolutionised mass entertainment.
Australia led the way in filmmaking, creating the world’s first feature-length film, The Story of the Kelly Gang, in 1906.
The Gold Coast’s first cinema was built on Southport’s Davenport Street and screened its first film on October 1, 1912.
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The theatre was originally known as the Regent and first screened a film about the then-recent sinking of the Titanic, which was interrupted by a fault, forcing staff to send the audience home.
The cinema was expanded between 1918 and 1920 to increase its capacity to 1000 seats in response to the medium’s growing popularity.
Sound was introduced to film in 1929 and the building soon received an RCA Photophone sound system, which led its owners to alter its name to the ‘Regent Talkies’.
The site is now set to be developed into a new two-tower project featuring one rising to 88 storeys and the second to 38.
DEVELOPMENT TO BREATHE LIFE INTO SOUTHPORT
The proposed Cienna development by Cienna Group will provide a major shot in the arm for the downtown Southport site which has been empty since 1989 when it was cleared for a then-failed project.
As demand for movies continued to grow, a second cinema was opened on the second Southport pier in 1927.
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It burnt down in 1932 but was soon rebuilt as the Pier Talkies and remained in service until the pier was demolished in 1969 by the Gold Coast City Council.
It was also used as a skating rink and hosted the Queensland centenary dinner in 1959.
Gold Coast Hinterland Historical Society president Bob Nancarrow visited several of the Coast’s film halls as a child and said it was a popular outing for families.
“It was a major event to go to the pictures and half the town would be there every Friday and Saturday night,” he said.
“Each session would feature two movies, a few cartoons and news reels and would fill up more than four hours of the day.
“The Saturday matinee was very popular with the local children and on the last day of school each year, all the students in Southport would go down to the pier theatre to see a film free to celebrate finishing the year.”
Meanwhile, during World War II, the social scene of Burleigh Heads’ burgeoning beachside community centred around the Deluxe theatre.
The cinema’s screenings were restricted by the ongoing war with Japan but as the tide of the conflict turned, tough restrictions on the region’s social life were lifted – the cinema was allowed to screen films on Good Friday.
Fast-forward 40 years to the 1980s and the Gold Coast became a popular location for film and television to be filmed.
Among the biggest local productions in the 1980s was the revival of television series Mission Impossible.
Nearly a decade before the popular Tom Cruise film series began, original TV star Peter Graves moved to the Glitter Strip to make the revival.
Among the stars of the remake were Thaao Penghlis and Phil Morris.
The cast and crew arrived in the state in mid-1988 and filmed at locations across the city including Movie World’s studios, Sanctuary Cove and the SeaWorld Nara Resort to act as stand-ins for Hawaii, Turkey, East Germany and the Bahamas.
The show premiered in October 1988 with the pilot episode “The Killer”, featuring guest star John De Lancie who was also appearing concurrently in Star Trek: The Next Generation.
Mission Impossible was a surprise hit and Gold Coast tourism identities celebrated with a further six episodes were ordered for its first season.
Production for its second season moved to Melbourne.
These days the Gold Coast is better known for being the home of blockbusters Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell no Tales and San Andreas.
We’ve come a long way but along that silver screen journey have generally been at the forefront.
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