Cinematic amusements in Wellington 100 years ago today

The Amusements section of Wellington's Dominion morning newspaper for Monday 31 August 1925 carries the usual detailed advertisements for cinema and theatre offerings, illustrating the busy entertainment scene in the capital a hundred years ago. Four cinemas advertised their wares, plus one theatre with a jam-packed vaudeville programme.

The DeLuxe Theatre ('The Finest Theatre under the Southern Cross') 

The Thundering Herd was directed by William K. Howard and featured Jack Holt, Lois Wilson, Noah Beery Sr. and Raymond Hatton. The Paramount film was a lightning-fast page-to-screen journey for a Zane Grey western novel released in the same year. It features the entire bison population of Yellowstone in a climactic stampede scene. 

Howard was a busy director in the 1920s and '30s, and his 1933 Spencer Tracy film The Power & the Glory is now recognised as an early influence on Citizen Kane. 

Jack Holt was at this point a 37-year-old actor best known for his roles in Westerns. His son Tim Holt would also become a Hollywood Western star for RKO in the 1940s. Father and son would both appear in John Huston's The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, with Holt Sr. in a minor, uncredited role.  

One of the WAMPAS Baby Stars of 1922, Lois Wilson was 31 in 1925. The following year she would appear as Daisy Buchanan in the first film adaptation of The Great Gatsby. 

The Thundering Herd, like many silent films of the era, has not survived. The De Luxe was built the previous year and since 1945 it has been known as the Embassy, Wellington's premier cinema.

King's Theatre ('Wellington's Popular Picture House')

Locked Doors was a romantic drama directed by William C. de Mille, elder brother of the more famous Cecil. In melodramatic circumstances a married woman Mary (Betty Compson) becomes infatuated with another man, John (Theodore von Eltz), who is then invited to move in by the married woman's husband, Norman (Theodore Roberts) to forget about another failed love affair. High drama ensues when a house fire traps Mary and John together in her bedroom, and they are discovered by Norman. Like The Thundering Herd, Locked Doors is a lost silent film.

Utah-born Betty Compson was 28 in 1925 and had been a film actor since 1915. Her success in the early 1920s enabled her to start her own film production company. In 1928, the year of the second Oscar ceremony, she was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress for her role in The Barker, but lost out to Mary Pickford in Coquette.  

The King's was New Zealand's first purpose-built movie theatre, and opened on Dixon St in 1910. It was demolished in 1986. 

Queen's Theatre ('The Cosiest House in Town') 

Still enjoyed today, the 1924 silent comedy Sherlock Jr. is directed by and stars silent era comedy legend Buster Keaton. A 45-minute classic featuring a cinema projectionist (Keaton) who, unlucky in love, falls into a dream that he is the World's Greatest Detective. In this dream he solves a great crime to clear his name and win the heart of The Girl (Kathryn McGuire) from a dastardly villain. The Girl's father is played by Joe Keaton, Buster's father.  

One of Keaton's dozen or so silent comedy classics of the mid-1920s, Sherlock Jr. was constructed around Keaton's desire for a regular Joe character to walk into a movie-screen and become the hero. In 2005 Time magazine named it as one of the 100 greatest films of all time. It entered the public domain on 1 January 2020.

The Queen's opened in Cuba St in 1916 and operated as a cinema until 1955, when it was converted into a billiard hall. It is now occupied by Loretta Cafe in the building next door to Slow Boat Records.

Paramount Theatre

The Great White Way was a boxing flick directed by E. Mason Hopper and released in January 1924. Made in cooperation with the New York City Fire Department, the ten-reeler features Anita Stewart as Follies dancer Mabel, who falls in love with prize-fighter Joe (Oscar Shaw). In it, Joe has to win a big bout to secure the funds to secure Mabel's show from an unscrupulous promoter. The film was produced by William Randolph Hearst for Goldwyn Pictures. It is also a lost picture.

Hopper was a prolific silent film director from 1917 until the end of the 1920s. He also appeared in an uncredited role as a doctor in the 1950 classic Sunset Boulevard. Stewart's real first name was Anna but Vitagraph accidentally publicised her as Anita, which she later adopted. For four years until 1922 she had operated her own production company, and shortly after The Great White Way she left the major studios and took roles in 'Poverty Row' studios to stay working; her final film was in 1928. She also wrote a murder mystery novel, The Devil's Toy, in 1935. Shaw was mainly a stage actor, and is now best known for appearing in the Marx Brothers' first film, The Cocoanuts (1929).

The Paramount operated as a cinema from 1917 to 2017. The last Wellington Film Society screening there was Wim Wenders' 1974 road movie, Wrong Move.

His Majesty's Theatre 

Offering a 'brand new bill that for entertainment value has never been approached in the history of N.Z. Vaudeville', His Majesty's presented Australian "Prince of Comedians" Jim Gerald and his titular Revue Company in their production 'Not Likely', which was billed as "A 100 per cent laughing show with Jimmy as a bonus Chemist's Assistant". Also on the bill was the New York comedy novelty act Three White Kuhns, and comedians George Edwards and Molly Hughes. His Majesty's opened in 1912, and since 1930 has been known as the St James.

See also:
Blog: 100th anniversary of the Embassy Theatre, 31 October 2024

Blog: What's on at the Regal Cinema Karori (1943), 27 August 2023

Blog: What's on at the Regal Cinema Karori (1929-30), 10 February 2020

As my name moves across your lips you see a grown man reeling

Thursday music corner: White Denim are an American rock group formed in Austin, Texas, in 2006. The band has released thirteen studio albums to date, with the seventh and eighth, Stiff (2016) and Performance (2018) achieving success in the UK album charts. Their two most recent albums have been released on the British indie label Bella Union.

The soul-funk-influenced Ha Ha Ha Ha (Yeah) was the second single from White Denim's 2016 album Stiff, an album in which the band went back to basics and recorded speedily in Asheville, North Carolina, after a fortnight's rehearsal. Mojo magazine later named Stiff one of the fifty best albums of 2016.

White Denim - Ha Ha Ha Ha (Yeah) (2016)

See also:

Music: White Denim - At Night In Dreams (live, 2014)

Music: White Denim - Holda You (I'm Psycho) (2016)

Music: White Denim - Crystal Bullets (2021)

As the crowds begin complaining how the Beaujolais is raining

Thursday music corner: Carmarthenshire-born John Cale has experimented with a wide range of musical styles over his long career, which was kick-started by his role as founding member of the enormously influential New York art-rock ensemble the Velvet Underground. He has released 23 solo albums, including collaborations with Terry Riley, Lou Reed, Brian Eno and Bob Neuwirth.

The euphoric, nonsensical baroque pop song Paris 1919 is the title track of Cale's third solo studio album, recorded in Los Angeles and released in February 1973. Cale has performed the entire album live with an orchestra, commencing in Cardiff in 2009.

John Cale - Paris 1919 (1973)  

See also:

Music: John Cale - The Man Who Couldn't Afford to Orgy (1974)

Music: John Cale - Crazy Egypt (Cale / Byrne, 1996)

Music: John Cale - I Wanna Be Around (2001)

Shall I mourn your decline with some thunderbird wine

Thursday music corner: Ian Dury (1942-2000) was an English punk rock and new wave singer-songwriter who, with his band the Blockheads, released 11 studio albums, including one posthumously. The band's second album New Boots and Panties!! (1977) and fourth album Do It Yourself (1979), both on Stiff Records, reached the top five of the UK album charts. A former polio sufferer, Dury was a prominent activist in the music world for disability rights. He died of cancer in March 2000, aged 57.

Sweet Gene Vincent was the first single from New Boots and Panties!! While it failed to chart, it was ranked as number 13 in the NME tracks of 1977 list. The song focuses on the pioneering American rocker whose 1971 death purportedly spurred Dury into pursuing his rock career.

Ian Dury & the Blockheads - Sweet Gene Vincent (live, 1978)

See also:
Music: Ian Dury & the Blockheads - Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick (1978)
Music: Ian Dury & the Blockheads - Reasons To Be Cheerful Pt.3 (1979)
Music: Ian Dury - Profoundly in Love With Pandora (1985)

Is this a human face in the mirror? It looks just like a piece of the sea

Thursday music corner: The Mutton Birds were a New Zealand rock group founded by former Blam Blam Blam and The Front Lawn artist Don McGlashan and associates in 1991. The band first attained prominence with the second single from their 1992 debut self-titled album, Nature, which was a cover of a much-loved 1969 folk-pop single by the Fourmyula's Wayne Mason. It reached number 4 in the New Zealand charts, and was the first of eight top 20 New Zealand singles for the band. The Heater, the opening single from the band's second album Salty, topped the New Zealand chart in 1994. Four of the band's albums reached the New Zealand top 10, and the band won three Aotearoa Music Awards in 1993 (Album, Group and Single of the Year). 

No Telling When appeared on Salty, the Mutton Birds' second album, released in April 1994.    

The Mutton Birds - No Telling When (1994)

See also:

Music: Mutton Birds - White Valiant (1992)

Music: Mutton Birds - In My Room (1994)

Music: Mutton Birds - Envy of Angels (1996)

Notes on a fortnight in Japan

My partner and I were fortunate to enjoy a fortnight exploring Japan for the first time in June. As expected, and as all our friends warned us, it was the kind of trip that quickly became habit-forming - even while we were mid-holiday it was obvious that we would have to return for a second Japan trip, not to mention possibly a third. Of course, we're hardly original in our choice of destination - everyone seems to have been venturing to Japan in the past few years. The exchange rate helps; at 85 yen to the New Zealand dollar, we were able to afford decent, if not elaborate, comforts and not worry too much about the budget. 

Between us, my partner was probably equally excited by the prospect of feeding the deer in the Nara Deer Park and shopping up large in the famous Japanese art supply shops, and I was motivated by the rich opportunities for big-city street photography and the chance to finally ride the Japanese shinkansen high-speed trains. And we were both excited to take advantage of the exchange to shop for clothes at Muji and Uniqlo, neither of which have deigned to open in faraway New Zealand. 

Our time in Tokyo was brief at the beginning of our trip, with only the first Sunday available before we departed. Our accommodation was a tiny room on the 21st floor of the APA Hotel Ryogoku, which had impressive views over the Sumida River. We spent a delightful Sunday in Ueno Park, which is the one place I'd actually been in Tokyo, on my whistle-stop visit in transit many years before. We savoured the exhibits at the Tokyo National Museum and enjoyed walking and people-watching in the park.

Chinese stoneware, 7th-8th century

The next morning we made our way during rush hour to Tokyo Station for the Shinkansen to Osaka, a swift two-and-a-half hours in overcast weather (no Fujiyama sighting). Osaka was to be our base for the next four nights, staying in the pleasant Citadines Namba hotel - a much nicer room than our Tokyo stopover. We joined the throngs admiring the lively restaurant district around the Dotonbori Canal, with plenty of garishly illuminated advertising signs: feisty octopi, belligerent sushi chefs, and a sinister Japanese clown who's been banging his drum since the 1950s. On our second day the rains hit Osaka, but we still managed to enjoy visiting the City Museum of Fine Arts and the Shitennoji Temple. On our third day the sun returned, and the day was devoted to ambling and shopping north of Dotonbori near the Shinsaibashi-suji boulevard, including the Kawachi art supply shop and sampling the lovely wares of the Studio Ghibli shop. Our final day was spent on a busy daytrip by Japan Rail to nearby Kyoto, using our handy Suica cards, and taking in the sights of Nijo Castle and beautiful Kinkaku-ji (the Temple of the Golden Pavilion) on the hottest day of our trip.

Dotonbori lights, Osaka

Our next destination was only an hour away by train, and was a pleasant interlude after the bustle of Osaka. In leafy Nara we stayed at the beautiful and peaceful Miroku Hotel on the edge of the lovely Deer Park. On our day of arrival we met the park's tame deer for the first time, and relished the inspiring artworks at the Buddhist Sculpture Hall. Then on the following day we donned our best (and only) walking shoes for a mammoth day exploring the deer park, during which Mia was able to befriend  plenty of politely hungry deer (they exchange bows with you), and soak in the majesty of the Todai-ji Daibutsuden, the hall of the Great Buddha. Plus we caught a brief but exciting glimpse of a Japanese badger at the Todai-ji Nigatsu-do Buddhist Temple.

Feeding the polite but hungry deer in Nara

From Nara we boarded a local train to cross metro Osaka from east to west, ending up in the port city of Kobe. Staying in the Tokyu REI Hotel on Meriken Rd in the business district we had two days to explore. The City Museum had a diverting collection of ancient bronze bells, pre-European maps and artefacts from early 20th century Kobe business life. We also had lunch at a nearby minimalist cafe, which served me up the world's titchiest ham and butter sandwich. The following day we took the famous gondola up into the hills behind the city to visit the Nunobiki Herb Gardens, admire the view over Osaka Bay (rainclouds permitting) and wander back down the peaceful garden trails to the big city.

Nunobiki Herb Gardens gondola

Finally we boarded another Shinkansen for the two and three-quarter-hour journey back to the capital to round out our trip. We stayed in a quiet, pleasant little backstreet hotel called The Hideout near Uguisudani station at the northern end of Ueno Park, and enjoyed exploring the local eateries sprinkled amongst the winding alleyways. Our first full day back in in Tokyo was spent exploring the bustling shops of Shinjuku, including the holy retail pilgrimage sites of Muji, Uniqlo, Tower Records and the Sekaido art supplies shop. The following day started with an amble around the bookshops in the Jimbocho district and a bite to eat in a lovely, serene cafe bookshop, the Book House Cafe. Then we flipped the crowd switch to check out the world-famous 'scramble' crossing outside Shibuya station, followed by a walk up to Harajuku for the MoMA Design Store and a stroll around peaceful Yoyogi Park. On our final day in Japan we walked through Ueno Park to the Metropolitan Art Museum for the 78th Annual Women’s Art exhibition, and enjoyed an artwork with netball hoops that I scored a goal in. (And won a polite round of applause from the gallery attendants). We rounded off our stay with a relaxing wander through the park, savouring the atmosphere of a myriad food festival stalls before we collected our bags and made our way to the Narita Skyliner train from Keisei Ueno station.

Shinjuku station commuters