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Freotopia > cinemas > Princess Theatre.
See also: photos showing the interior c. 2009.
See also: Princess Chambers.
And see also: Leake St Cafe (between the former cinema entrance and the auditorium).
Princess Theatre
The former Princess Theatre cinema is a large brick building on Leake Street (most of the length of the street on its northern side). The entrance to the cinema building was in Market Street, through Princess Chambers (the newer of the two parts of that building). The second, two-storey, Princess Chambers building on Market Street was built in 1912 by C. Moore to the design of architect John McNeece for Frank Biddles. David Hutchison explains that the building with the theatre (cinema) entrance through it was a 1912 extension to Princess Chambers, the three-storey part of which had been built for Biddles in 1897. The cinema closed in 1969, but the building still exists.
I'm guessing the Princess Chambers part of the complex is on Lots 127 and 126, and the cinema auditorium part is on Lots 125 and 124.
Geneve & Facius have this entry for the cinema:
Fremantle's foremost early picture house, the Princess Theatre, was commissioned by [T. M.] Coombe and designed by Claude H. Nicholas in 1911. It was constructed in Leake Street, with a front entrance from busy Market Street leading to the railway station. Patrons entered through an arcade between shops and crossed a right-of-way before entering the inner vestibule and the Edwardian-style auditorium, with seating for 1266. Doors opened on to Leake Street, for a quick exit after the show. The Princess featured an orchestrelle [player organ designed to mimic the sound of an orchestra] used for recitals and to accompany silent films.
The entrance was where Kakulas Sister now trades, and some of the theatre masonry can still be seen in the shop. The auditorium is now used as a warehouse, so the building as such must still be in reasonable condition. It's on the Register of the National Estate, though I suspect that the part they're most interested in is the two-storey offices-and-shops building on the corner. The Leake Street auditorium is now completely separated from what was the Market Street entrance, with the former openings bricked up. The walkway between is now a laneway, storage, and the Leake St Cafe.
The Race Horse hotel, and before it, the Plough, were on lot 125, near the corner of Leake and Market Streets. That site became part of the cinema auditorium building on the corner.
Summary: The 1911 cinema auditorium building in Leake Street, designed Nicholas, had an arcade leading to the cinema through the second part of Princess Chambers, designed McNeece, which was built to include the entrance from Market Street through to the cinema behind. The arcade is now Kakulas Sister shop. The Organ Society of WA (see refs) says that the organ was a Wurlitzer.
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The Lady of the Harem (announced on the marquee) was released in the USA at the end of 1926, so this photograph would have been taken in 1927. Cook & Son was only so-called from 1919: before which Cook's partner was one Bayly. Image courtesy Fremantle City Library, #4568.
Another photograph from the Fremantle City Library Local History Collection (#964) this one taken by Roy Mudge in the late 1960s, so not long before the cinema closed. He also shot the interior—perhaps the same day?
Shot from the dress circle shows the cinema when still in use. From Museum of Perth from Facebook.
These three photographs from the Fremantle City Library Local History Collection (#965, #966, #967) were also taken by Roy Mudge. The first one, taken from the front of the auditorium, shows damaged seats in the front row, suggesting that the operator was losing interest in maintenance.
The proscenium is surprisingly plain.
The dress circle is in better repair than the front stalls, and shows some engaging plasterwork below the ceiling, and thicker pile carpet to the floors.
Kakulas Sister has moved their sign down a bit (thank you) to reveal the pre-1969 Princess Theatre painted sign.
In this one, you can see the metal the sign was painted on, at least forty years ago, and possibly sixty or more. I notice that the old sign is fading and may need to be repainted as there appears to be an intention to retain it.
This photo, taken 26 July 2023, courtesy of Michael Barker at Fremantle Shipping News, shows that the sign has not yet been restored.
This one shows the relationship between the two buildings, the one on the left containing at its rear the former Princess Theatre cinema, and the one on the right called Princess Chambers containing a warren of offices and shops.
Inside Kakulas Sister, the impressive entry into the Princess Theatre is still to be seen, heading west towards the former cinema.
Also inside Kakulas Sister, on the south wall, someone has exposed some of the 1930s wallpaper: chinoiserie.
Detail from the wallpaper.
This is the offices/shops part of the extended Princess Chambers building, from the side, in Leake Street.
And here's the Leake Street side of the exterior of the cinema auditorium. Access may apparently be obtained through one of those doors—but you'd have to know the right person, I guess.
A photograph from a few years ago shows the KAKULAS SISTER name on the awning concealing the Princess Theatre sign. The Kakulas sign has now been moved down a bit to reveal the pre-1969 paint.
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In the 1980s a new role was foreseen for the theatre building, as reported in the article which follows. I don't know if the markets actually took place, but the interior is now used merely for storage. Photograph above from the Fremantle City Library Local History Collection (#4568).
Some shots of the interior stripped of furniture, date unknown, probably c. 1970.
Notes and acknowledgements
Many thanks to John Reed.
Images and newspaper article, as indicated, thanks to the Fremantle City Library.
References and Links
Bell, Max D. 1986, Perth: A Cinema History, Book Guild, Sussex: 41-2.
Geneve, Vyonne & Ron Facius 2016, Picture Palaces of the Golden West, National Trust of Australia: 24-25.
Hutchison, David, Fremantle Walks: 144.
Paul Weaver wrote a great blog entry in 2004 about working at the Princess Theatre as an assistant projectionist.
The Princess Theatre is mentioned briefly in:
Ron Davidson, Fremantle Impressions, Fremantle Press, 2007: 129. As it's less than one sentence, I may as well quote the mention in full: '... Princess Theatre in Leake Street (now an office-furniture warehouse but still with its dress circle, the large projection box, and some thirties theatre decoration intact ...'
See also: Federation Warehouse.
WA CinemaWeb page
State Heritage Office entry
Organ Society of Western Australia
Appendix
What follows is the whole entry, unedited, for this former cinema from the ammpt (Australian Museum Of Motion Picture & Television Inc.) site - not as an act of copyright theft but as a backup. Websites often disappear for various reasons.
On the corner of Market St – next to the Terminus Hotel on the corner of Pakenham St, and opposite the Olympia skating rink – an old warehouse was demolished, to make way for West’s Princess theatre, opened on 21 December 1912, the first purpose-built hardtop in the suburban area. Seating 1850 persons, the new theatre was managed by T. M. (later Sir Thomas) Coombe till August 1914, when West’s opened another cinema at Subiaco and transferred their suburban operations there. Fullers vaudeville then operated the Princess for some time, till in March 1917 Coombe took over the theatre in his own right and brought it with him into the Union Theatres chain. Sound was introduced to the theatre in August 1929, and in 1935 it was taken over by the Grand Theatre Co, which employed William Leighton to design extensive renovations, including reducing the seating to 1540. This had been further reduced to 1200 by the time the theatre closed on 26 June 1969, a victim of the television boom. Peter Thomson describes how the cinema was showing four times a day Monday to Saturday and once on Sunday night before television: then screenings were reduced to twice a day and eventually closed altogether. The building was sold to a car repairer and gutted for use as a workshop, retaining the basic structure, including the balcony, and the entrance into Market St. In 1985 it was used as a market, and in 1989 by an icecream manufacturing company.
Sources: Fremantle City Council ratebooks 1910/11 – 1913/14
Max Bell, Perth: a cinema history, The Book Guild, Lewes, 1986 p.41-2
Rodney I. Francis, ´The Coombe family of Perth’, Kino no.34, December 1990, pp.12-17
Rodney I. Francis, ‘Thomas Melrose Coombe: a pioneer from vaudeville to talkies in Western Australia’, Kino no.80, Winter 2002, pp.46-48
Vyonne Geneve, ‘William Leighton, architect’, Kino no.25, September 1988, p.7
Vyonne Geneve, Significant buildings of the 1930s in Western Australia, Vyonne Geneve, June 1994, National Trust of Australia (WA)/ National Estate Grants Programme, vol.1
Daily News, 27 July 1967; 2 July 1969
Everyone’s, 4 September 1929, p.32
Film Weekly Directory, 1943/4 – 1968/9
Grand Gazette, nos. 9-11 (3-17 Aug. 1918)
Post Office Directory, 1912 – 1949
West Australian, 10 Mar. 1961, 1912 – 1969
Interviews (Ina Bertrand): Ken Booth (1978), Lou Starr (1985), Arthur Stiles (1985)
Interview (Margaret Howroyd): Peter Thomson (1994)
Photos: 1 exterior, b&w, 1969 (Roy Mudge)
10 interior, b&w, 1969 (Roy Mudge)
1 b&w reproduction of cover of programme for gala re-opening 29 March 1941 (Arthur Stiles)
1 publicity stunt, b&w, Everyone’s 29 January 1930 p.18
Daily News took photos of Princess when it was opened as markets in 1983
Fremantle Library prints 964 – 967
1 exterior, b&w, Max Bell, Perth: a cinema history, The Book Guild, Lewes, 1986 p.41
This page incorporates material from Garry Gillard's Freotopia website, that he started in 2014 and the contents of which he donated to Wikimedia Australia in 2024. The content was originally created on 23 June, 2013 and hosted at freotopia.org/cinemas/princess.html (it was last updated on 28 November, 2023), and has been edited since it was imported here (see page history). The donated data is also preserved in the Internet Archive's collection.