Regent full of old fashioned charm and film magic
A treasure for our community:
After what she describes as a fabulous visit to the Regent Theatre on Saturday for the birthday screenings, Julia McCarthy-Fox was thinking about what an amazing treasure the theatre is for Te Awamutu and also how important it is for Kathy Prater and her on a personal level.
Last weekend marked a special date with the 90th anniversary of the opening of The Regent Theatre on March 12, 1932.
We are very lucky to have this wonderful place in our town, and in an age of technology it combines the latest of this with old fashioned charm and magic.
Situated amongst the shops on the main street of the town, from the outside the building looks quite plain and very much of its age — with the now obligatory QR scanning code on the panel by the front door, below the traditional neon cinema sign, and with a vast glass frontage full of posters advertising current films.
As you walk through the door it is like stepping back in time in many ways, and yet it is right up to date in others.
This place has rules, simple ones regarding consideration of others, and patrons are expected to abide by them. There is a simple dress code ensuring that people are wearing proper clothes when they visit, and the use of mobile phones is not tolerated within the auditoria.
The entire building is a treasure trove of film memorabilia collected and lovingly displayed by the owner Allan Webb. You can feel the history of the film industry enveloping you wherever you look, with so many amazing pieces from long closed picture houses, saved forever and given a new lease of life as part of the decor.
This is no ordinary venue, and Allan is no ordinary man. With well over 50 years of experience in the film industry there is little, if anything, that this man does not know about his subject and he is widely respected and rightly considered an expert.
Allan chooses every film that he shows with great care, knowing what his audiences will and will not wish to watch, and he negotiates hard with multimillion dollar distributors in order to keep the entrance charges down to a level that he knows his patrons can and will pay, making this the best value place to go as well as the most convenient for us.
To celebrate the 90th birthday there were three sessions advertised — with no mention of the ticket prices — promising simply “nostalgic sessions”.
No information was available about what the films would be, it was all a surprise, and what a surprise.
The first treat was that there was no charge, this was yet another of Allan’s gifts to the people of Te Awamutu, and the second was the films themselves.
The second film that we watched was a 1957 black and white comedy The Smallest
Show on Earth featuring, amongst others Virginia McKenna and Bill Travers, with a splendid performance by Margaret Rutherford and a very amusing portrayal of a cinema projectionist by Peter Sellers.
This subject of this film, the transfer of ownership of a small local cinema, was very apt given Allan’s imminent retirement, upon which he is gifting the cinema building and its entire contents to a trust in order for it to remain open for us to enjoy in perpetuity.
But the absolute highlight of the afternoon for me was the hilarious first film — the 1955 version of The Ladykillers.
Described as a black comedy crime, produced by Ealing Studios, this film was pure magic — I don’t think I have ever laughed at a film so much.
The casting was perfect, with Katie Johnson, then well into her 70s, as beautifully spoken elderly English lady unknowingly at the centre of a mail robbery, and it didn’t feel remotely dated to watch, although it clearly was, which is surely the mark of a fabulous film.
Saturday’s presentations
The birthday programme also featured six guest speakers. We will feature their comments in next week’s edition.
are not the first that we have been lucky enough to enjoy as Allan’s guests — he is a man with what many dream of, his own cinema, and he likes to share the joy of this, which is a very special thing.
I spent many years working front of house and in the box office of local theatres in the UK before my son was born, and the first time I visited The Regent when I moved here I felt at home.
I met my wife, Kathy Prater, at an Andre´ Rieu concert in Sacramento in the US in 2017 and moved here to be with her. Allan is also an Andre´ fan and shows the annual concert screenings more times than anywhere else, so he was the obvious person to turn to for help when we had the idea of getting married during the interval of the 2020 concert.
We had already cancelled our original wedding because of Covid but did not want to wait indefinitely to reinstate it and we needed something just for us.
Allan was wonderful. As well as agreeing to be one of our witnesses he gifted us the use of the tiniest of his cinemas, the beautiful intimate 18 seater one, with comfortable seats, an understated elegance, and room in front of the seats not only for our ceremony but for us to dance to The Danube too.
He arranged a private screening of the concert screening, and it was to Allan that a personal wedding video message from Andre´ was sent via the film production company, to play on the day.
We enjoyed the first half of the concert, had our ceremony, and then enjoyed the second half. It was perfect, and as a result this building and Allan will always hold a very special place in our hearts.
People talk about the magic of the movies — here in Te Awamutu it is more about the magic of the movie theatre.