CHAIN OF THEATRES

Dominion, Volume 26, Issue 280, 22 August 1933, Page 11

CHAIN OF THEATRES

Showing of British Filins

SUCCESSFUL NEW POLICY

At present making a tour of New Zealand is Mr. Ernest Turnbull, managing director for British Dominions Films, Ltd., who recently returned to Australia from a business visit to England. Speaking to a "Dominion” representative yesterday, Mr. Turnbull said that his main mission in New Zealand at the present time was to look over the theatres that were “going allBritish” at an early date, thus completing a chain of such theatres which would screen exclusively British Dominions’ products. The all-British policy had been tremendously successful in Australia, Mr. Turnbull said, and in one theatre in Melbourne six programmes only were needed to fulfil requirements for twelve months. “Tell Me To-night,” one of the year’s most outstanding successes, was now in its seventeenth week in Melbourne, and would probably break the record set up by “Jack’s the Boy.” Mr. Turnbull added that everything indicated that the public of Australia and New Zealand wanted British films, and wanted them in theatres devoted exclusively to the British product. There was, he said, a public for foreign films, but neither the foreign film supporters nor British film enthusiasts wanted a combination of the two on the same programme.

“It is gratifying to note,” he continued, “that the all-British theatre policy has already extended to South Africa and Canada, while in London the great Carlton Theatre i’ the tlaymarket has lately gone all-British, and is expected to show the British and Dominions film “Bitter Sweet” for a iseason of at least two months, commencing in September. British Dominions Films, Ltd., may therefore be said to have inaugurated a policy which is receiving Empirewide acceptance.” The corporation had before it definite plans for linking up the all-Brit-ish theatres of South Africa, Canada, and other parts of the Empire, with the circuit in Australia and New Zealand, the ultimate object being a chain of all-British theatres encircling the Empire, Sir. Turnbull added. His present visit to New Zealand was directly connected .with that ambitious project, as it had to do with the opening of two more all-British houses in the Dominion, namely, the Majestic Theatre, Auckland, and the St. James Theatre, Dunedin, both of which, together with the Paramount (Wellington) and the Civic (Christchurch) would be operated exclusively on the B.D.F. product.