Hastings Municipal Theatre – Michael Fowler

Welcome ladies and gentlemen. Can you all here me? Fantastic. My name is Michael Fowler and I’m going to talk to you today about the history of the Municipal Theatre – its life as a picture theatre. We have got a few other things of interest that you might enjoy thrown in as well, and also tonight, I’m promoting … shamelessly promoting … a book, which is on picture theatres in Napier and Hastings, which also mentions the Municipal Theatre as well.

[Shows slides]

Hastings’ first picture theatre was – many of you probably won’t recognize that – that’s the Princess Theatre which was down Heretaunga Street West. And that was the site of the first pictures shown at Hastings in March in 1897. Unfortunately for Hastings people, Napier beat them to the mark in 24th of October 1896, was when the first movies were shown.

It’s important to state that the movies were only a few feet long. So they weren’t as today’s reels, they were only a few feet long, and showed steam trains coming into the station and things like that. It was later … this is when it was later converted by one of the mayors George, Ellis, into more of a theatre, and you can see the addition up there at back.

This is the Kings Theatre. I was talking to a couple of ladies beforehand, and they remembered the Kings Theatre. So that was actually Hastings’ first permanent picture theatre – in other words, specifically for showing moving pictures in it. And that was build in 1910. That was actually right across the road. So if you look over where those trees are, where that path is – was actually right across there in Karamu Road South, so it backed onto the women’s Rest.

Now, the Municipal Theatre. The Princess Theatre that I showed before was used a lot for civic functions, and for showing movies and productions, and when the Napier Municipal Theatre was built in 1912, I think they probably jolted Hastings into building their own Municipal Theatre. And so, the mayor, Mr Hart, wrote to Henry Eli White … and I must say that it was a photo from an Australian collector. I searched all over Australia and New Zealand to try and get a photo of Henry Eli White, and that’s come from Franc van Stratton in Australia. So the mayor, William Hart, actually went down south to look at some theatres, and he must’ve been impressed with Henry Eli White’s theatres so he was asked to do it. Now councils being councils, some of them weren’t to happy about Henry Eli White being appointed as the architect, and a vote was actually held and they narrowed it down to three architects – there was a Mr Luttrell, and a Mr White was also appointed in the three of them. And finally Henry Eli White was actually appointed as the architect. But Napier firm Natusch & Son wrote saying, “well there should really be a competition”, and some of the Councillors that lost the vote on voices to have Henri Eli White appointed, once again tried to force the issue but William Hart told them to go away, that they were out of order. Which seems to be the end of it. His appointment actually reached the newspaper, and Henry Eli White read about it before he was formally told that he was appointed. And this is when the Council then started to debate whether they should have a competition and actually remove him. He actually telegraphed I think, the Council, and they said, “well we haven’t quite decided it yet”, and then they informed him that he actually was.

The Municipal Theatre – the plans actually included a biograph box. So it was basically nine feet by eight feet was build actually of asbestos and concrete. And the door … the asbestos door, or coated door … had a fuse in it, so if a fire took place in the actual biograph box the door would shut, therefore isolating the fire to the theatre. So that was included in the plans. The builders – the Bull Brothers of Napier … Harry there – this is a younger photo of them – and Ted, they built the Napier Municipal Theatre as well, which is incidentally designed by William Pitt, the Napier Municipal Theatre. And sadly the Napier Municipal Theatre actually fell down during the ‘quake, as most of you know.

This is Henry Eli White’s sketch of how he imagined the finished Hastings Municipal Theatre would look. Of course I must point out that it’s now called the Hawke’s Bay Opera House, as well. Now renamed.

Couple of weeks ago when I was preparing this talk, I noticed when I was looking at the sketch that this part here, and I hope you can see it – but the foyer … it was a very small foyer. And also now, as I went in the other day just to check again, there’s actually an archway there which leads up to the stairway, up there. So I’m not sure … I suspect that that was added later. I didn’t have a chance to actually have a look at that, but I suspect it was added later. The reason for my interest in this was that most English theatres were designed to separate the social classes. So basically you had the stalls, the dress circle and the family circle. And this entrance here leads straight up to the dress circle.

I found and old newspaper advertisement, and basically the newspaper advertisement indicated that tickets for the stalls, which is below, the dress-circle which is the second level, could be purchased from the foyer. And I’m not sure, I haven’t done a lot of research on this yet, but I wonder whether that was sort of a ticket box for the stalls, because it was most inappropriate – in English theatres anyway – for the social classes to mix. That’s why they often had a small foyer and separate entrances for them to go in. So there was, despite our egalitarian society being promoted, there were lots of instances of the classes being separated around about that time, so it wouldn’t surprise me if that were the case. And this is courtesy of the Hawke’s Bay Opera House – Colton down there said I could use this as you can see now. But that there, where I’m signing the red dot, was the entrance way for the stairway to go up to the … well I used to call it the gods, but it was officially called the family circle, otherwise known as the gods, which is the top. And that of course there is like a fire escape for the stalls. They were designed to be emptied within two minutes in case of fire, with all the entrance ways. So, this there – once again courtesy of the Hastings Opera House – you can see, and it’s a magnificent theatre – absolutely, I thought we’d all agree. But that’s how it would’ve been – family circle or gods, dress circle and stalls. So that was the most expensive in the early part of the history of the theatre, the dress circle, which was normally about a shilling and sixpence, stalls were a shilling, and the gods were about sixpence. The rail there was added after the Council thought young children may fall over, and I’ll talk more about that afterwards.

Here’s the actual photograph which is over there as well, and William Hart’s in this, so there he is right there.. you can’t see much of him.. but that’s the actual laying of the foundation stone in Hastings Street. That’s the actual stone … the implement there, trowel … was given to the Council – William Hart – by the Bull Brothers, inscribed. So I don’t know where’s that’s ever gone to. There’s also a gold key too, that was presented by the architect to the Council, an inscribed gold key, but I don’t think anybody knows much about that, any more.

This is the only photograph, and I suspect the only photograph that exists of the Municipal Theatre being built. The occasion was the Governor General visiting – he is in the horse-drawn carriage – and you can see there the framing going up. But I don’t … I could be wrong, but I don’t think there’s any photos of the theatre actually being built, that I know of, and this was from a glass plate negative which was developed.

That of course was the finished design of the Municipal Theatre. It almost nearly didn’t get to be on Hastings Street. Councillor Les Fowler – no relation to myself – actually wanted the Theatre to face Heretaunga Street, so opposite where Rebel Sport is – he wanted it to face there. So they were quite scrappy in those days, the Councillors, and they used to organise petitions and yell at each other, and I think Councillor Fowler actually hit somebody and was forcibly removed from one of the Council meetings. So of course I looked up to see if he was a relation of mine [chuckle] but he wasn’t.

So yes, so that’s Clapham, who did a lot of early photographs, of the theatre. So that would be in the 19 … probably the late 1910s … probably not long after it opened.

The opening production was “San Toy”, the Chinese opera, and there they are there. That is a picture … coming down from the biograph box, and a lot of the old posters that were put up there by the projectionists in the 1920s at that stage. I think they were all taken … most of them were taken down when they did the alterations.

That of course would’ve been … is the view almost from the biograph box of the theatre, or actually from the gods. Before it was obviously renovated. You can see the railing there.

That’s Les Fowler. It’s from a publication … a 1923 publication … which was put out, called “Saints and Sinners”, in 1923. And what they did was – all the young men of the town were called the Sinners, and the married men were the Saints, and the Clergy were the Saints as well. So they did a lot of caricatures of everybody in the town, and that’s one of Les Fowler. He used to write very pointed letters to the editor, so there … he’s called the Inkspot … actually to Wendy Doole’s grandfather. And I’ve got another caricature – where’s Wendy? Yeah. I’ve got another cartoon of him too, of putting another letter from Les Fowler into the rubbish bin, so he was quite a character. He was actually instrumental … he was almost a mixed blessing and a curse, because what he did was, he helped a lot – he was on the theatre sub-committee to get the committee actually organised to build the theatre – but he was also … think the mayor’s worst enemy, and everybody else’s ‘cause if he didn’t get his way he could be quite disruptive.

But anyway, he decided to quit the Council on many occasions. As I said one of the occasions I think he hit somebody and he was removed. But he decided to become a projectionist. So he went from being on the Council and being on the theatre sub-committee, to work for a man called Mr W P McCormack. And most of you would be familiar with the new Cosy, but Mr McCormack also ran the new Cosy theatre which later became the Embassy, after the earthquake, so he became the projectionist. And what happened was, the Council decided to tender for the right to show movies at the Municipal Theatre, and Mr W P McCormack won the tender. And I’ve got some of the details here of that. The deal was twenty percent of all monies received up to seven pounds ten shillings would be given to Council; over seven pounds ten shillings, forty percent would be given to Council. And also, the Council retained the sole right to sell the refreshments. So, basically that was the deal – it was a good deal for the Council. Nobody else wanted to do it.

So what happened was with that, it didn’t work. The deal was not a good one and by December 1915 Les Fowler wanted a better deal for his boss, W P McCormack. But what happened was, the Council said “no – you can’t get out of the deal, sorry. We’re not going to do that”. And then the Council turned round and said, “well, we’ll allow itinerant people to come and show movies when they want to”, because in those days a lot of the vaudeville touring shows also had movie theatres as well … shows they used to show. So not only was he having a difficult time, the Council then said “if anybody else then wants to come along and show pictures, we’ll let them do it as well”, which wasn’t a great arrangement in terms of … Les Fowler was concerned, he wasn’t happy with that at all. The Council was very protective of the picture theatre though, because when the Princess Theatre, which I showed before, wanted to erect a hoarding just over the railway line over there to advertise their pictures, the Council turned around and said “no, you can’t” … so probably just to protect their own interests.

There was quite a few difficulties with the lease that wasn’t signed, and there was arguments over money etcetera, etcetera. And as I said, the railings before … the Council basically said, you know “if anybody falls off the gods or the family circle and dies, it’s your fault”. And then Mr McCormack said “no, it’s not my fault – it’s your fault, and would some officials from the Council like to come and watch to make sure nobody falls over?” So they had all those sort of things going on like that.

In February 1915 it was really struggling, and he wanted to reduce the price in the dress circle from one shilling and six pence down to one shilling, and the Council once again said “no”, and then they also wrote a letter to Mr McCormack and said “attendances are falling – this is not very good”. And then they also received complaints that they were using a hand-cranked projector, and if they had a better class of projector perhaps more people would be interested in coming along and seeing the movies. So by March 1915 what had happened is, the whole theatre was not performing, the arrangement Mr McCormack and Les Fowler had with the Council was not good, so Mr McCormack offered to sell his plant and everything to the Council for two hundred and two pounds and ten shillings. And the Council drove a bit of a hard bargain, and actually picked it up for a hundred and twenty-seven pounds. So they picked up all the plant for a hundred and twenty seven pounds. And the first projectionist – they employed a projectionist manager, and his name was Phil Murdoch. So he started in 1916, and he was their first real projectionist when the Council took it over.

This man here is Jack Foot. And when the Council’s pictures really started to work well was when they joined in connection with the Cosy Theatre down in Heretaunga Street, which was … the Embassy building’s still there, but it was the Cosy before the earthquake. So when the Council went into an arrangement with this man here, it actually did very well for them and was quite profitable for them.

In 1928 – and I have got … I might show it at the end actually … I videoed a short film clip to show. What happened was in 1928, actually almost eighty years to the day, Rudolph Hayward’s ‘Daughter of Hastings’ showed. Now some of you may be familiar with ‘Natalie of Napier’. But what a ‘Daughter of Hastings’ was – and that’s his wife, there, Rita Hayward, and she came to town in September 1928 and auditioned for ‘The Prettiest Girls in Town’ and looked at places where they could have filming, such as the Cornwall Park and things like that. And what happened was, Rudolph Hayward, her husband, came in – and there he is there behind the camera – came in and made this film. Now they were community comedy dramas, and they were very clever because what happened was, they’d come into town, they’d get the prettiest girls of the town, they’d get a hero, they’d get a villain and they’d film them and it would take about forty minutes. And Central School over there was one of the locations. They’d get all the school kids involved, ’cause what happened was – just to give you a quick summary – was that the prettiest girl was played as a schoolteacher. She wasn’t really a schoolteacher, she was just obviously an actress for the part. She was kidnapped from the school, taken away by a villainous reporter, and basically the Hawke’s Bay Hunt Club ended up chasing after them with the horses. And the hero jumped from one of the horse[s] into the car, and rescued her. But I have got some footage which I’d like to show of that, courtesy of the Hayward Trust, and it’s the ‘Daughter of Dunedin’ which is the same plot.

Now this lady here is Daisy Salon. And the thing why this is important, because this was shown in the Hastings Municipal Theatre in 1928, and it’s probably the biggest grossing film that they ever had there. I estimate probably over half the population of Hastings probably turned out to see it … four to five thousand people … it was absolutely huge. And this is Daisy Salon, and she was chosen as the beautiful heroine. And she lived at the Carlton Club Hotel, which is now Breakers – when it was the Carlton Club Hotel some of you might remember when it was the wooden structure there. So she was chosen as the heroine. And the review of her – and this is actually a picture of her in the late thirties – it’s probably a better one than the other one that I’ve just shown of her. So I’ve actually traced a bit of her family and what happened to her, after she showed in the movies, ‘A Daughter of Hastings’. And on the day of the earthquake actually … the 1931 earthquake … she was with her sister, Josie, on the Marine Parade and when the earthquake struck, her mother was managing the hotel where the Cabana is – and it’s just gone out of my head where the Cabana Hotel is now – in Shakespeare Road, round about that area. And her mother was badly injured and a Chinese grocer actually took her mother to a hospital in Palmerston North – drover her all the way. She was absolutely traumatised by that. And she’d met an Australian who’d come across to New Zealand, who lived in the Grand Hotel, Bob Salon – there he is now. And she decided that after the earthquake that they wanted to go back, so they basically left. In researching the book I actually made contact with Daisy’s … ‘cause she’s long since passed away … with Daisy’s son who is now in his seventies, and she never ever talked about starring in A Daughter of Hastings. She never ever talked about that. She did talk a lot about the earthquake, which she was traumatised [by] to the day she died. So even in her old age, she was still … well at an older age … she was still a very glamorous woman. She’s not that old there.

And the review – one of the reviews from the Municipal Theatre was: “Daisy Salon took everyone’s fancy! She looked attractive, photographs well, acted commendably, and even in the terrifying business of closeups, retained all her self possession.”

Napier and Hastings were actually not getting on too well in 1928, and it’s interesting because ‘Natalie of Napier’, which was the sister film to the ‘Daughter of Hastings’ – no mention was made of that in the Hawke’s Bay Tribune, as was no mention made of ‘A Daughter of Hastings’ in the Daily Telegraph. So there was absolutely no mention of it whatsoever.

24th of March 1930, the first talkie showed in the Municipal Theatre and it was a Marx Brothers’ comedy, ‘The Coconuts’, which leads me too to the more bitter sort of arrange … well, bitter conflict between Napier and Hastings at that time. When in May 1930 a Napier person wrote to the editor … wrote to Wendy’s grandfather … and said “the quality of talking movies in the Hastings Municipal Theatre is slush! It’s Slush!”

Okay. And so there was a big uproar – a campaign to stop Hastings people from going to Napier to see the movies over there, because Napier people were very naughtily advertising – the movie theatres over there were saying, “this film won’t be shown within a hundred miles of Napier”. Next week, guess what happened” The Marx ‘Coconuts’ would appear at the Hastings Municipal Theatre. And so – I mean I suspect a Councillor probably wrote this, because basically somebody then wrote another letter and said “well, every shilling you put towards … that you spend at the Hastings Municipal Theatre by going to the picture, means fourpence off your rates.” Because there was a profit share, and Napier actually too started to promote that as well.

So, not long after that – you’ll know after 1930 was of course the earthquake. And this is the actual plans – these actual plans were made by the Insurance Council of New Zealand in case Hastings burnt down, which a couple of times it actually did. So they thought they’d get all the plans and everything in case it burnt down again, so they knew where everything was. So anyway, what happened during the earthquake is that the assessor from Wellington grabbed the Insurance Council plans, came up to Hastings and literally walked around the streets – and there’s has markings there – on the condition of the buildings in Hastings. And you’ll see when it came to the Municipal Theatre – ‘OK front’. And the Municipal offices next door, or the Borough offices – ‘OK front’. At the back – ‘Damage at back only’. So he’d assessed damage at the back only. And that is the damage at the back, courtesy of Chris Johnson. So that was the damage that was caused at the back of the Municipal Theatre. But not only did they have repairs to that but the whole theatre needed to be actually strengthened. As you can see here, everything else is pretty much wrecked around it, but the Municipal Theatre seems to have survived.

Now, enter Henry Eli White again. We pick up the story of Henry Eli White again. What had happened to Henry was that he was like a rock star of theatre designers, if you can have such a thing. He was big. When he arrived in Australia he actually had a press conference. After he designed the Municipal Theatre he left for Australia. He was not here at the opening. I don’t believe he ever visited Hastings after it was built. But he was like a rock star, and he arrived there, and they said “Mr White, what are your influences?” And he basically said he hasn’t got any – “I’m my own man”. So he was a very … as you can see … a very handsome, tall imposing man, and an ego to match, according to a historian that I’d read.

So at the time of the earthquake, the Great Depression, for theatre designers, meant that all the work had just absolutely dried up, because nobody was building theatres – it was the Depression. So he bought a farm in Auckland and he came back to Auckland. And when the earthquake happened he probably thought, ‘I’m an architect, people have known me – I will see if I can get some business and open an office’. And here on March the 2nd in the Hawke’s Bay Tribune, ‘Henry E – you probably won’t see this so I’ll read it – Henry E White, FN … all his credentials … Architect and Consulting Engineer, desires to inform his clients and those interested that he has reopened his offices in Auckland, at 610 Dilworth Building.’ So he probably thought he could pick some business and go off his farm and be an architect again, but unfortunately for Henry there’s no evidence that I found that he actually was involved in any of the rebuilding work. It went to the Associated Architects of Phillips, Davies and Garnett. And actually Harold Davies employed a Wellington architect, Ian Silver, on a subcontract basis to do a lot of the repairs and strengthening of the Hastings Municipal Theatre after the earthquake.

And here’s a picture here – the contract was won by Jim Fletcher – he’s of course now got Fletcher Construction – and here you can see the strengthening going on of the Municipal Theatre. And a lot of the bricks, I think, that you can see inside there – the bricks were removed. So even though it withstood the earthquake, there was a lot of work that was done on it.

Here’s another picture which was taken as part of the Carnival, and this is the cover of my earthquake book – the last earthquake book. And I love this photo, that’s why I put it at the front, because it’s got these … and this really symbolises I guess, the hope of Hastings, with the flower girls and “like a phoenix she will arise from her ashes”, Hastings, and in the background you can see the Municipal Theatre being rebuilt and strengthened.

One of the designs … just as an aside … you can see now, the pagodas at the top there shortened, or smaller, from the original design. You can see there, they look like sort of Spanish sombre hats – you can see quickly back there that they were shortened. So the Councillors had a big debate about whether to get rid of those, and the mayor Roach was absolutely exasperated at them because the Council said that they wanted those to come off, and then they didn’t. So I think Roach just went ahead and did it.

All films have to be entered into a log book, that were shown. And this is the actual logbook which was kept in the Municipal Theatre, and you can see the last film shown before the earthquake on February the 2nd was ‘Divorcee’. I’ll just mention about ‘Divorcee’ – for some reason the Hastings Municipal Theatre got all the … well, how can I put this? Well, ‘Divorcee’ was about a man and woman who were both cheating on their partners. And the Methodist Church across the road, and various other Churches used to continually write to the Council and complain about the disgusting adulterous, lustful nature of the movies being shown at the Hastings Municipal Theatre. So in some way you could say this is [chuckle] … I’m sure some people said “this is God’s wrath”, after that film was shown, that the Municipal Theatre was shut down for a year.

But you can see there the projectionist has actually crossed out – he was actually been a bit naughty because he’s written in advance “Three and Four” – probably bored – and he’s written in there in big red ink, “Earthquake”. So we managed to prise this off the guy that has got this in his possession enough to scan it, just to show what the last film was.

So what did the Council do? Well, once again, controversy – it seemed that the Council couldn’t do anything right – it’s a pity Cynthia isn’t here but Ewan, you would understand all this – you can never do anything right, can you, Ewan?

No. So what happened was, they wanted … people wanted pictures … because all the picture theatres were destroyed in Hastings. And the Council rented the old King’s Theatre which I said before was just across the road over there, and so here’s the picture of it – “Cosy Theatre Opening Shortly” – so they renamed it The Cosy because the old Cosy had fallen down, but was actually funded by the Hastings District Council. The Council spent seventy thousand dollars in plant, which … once again, letters to the Editor came in.

I’ll just mention too before we go on – Henry Eli White basically never really … after the earthquake he never, as I said, never got any work. He actually just … he earned about eight million dollars in architectural fees in his life. When he died in 1952 his estate was worth fifty eight thousand dollars. So he wasn’t too good with the money, and he spend the rest of his days … well what he actually did was, when he left Auckland in 1937, he bought this factory for making concrete, and they discovered dolomite on it. And so he made a bit of money out of that, but apparently he spent it big game fishing, and that’s what he did for the rest of his life – big game fishing in Sydney, and did a lot of boating.

Here’s some of the projectionists that have worked. Les still alive, Les is in his eighties – I’m sure Les won’t mind me telling you how old he is. He started work at the Regent, or later Westend, in 1943 and he was one of the projectionists in the Hastings Municipal Theatre. He still works at the New Village for … somewhere over there.

This is Ted Neilson – he also worked in the Hastings Municipal Theatre, as well as a projectionist. By this time after the earthquake, this is … I’m talking 1950s when Ted worked … the Council also entered in another arrangement with another Regent Theatre across the road, to share films. And they showed, most of you will know this, Friday night, Saturday matinee, and Saturday night movies.

The big problem that the Hastings Municipal Theatre had with showing movies was they were always seemingly interrupted with drama productions, which took precedence over the movies. So that was a bit of a problem to them. And also, I’ll just mention too, before I go on – the first movie basically shown after they reopened the Hastings Municipal Theatre in 1932, was ‘The Sin of Claudette Maude’, who was a woman that turned to prostitution to fund her son through medical school. Once again, letters through to the Council complaining about the disgusting nature of the films being shown at the Hastings Municipal Theatre, which is really interesting because Hastings actually, the Council actually did not allow movies to be shown in any theatre on Sunday without special permission … I think until the 1960s I think, was the first they were allowed to show them on a Sunday – was Napier. Napier did. So in some ways they tried to preserve the sanctity of Sunday but yeah, other ways they made themselves very unpopular.

This man here is still alive – Digby Slater was the last projectionist. This is a young photo of him in the 1950s, about the time when he was a projectionist at the Municipal Theatre. I asked all these projectionists – “did you ever see any ghosts up there?” And they said “no”. “No strange bumpings or – nothing?” “No”. So I was most interested to see, because as you’ll know, there’s reputedly some ghosts in the Hastings Municipal … or the Hawke’s Bay Opera House. But no, they never had any bumps in the night or anything like that. Digby said it was pretty scary up there though, by yourself – he said he didn’t like being up there himself necessarily. But they’re quite a tough lot the projectionists. So there he is later in his life – probably be in his sixties there when he was working up in Auckland.

So what happened to the Hastings Municipal pictures? Well, the outsourcing tended to work really well for them, where they got somebody else to come in and show pictures, or run it for them. It worked really well for them. But what happened in – the Americans developed in 1953, I think, cinemascope, or wide screen because of the threat of television. Of course the Americans had television a lot earlier than what New Zealand did. So they developed wide screen, but the Councillors said, “no – we’re not spending money on a widescreen! We’re not doing that!” So the pictures at the Municipal Theatre in 1960 came to an end. And Digby – in part of the book – the actual last film was shown on the 28th of May 1960, and Digby Slater showed the last movie which was called ‘Joe Dakota’. And I talked to Digby about this and he said “Digby recalls closing the door” – this is the projectionist’s door at the Municipal Theatre – “and he was told as a young projectionist when showing a movie for the last time in a theatre, simply close the door to the projectionist’s box and walk away, and never look back”. Digby didn’t, and that ended the Hastings Municipal Theatre’s life as a cinema in 1960. So it’s had quite a varied life.

Would you like to see the ‘Daughter of Hastings’? There’s a little clip.