Fri Nov 11, 2011 4:35 am
The date is a Monday the day after my mother's 84th so I am out of the loop to go. The theater is about 10miles from my home but my father grew up nearby and the first 8 years of my life were spent in that suburb(East St Kilda) although the theater is actually in Chapel Street St Kilda and is owned by the Anglican Co-Ed college around the corner, my parents actually were married at the church opposite. It was Greek-owned like other pictures around Melbourne but was about to close after a good period of special film screenings with a poster like program every year. They used to place the poster programs folded in a box outside the building 24-hours a day. I often stopped the car at the lights and sneak out and grab one on the way to my shop nearby prior to 2000. My shop was two blocks up the street passed three other famous former theater venues, long lost their original calling. The Astor was once two premises in from the crossing highway but the two shops on its RHS were demolished to make the highway larger to cope with the traffic demands. There are some shops in the front of the theater. Opposite was a bus shelter(in a park) where an old lady was murdered in the 1950s and no one was charged with the crime. Today down and out men sleep there and often get attack but they never give any description to police for obvious reasons. I did some schooling at the parochial schools the other side of the park as did my dad and I had sisters go to the convent there.
The Astor often showed new prints of older films and according to the program notes they had prints especially struck for the occasion which I find hard to believe as the there would not be a print cost return profit, surely?
I certainly want to see Mamba at some stage & had been hoping a DVD or Blu ray would be in the offing. Never thought a modern-day premiere of restored elements would be in my city!!
