Vale Robert Ward OAM

We’ve lost one of the great cinema entrepreneurs of our time with the passing of Robert Ward on Thursday July 20. Robert was a showman of the first order who, with his incredible passion, achieved so much in both cinema exhibition and distribution over the past 60 years.

The story began in 1926 when Robert’s father Bert opened what was to become the Prince George Theatre in Church Street, Brighton. Whilst far from a movie palace, it did have both heating and an organ. The latter was common in these silent cinema days, but the former was a real point of difference.

Through clever programming and expert showmanship, Bert was able to expand his interests and build the beautiful art-moderne Dendy a few hundred meters down the road.

It was in this environment that Robert, his brother and sisters grew up. Robert and his siblings were soon undertaking all the activities involved in operating a suburban cinema from front of house to projection and even firing up the boilers.

As television emerged to decimate the cinemas by the dozen in the late 1950s, Robert emerged as an innovator in holding an audience at the family theatres. 16mm projectors were installed in an effort to screen special event and classic films unavailable to them on 35mm.

Robert championed passed-over independent and mainstream Hollywood product. While Hoyts could run Zorba the Greek for only a few weeks at their Athenaeum theatre, Robert was able to run it for months at the Dendy. When Greater Union thought they had a decent season with The Endless Summer at the Grosvenor, the Dendy turned it into one of the first cult films with surfers and regular audiences delighting in this film during its long run.

Productions like The Pawnbroker, which covered ground-breaking topics and included nudity, were aimed at an even more progressive audience, many of whom travelled from across the Melbourne suburbs to sample the Dendy fare. Adventurous promotion was required to spread the word and this extended even to having a neon sign on the facade of the famous Young & Jacksons Hotel in central Melbourne advertising the current attraction at the Dendy Brighton some suburbs away.

Surf films, ski films, foreign films and others would also, from time to time, make way for live productions at the Dendy. Performers such as Mike Preston and Tommy Trinder had seasons on the Dendy stage, but perhaps the biggest and most infamous performer to appear was Tony Hancock. His troubled time in Melbourne led to him staying with Robert and the family during his Dendy performances. Unfortunately a short time later he took his life during his Sydney tour.

With record runs of films at the Dendy, Robert was becoming well known far beyond the suburbs of Melbourne. It was not unusual for stars like David Niven to pay a visit to the family home or have Hollywood legends like Otto Preminger give congratulations to Robert and family for what they achieved with their films.

When everyone else was removing their theatre organs, Robert was installing one! The former Hoyts Capitol Wurlitzer was removed and with the help of TOSA (Theatre Organ Society), was reinstalled in the Dendy in 1967. This made the Dendy a mecca for theatre organ fans from all over the world who would attend the regular performances. The renowned Horace Webber, who played the same instrument at the Capitol opening in 1924, again played the organ on opening night at the Dendy.

Robert’s success in identifying money making film product led to the foundation of Filmways Distribution. In partnership with Mark Josem, who owned the Sandringham Drive-in theatre, Filmways was to become the major independent film distributor in Australia for the best part of the next two decades.

Mark and Robert sourced product of all descriptions from the world over. In time they were supplying Hoyts with double features for their drive-in circuit as often as twice per month. Their higher profile attractions opened in Hoyts city theatres around the country.

In time, a circuit of Dendy Cinemas opened, including the Dendy Collins St and Dendy Lonsdale St in central Melbourne along with venues in Dandenong, Malvern, Forest Hill, Crows Nest in Sydney and others. Filmways initially operated out of the rear of the former Metro, now Dendy Malvern, before moving to much larger premises in City Rd South Melbourne. The bookers, publicity people and theatre managers worked closely together and included long-serving industry people like Sam Di Pietro, Greg Cavanagh, Paul McKenzie, Maurie Issacs, John McKenzie and many others along with Bert Ward himself.

Huge successes like the “R” rated sex documentary ‘The Language Of Love’ ran for well over a year at the Australia Twin and later the Dendy Collins St. In fact it was so successful that the sequel ‘More About The Language Of Love’ was released in the Dendy Lonsdale St cinema whilst the original film kept on running for months. The success of these and similar films was repeated across the country in cinemas and drive-ins alike.  Robert pushed the boundaries with risqué advertisements in daily newspapers and with posters and billboard signs. More than once Robert was forced to tone down the explicitness of his ads.

There were inevitably failures too, but Filmways could always provide a programme to independents, who were always looking for an option outside of the major Hollywood studios. The independent Filmways established branch offices interstate including one with City Theatres run by the Stiles family in Western Australia. The drive-ins in particular churned through product with their often twice-weekly double feature programmes. There was seemingly a front page ad block for Filmways almost every week in the trade magazine Australasian Cinema. Exhibitors could feel confident that there was always more product coming from Filmways. The pages of this and other industry publications often featured entertaining trade day news and box-office reports from Filmways and Dendy.

The Dendy Cinema Collins St. also had another claim to fame. Always looking to the future, Robert had sought out and installed the first automated projection suite in Australia that utilised a platter film transport system along with xenon lamphouse and an automatic controller for the various functions. This location, under well-known projectionist Harry Davidson, pioneered the eventual complete transition to platters and xenon lamphouses across the industry. The success of this installation led Robert to seek out the Christie equipment distributorship for Australia. Before long Robert was demonstrating and selling Christie projection equipment around the country. Indeed, his trade days for films and equipment were even featured in the pages of major US industry publications like Boxoffice Magazine.

Robert also became a producer of movies both as an executive producer in his own right and through Filmways. Films like ‘Kangaroo’ and ‘Warm Nights On A Slow Moving Train’ catered for one audience and many R-rated sex romps catered for another. Antony I. Ginnane and Robert teamed up to produce films including ones staring that legendary 1970s actor John Holmes in ‘Fantasm Comes Again’.  The success of this and many other sexploitation films was a direct result of the huge interest in R rated films that were finally given the green light in Australia in the early 1970’s. Dendy and Filmways cashed in on this surge as much as anyone.

By the late 1970s Robert had partnered with another aggressive and fast growing local company. The Vill-Den partnership saw Robert team with Village Roadshow in building and establishing modern twin suburban cinemas. This was at a time when suburban cinemas were most often 40 year old single screen locations. Twins were built in Knox, Boronia, Doncaster and, later, even the Dendy Brighton itself converted to a twin. These cinemas ushered in a new era of suburban cinema. They were often located in large shopping centres like Knox City and Westfield Doncaster, and pioneered such locations which are still the key locations today.

Filmways, and its later incarnation Filmpac Holdings, continued supplying product and for every disappointment like ‘Roar’ there were smashing successes like ‘Dirty Dancing’. Robert and brother Andrew also saw that the Alby Mangles’ ‘World Safari’ films tasted major success. The Ward brothers utilised their extensive experience in bringing in big dollars with these films, from country town halls to Hoyts city theatres and every cinema in between.

By the late1980s twin cinemas were themselves supplanted by the introduction of the suburban multiplex. During this time Robert took over the lease of the Trak Cinema Toorak along with former Village executive Alan Simpson. This cinema once again became a family affair with not only Roberts’s sister Jan working front of house, but his children Katrina and Duncan as well.

Robert and his wife Helen travelled extensively and were well known in all the major film centres of the world. It was through this extensive networking that the relationship with Jim Cotter began. This would see  Reading Cinemas come to Australia. Robert was not only a partner in various Reading locations around the country, he also brokered the projection equipment deals for these sites. It was Robert’s assistance and extensive local knowledge of the industry in Australia that enabled Reading to expand. Robert continued the close relationship with Reading under the current leadership of Wayne Smith and team.

Robert later established the CMAX brand of cinemas. The Devonport location brought the modern multiplex to northern Tasmania. Through the marketing and operations expertise of Katrine Wakelam the location has been a trail-blazer and showplace for alternative content, specialty themed movie nights catering to the local community and, indeed, digital projection itself. CMAX Devonport also owes much of its success to the programming expertise of long time friend and colleague Bob Parr along with Sasha Close. Robert always sought out the best experience to align with his ventures; Bob goes all the way back to some of the legendary Filmways trade days, where often all stops were pulled out by Robert and Mark to ensure they had strong bookings for their product line-up.

Robert was also an innovator in theatre design. Through his relationship with architect Ian Gooding and the Fisher family’s Camatic Seating he was able to introduce customers to cinema comfort and design break-throughs not seen before, especially outside of the three major exhibitors.

Amongst many other achievements Robert was a board member of Film Victoria, a former National Cinema Pioneer of the year, the longest serving ICA board member and he was also bestowed the ICA Lifetime achievement award.

In Robert’s two terms as Victorian branch president of the Society of Australian Cinema Pioneers, he steered the branch into the modern era with a new home and large attendances at functions.

Robert was always looking forward and rarely looking back, in fact if asked about some of his past achievements he’d swing the conversation around to the latest developments in digital cinema or 4D exhibition. He always had a new product to offer, whether it be a xenon lamp or a new concept.

Robert held strong opinions and beliefs in cinema. His expertise and ability to understand what would work in this business enabled him to be a consistent innovator. He certainly ruffled feathers from time to time, but ground-breakers rarely follow the rules. 

Robert really was a giant of the cinema business in Australia. Whilst he partnered with major players, he was always a proud independent.

There are many other achievements of Robert Ward, both within and outside of the cinema industry, including co-founding the Rotary Club of Brighton and extensive fundraising for the Epworth Hospital. In the days following his passing, over a dozen people contacted me to tell me about how Robert had affected their lives and careers for the better. Some were close friends until the end, others had not seen Robert for years, but each one spoke in admiration for the boundless energy, enthusiasm and passion that Robert had for all things cinema.  

Thank you Robert Ward OAM

David Kilderry