King's to show private collections

30 May 2006
By RICHARD WOODDOld newsreels, cartoons, and New Zealand events from two large private 16mm film collections are to be shown to the public in Stratford.
Most of the films are from the collection of Bruce Cook, who died 18 months ago and bequeathed it to the King's Theatre, where he spent much of his retirement years as a volunteer projectionist.
The other collection is in the custody of Stratford's Rosemary Macpherson, whose father Eric Gordon Macpherson, filmed every major event around Kaitaia, Northland, where he farmed until his death in 1974.
The TET King's Theatre will screen special Sunday 2pm matinee sessions from June 25.
The theatre manager, Barry Milner, and the head projectionist, Merv Sayer, are gradually working through the hundreds of reels, splicing short films together, labelling the tins and making up programmes for public showing.
Mr Milner said Mr Cook collected 16mm film as a hobby. "For some reason he didn't send any of his collection to the NZ Film Archive, he wanted it kept intact here, so we've set up the Bruce Cook Film Library at the theatre. He had about 10 projectors and we have four of them working. It's slow work, but we're finding all sorts of gems."
These included 1950s newsreels, cartoons, feature films; documentaries on Rotorua, the inaugural trip of the first red railcar from Wellington to Napier; the Crown Lynn pottery factory; the first Beazley Home being built in Auckland; performing chimpanzees in a film called Manhattan Monkey Business; an interview with Peter Snell after he broke the world mile record at Wanganui; the Milford Track; Endeavour on the Ice, about a US icebreaker in the Antarctic; circuses and zoos; NZ National Film Unit Pictorial Parade; Movietone News; Universal International News 1954; Termites from Mars a six-minute cartoon; the Golden Shears championships.
"There are a couple of Danny Kaye short films, some Pete Smith Specials and possibly a Joe McDoak – people will remember them being shown preceding the feature film in the 50s and 60s," Mr Milner said. "There's one silent film that someone has shot of a trip in a Vanguard car from Rotorua to about Hawera. They stop to boil the billy and show us the sights along the way."
Eric Macpherson was a British-born schoolteacher who bought his first movie camera in 1927 (it's on display at King's) and died in 1974. He came out to visit his brother and ended up buying a farm at Peria, Northland. He filmed every major event around Kaitaia, including Opo the dolphin.
Rosemary, who is custodian of the material, is having the film transferred to DVD by a local contractor, Tony Kelly.
In January 1925, King's Theatre was the first theatre in the world outside Hollywood to show sound film.
Mr Milner said Bill Kirkwood, a former Stratford mayor, was one of the syndicate which built the theatre and he bought the importing rights to the De Forrest Phono System and installed it in the theatre. This was two years before The Jazz Singer, the first talkie feature film made.

"We'll start showing film from the collections on June 25, and thereafter on the last Sunday of the month, for as long as it remains popular," Mr Milner said. "There'll be a small cover charge for the theatre."