Now unoccupied, the old Australia Cinema at 183 Lords Place is a reminder of a time when a day or night-out at “the pictures” was the centre of social life in country towns.

Before the advent of television, and later, video players, DVDs, satellite and cable television and now, streaming services, films created for theatre-goers were one of the greatest forms of not just entertainment — but also popular art — of the 20th century.

Locals in the 1930s Great Depression, for instance, could escape the poverty and humdrum monotonous daily routine of their lives, into adventures of great historical events, excitement, and romance, in movies like 'Gone with the Wind'... and all for eight pence (16 cents).

Yet The Australia, like many of the era, actually started off as a live theatre in the Victorian era, before movies had even been thought of. The Australia Hall opened in 1886, converting to movie screenings two decades later with one giant screen, in the style of the times.

Renamed the “Empire Theatre” at the start of World War I, it was then rebadged as the “Australia Picture Theatre” in 1927, undergoing a number of renovations, before eventually closing in the early 1960s. This was at a time when the new, hi-tech home television boom seemed to spell the end of the golden era of Hollywood.

However, the advent of giant “blockbuster” productions a decade later from such film-makers as George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, and Francis Ford Coppola, coincided with its re-opening as the Australia Cinema in the 1970s.

Rebuilt as a four-screen multiplex in the late 1990s, its future seemed assured, until the opening of a brand-new multiplex theatre in town, The Odeon.