Speaker 1: Andrew. When was the last time you went to a
Speaker 1: drive in cinema?
Speaker 2: Sadly too long ago. I'm going to say fifteen years
Speaker 2: or so ago, Dramala.
Speaker 1: We'll see. That's why they all closed down, from your
Speaker 1: lack of support.
Speaker 2: And a lot of others. It was the video shop
Speaker 2: that sort of did them in, wasn't it more than
Speaker 2: anything else? I was old.
Speaker 1: I think it was your lack of support. A man
Speaker 1: who's very angry with you, joins us, now, David Kilderry,
Speaker 1: who ran the Lunar drive in for years and years
Speaker 1: and years.
Speaker 3: Hello, David gooda Simon good Andrew.
Speaker 1: Now David, So tell us movies, drive ins and stuff?
Speaker 1: Where did that first enter your life? Where did the
Speaker 1: love of it come from?
Speaker 4: Well?
Speaker 3: I remember going to the drive in as a little kid,
Speaker 3: being flopped in the backseat of the family Volkswagen and
Speaker 3: fighting for viewing space with my brothers and sisters. But
Speaker 3: the story I like to tell is that in nineteen
Speaker 3: seventy four, my parents built a second story extension on
Speaker 3: the family home in Reservoir. My sister chose the bedroom
Speaker 3: with the view of the backyard, and I got the
Speaker 3: one that looked out to a drive in screen. So
Speaker 3: from that point on I was hooked.
Speaker 2: See how about that got no sound but you got
Speaker 2: to see the action.
Speaker 3: Well, with the type of movies they were running in
Speaker 3: the mid seventies andrew that you didn't really need sound.
Speaker 3: What was going on?
Speaker 2: Fairly predictable plots. Yeah, that's intriguing, and you ended up
Speaker 2: with the controlling the lunar. How many drive ins do
Speaker 2: you know are still operating around Melbourne or in the
Speaker 2: greater Melbourne area?
Speaker 3: Well, but this two in Melbourne. There's Village Coburg and
Speaker 3: down at Dremana as well, but there's only twelve left
Speaker 3: in Australia. And if we were talking just a few
Speaker 3: months ago, I would have said ten because two of them,
Speaker 3: one in Queensland and one in South Australia, had their
Speaker 3: screens blown down and that's a problem. Once they get
Speaker 3: to fifty sixty years old, the rust and rot starts
Speaker 3: to take effect, and storms took them both out. But
Speaker 3: I'm pleased to save both of those driving one in
Speaker 3: Cooper PD and one in air back open again and
Speaker 3: screening now.
Speaker 2: So well the Kopa PD drive and there's a thought hell,
Speaker 2: I just can't imagine, But of course there is obviously one.
Speaker 2: What would a screen cost a replace?
Speaker 3: Ah, well, look, they're upwards of three to four hundred
Speaker 3: thousand dollars now because they're massive. They're as large as
Speaker 3: a suburban house block when if you lay the thing
Speaker 3: on the ground. But of course you need about twenty
Speaker 3: concrete mixers worth of concrete just to secure the foundations
Speaker 3: before you start with all the steel work coming up
Speaker 3: out of the ground.
Speaker 1: Well, now that answers David a question that I had
Speaker 1: for you, because I occasionally go out to the one
Speaker 1: Turner trash and Treasure place out there, which is on
Speaker 1: the old one Turner drive in cinema spot, and the
Speaker 1: concrete base, the big concrete blocks that were at the
Speaker 1: bottom of the screen are still there and I look
Speaker 1: at it when I go there, and I go, I
Speaker 1: wonder why they never got rid of those blocks.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well it's like an iceberg. Most of it's below
Speaker 3: the surface. But you're right. The tragic story with the
Speaker 3: old hoytz Wan Turner drive in was is that in
Speaker 3: nineteen eighty two Heints made the decision to add a
Speaker 3: second screen there and it cost them about a million
Speaker 3: dollars With all the ash fels and new projection building.
Speaker 3: So it was a twin screen, but for just one year.
Speaker 3: So you mentioned earlier the videos. They had a devastating
Speaker 3: effect and that driving closed as a twin drive in
Speaker 3: only after one year of operation with the two screens.
Speaker 2: See the heights took a bath there, didn't they financially?
Speaker 3: Absolutely, the business changed really fast, Andrew, I was working
Speaker 3: in drivings in those days and while they were closing
Speaker 3: faster than we could eat a steak sandwich from the
Speaker 3: snack bar.
Speaker 2: Did you ever try some drive ins? I know did
Speaker 2: I never actually went to one of them, but had
Speaker 2: this but there were rock bands sometimes playing before the movie,
Speaker 2: some drive ins.
Speaker 3: Oh look, it was huge our driving at Danning on
Speaker 3: the Luna when it was village in the seventies. They
Speaker 3: had Billy Thorpe and the Aztecs play there one afternoon
Speaker 3: and the sound was so loud they got complaints from
Speaker 3: two suburbs away. So of course your good friend Pete
Speaker 3: Smith used to compare Battle of the Bands at the
Speaker 3: north Land Twin Driving and Denise Dreisdale was one of
Speaker 3: the go go dances there. So there's been lots of
Speaker 3: live music at drivings over the years.
Speaker 1: We've just had a text coming through. My last trip
Speaker 1: to the Lunar driving that I went to was to
Speaker 1: see one of the worst films I ever paid to see,
Speaker 1: The Flash in twenty twenty two. It's not your fault
Speaker 1: if the product's not.
Speaker 3: Good, though, No, that's right. I'd take a fence if
Speaker 3: it was the Hamburgers or the donuts. But giving it
Speaker 3: to the movie, we just show them, we don't make them.
Speaker 2: Like the hard Top. There is a lot of money,
Speaker 2: a lot of profit comes from, of course, the concessions,
Speaker 2: doesn't it from the hamburgers and the lollies?
Speaker 3: Absolutely? Andrew look the concessions as we call them in
Speaker 3: the industry, whether it be hot food or just the
Speaker 3: popcorn and the drinks, it's important. But I should point
Speaker 3: out that there are cinemas where snacks are still reasonably affordable.
Speaker 3: You can make good profit without charging extortion at prices.
Speaker 3: And when I go, and I still go to the
Speaker 3: cinema and drive in quite frequently, when I see prices
Speaker 3: that I think are over the top, I think that's
Speaker 3: just pushing a little bit too far. There's still good
Speaker 3: money in it without being ridiculous.
Speaker 1: Now, so how did you come to run. So you
Speaker 1: ended up owning the Lunar Driving, didn't you?
Speaker 3: We did. Yeah, Look, I'd spent my career working I
Speaker 3: started at Greater Union Cinemas, working at the Forum, which
Speaker 3: many of your listeners would remember, perhaps even as the States.
Speaker 3: So I started there about forty four years ago as
Speaker 3: an assistant projectionist, then rose through to projectionists, worked at Hoyts,
Speaker 3: worked in their cinemas, and then went to Village and
Speaker 3: I got to supervise both drivings and cinemas there. So
Speaker 3: the natural progression and what I always wanted to do
Speaker 3: was to run my own theater. So with a partner
Speaker 3: and my brother, we reopened the former closed Village daninom
Speaker 3: Driving as it was over twenty years ago and ran
Speaker 3: it for over twenty years.
Speaker 1: Was it a Was it a good community in that
Speaker 1: if you're up against Heyts and Village, who were, of
Speaker 1: course sort of the two big ones, and you're operating
Speaker 1: as an independent, did they you know they sort of
Speaker 1: a bit not happy with you? Or was it all
Speaker 1: a big friendly community?
Speaker 3: Well I wouldn't say it was absolutely friendly, but look,
Speaker 3: given I knew very senior people at both companies, I
Speaker 3: remember that one company in particular said to me they
Speaker 3: were very supportive of having strong independent cinemas out there,
Speaker 3: and plus we were going to hire a lot of
Speaker 3: films from their distribution arm and that we did. Look luckily,
Speaker 3: we weren't competing with the drive in against one of theirs.
Speaker 3: At the time. Both Tromana and Coburg were equi distant
Speaker 3: from us at Luna Daninong, So as long as there
Speaker 3: was a forty five minute drive, we weren't really standing
Speaker 3: on their toes. And look, some people just prefer the
Speaker 3: drive into an indoor cinema, and we drew from a
Speaker 3: large area. And in fact, we said almost every one
Speaker 3: of our customers had to drive past the cinema to
Speaker 3: get to us, So they're making a drive in choice
Speaker 3: rather than a choice on a particular movie or not.
Speaker 2: So talking with David Kilderry about drive in movies, and
Speaker 2: there was a big problem with musicals, view that the
Speaker 2: drive in for years and years has been it's been
Speaker 2: fixed now. Of course you can you tune into your
Speaker 2: car radio, your car sound system too. Here here the
Speaker 2: movie soundtrack. But I remember going to see Paint your
Speaker 2: Wagon at the drive and then you've got this little
Speaker 2: tiny speaker hooks on your window with and all that
Speaker 2: eight track sound or whatever sixteen tracks sound, Holly would
Speaker 2: have gone to the bother of creating for the movie
Speaker 2: was just reduced to this little tid That was a
Speaker 2: bit problem Muslim.
Speaker 3: All of that beautiful seventy millimeter six track stereo sound
Speaker 3: folded down into one little insect eat and speaker hang
Speaker 3: it fright window. Yeah, look, thankfully sound improved.
Speaker 4: Andrew.
Speaker 3: You know, all are driving since the nineties have used
Speaker 3: FM stereo sounds. So we used to say that the
Speaker 3: better your car sound system is, the better our movie
Speaker 3: is going to sound. So that was a big improvement.
Speaker 3: Yet people loved the nostalgia of the speakers. They didn't
Speaker 3: want us to take the speakers away. They wanted them there.
Speaker 3: They wanted to look at them. They want to use them, absolutely,
Speaker 3: it's synonymous with the driving, but they didn't want to
Speaker 3: listen to them. They wanted the better quality sounds.
Speaker 1: But then they drive off with it's still attached to
Speaker 1: the window.
Speaker 2: Ah.
Speaker 3: Luckily only very few people did that because it did
Speaker 3: cause problems for us and for them.
Speaker 2: There was a Sandringham Drive and I went to it
Speaker 2: a long time ago, and there was a little section
Speaker 2: where you could just sit. And these were people who
Speaker 2: I remember I spoke to them at interval and they
Speaker 2: just came to the drive in to watch the movie.
Speaker 2: There was a speaker there and they actually lived only
Speaker 2: a street away and they just walked up. And did
Speaker 2: you provide seats out in actual seats for non vehicle people.
Speaker 3: We did, and the indoor sections that they had for
Speaker 3: those people at some of the drivings. Burwood had one
Speaker 3: as well, and there was one at our driving. They
Speaker 3: were called walking so they in cinema seats with a
Speaker 3: big glass wall and a speaker. And that's for people
Speaker 3: that wanted to arrive on a bike or walk. In fact,
Speaker 3: I heard even some people arrived on horses to view
Speaker 3: movies in the early days. That way it driving wonderful.
Speaker 2: I didn't realize what a great idea.
Speaker 4: It was a good idea. Yeah, Now you.
Speaker 1: Do presentations and public speaking and stuff, don't you on this?
Speaker 1: Is it just on drivings that you do it or no?
Speaker 3: I do it on few topics, mostly related to cinemas,
Speaker 3: but also do some to do with cars as well.
Speaker 3: But the most popular public talk I do was on
Speaker 3: the history of drivings and I do that quite often,
Speaker 3: and I also do quite a few on cinemas as well.
Speaker 3: And I've got one coming up at the Brand Mechanics
Speaker 3: Institute on August the twelfth and that's called the Lost
Speaker 3: Suburban Cinemas of Melbourne and that's a free talk that's
Speaker 3: happening there, so you can book online if there's still
Speaker 3: some seats available and you'll hear all about Melbourne's Lost
Speaker 3: suburban cinemas.
Speaker 2: I've got another thing that really well did the cinema,
Speaker 2: the driving cinemas in David was the fact that so
Speaker 2: much of their land became just extremely valuable. The Clayton Drive,
Speaker 2: it was well, how many acres was the luna to
Speaker 2: give me.
Speaker 3: Some luna was fifteen But Clayton that you mentioned Metro
Speaker 3: and later Village Clayton across the road from the University,
Speaker 3: there was on twenty five acres of some of the
Speaker 3: most prime land. And when you think of two driving
Speaker 3: up on the hill there onto the Rack Road and Sandringham.
Speaker 3: As we mentioned, the moment these places started to have
Speaker 3: marginal operating figures, that was a very easy decision to
Speaker 3: sell them and get the profits. And that's the problem
Speaker 3: with drivings today they're christ out of the populated areas.
Speaker 2: It's unbelievable now people, there was a driving in track
Speaker 2: and that you know what was it, you know, two
Speaker 2: or three thousand dollars per square footed land or something
Speaker 2: like that into ITCT and there used to be driving there. Ye,
Speaker 2: very hard to justify running it as a as a theater.
Speaker 3: That's right, yeah, it really. People ask me often, you know,
Speaker 3: will drivings open again? Will anyone build one? Well? They might,
Speaker 3: but you have to find an area that's close enough
Speaker 3: to a population, on a piece of land that is
Speaker 3: going to have land tax rates that are going to
Speaker 3: be affordable. And that's one of the reasons we closed
Speaker 3: that Danninong is the land tax and all the operating
Speaker 3: costs just just became too high for us to maintain
Speaker 3: the driving there now.
Speaker 1: David Kilderry, Captain Elfie has called in an occasional caller
Speaker 1: to the programs I believe, with the question for you
Speaker 1: get a Captain Elfie.
Speaker 4: And the greeting sir, and how do you do David?
Speaker 4: It's fantastic what you're doing.
Speaker 3: But what I used to do, but thank you very much.
Speaker 4: Yes, okay, if you can just put your mind down
Speaker 4: to Lawn, back where I used to live and did
Speaker 4: all my holidays down there at my grandmother's place around
Speaker 4: the corner from the Lawn Hotel. Well, we had a
Speaker 4: cinema there, sense I'm saying, from the sixties onwards, and
Speaker 4: it's I want to they're having a few concerts there
Speaker 4: and stuff, but it's not the old cinema with those
Speaker 4: beautiful seats and the chap is down you know, and
Speaker 4: the chap who did it, who ran it, his nickname
Speaker 4: was Mooney. Don't ask me what his real name was,
Speaker 4: but we always knew him was Mooney. And fortunately I've
Speaker 4: heard from some of the boys down at Lawn that
Speaker 4: he did pass away. But it was a classic. And
Speaker 4: then people want to change it to I don't know,
Speaker 4: some venue, even units. I mean, my god, it's.
Speaker 3: A beautiful feater down at Lawn. I know it very well.
Speaker 3: And unfortunately it changed hands about two years ago, and
Speaker 3: they had plans to run movies not just at holidays
Speaker 3: there but all year round, and unfortunately there wasn't enough
Speaker 3: numbers to support it. And now, like you said, I
Speaker 3: heard that it's now doing live performances and various other things.
Speaker 3: I just hope that they're able to at least reopen
Speaker 3: it for the summer holidays again, because there's traditions of
Speaker 3: generations of people going down to lawn and enjoying that cinema,
Speaker 3: particularly on a rainy tay in the middle of January.
Speaker 1: It's one of those things, is that. Thank you, Captain Alphie.
Speaker 1: It's one of those things, isn't it, David, And I've
Speaker 1: always said this. We lament the closing of the local
Speaker 1: family owned hardware store, yet we all shop at Bunnings.
Speaker 1: We the closing of our the local butcher shop and
Speaker 1: the local greengrocer, yet we all go to Coles and
Speaker 1: Woolli's the only people to blame for the lack of
Speaker 1: you for changes in these sorts of things. If a
Speaker 1: cinema closes down due to low patronage, it's the patrons
Speaker 1: who were to blame.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's right. It's all part of it. And the
Speaker 3: old song you don't know what you've got until it's gone.
Speaker 3: Say when it's gone, I wish it was back. But
Speaker 3: you need to support them while they're there. And you know,
Speaker 3: often you see whenever you see something mentioned about driving
Speaker 3: theaters online, often the first or second comment is, oh,
Speaker 3: I used to be snuck in.
Speaker 4: In the boots.
Speaker 3: Well, that certainly didn't help things on the finance either.
Speaker 1: But it was a right of passage, wasn't it.
Speaker 2: It seemed to me. Did you actually find that happened
Speaker 2: a lot, that people were snucking in boots?
Speaker 3: It didn't happen a lot, but it did happen. And
Speaker 3: we had a rule, my brother and I, if we
Speaker 3: caught them before the ticket box, if for another customer
Speaker 3: said hey, there's two people in the boot in the
Speaker 3: behind us. If we caught them there, we got them
Speaker 3: out to embarrass them and let them still pay to
Speaker 3: come in. But if we caught them inside the theater,
Speaker 3: once they'd done the deception or theft is the police
Speaker 3: class it has, they'd be booted out without refund. So
Speaker 3: you walk a fine line for the people that tried
Speaker 3: to put that over on us.
Speaker 1: Wonderful And now the only bit of cinematic sort of
Speaker 1: knowledge that I've got when and I think I bring
Speaker 1: it up every time we ever speak to you, David,
Speaker 1: I was told once where Village Cinemas got its name from.
Speaker 1: And if I'm right in remembering this correctly, it was
Speaker 1: named after the Twin Driving at Croydon, was it not?
Speaker 4: Yeah, you're right.
Speaker 3: That was the Rock Kirby who was the founder along
Speaker 3: with his partners Spencer and Alexander. They built that drive
Speaker 3: in as their first one in late nineteen fifty four
Speaker 3: and Rock told me he was looking for a name
Speaker 3: and he couldn't think of a name. And just alongside
Speaker 3: near the entrances it's where McDonald's is in Croydon now
Speaker 3: on Runda Highway. But there was an old group of
Speaker 3: shops that have now gone and they were called the
Speaker 3: Village Baker, the Village Grosser, the Village milk Bar, and
Speaker 3: he thought why not the Village Driving. So that simple
Speaker 3: name he just took from the shops next to it,
Speaker 3: and that's the name we know well. It was in
Speaker 3: twenty countries around the world at the peak as village
Speaker 3: cinemas today.
Speaker 2: Movies and all that. Yes, a big distribution company too.
Speaker 2: David Gilderry, what an absolute pleasure to talk to you,
Speaker 2: and I hope we speak again sometime.
Speaker 3: It's always great fun. Andrew and Simon, thanks a lot.
Speaker 1: And if people do want to see talks, presentations or
Speaker 1: book you or anything, is there a website or anything
Speaker 1: they can go.
Speaker 3: To Well For the one I've got coming up, they
Speaker 3: can just go to the paran Mechanics Institute PMI just
Speaker 3: search it online. It's the Victorian Local History Library. The
Speaker 3: Cinema and Theatre Historical Society are also big supporters of
Speaker 3: my presentations and you can search for them online as well.
Speaker 1: Fabulous David killed Derry from the lunar, driving Rick Milne
Speaker 1: up after the break