When Star Wars: The Force Awakens opens on December 17, the Hayden Orpheum won't be alone in launching the biggest movie of the year with a midnight screening.
What it will most certainly be alone in is kicking off proceedings with Darth Vader playing a 1925 Wurlitzer organ and theatre ushers dressed as stormtroopers.
It's a perfect example of the charms of the Orpheum in mixing the old and new. It's a talent that has maintained the survival of the beloved, art-deco grand old dame of Sydney cinemas, which is celebrating its 80th birthday with the premiere of The Danish Girl on Friday – choc-tops and a glass of bubbly included.
Long-time supporter David Stratton, who recently curated a Great Britain Retro Film Festival at the venue, says it combines sharp programming with a dedication to old-fashioned conventions.
"It's a beautiful cinema. It's run with love and affection for the tradition of cinema," he says.
"It's the ambience, the art-deco look that gives it such a distinctive feel. It's such a pleasure to come to the cinema here because it's like how coming to the cinema used to be. Many cinemas today lack the traditional showmanship that the cinema used to have, and this cinema retains it and rejoices in it."
It opened in Cremorne in 1935 as a 1735-seater cinema and theatre, complete with orchestra pit and scenery fly-tower. It was a family-run business led by Bob Virgona, who ran the place with such a devoted passion he was known for giving cinema-goers a lift home.
It closed in the late-1970s – although it's said the ghost of Virgona lives on with many late-night sightings of him around the Orpheum today – and was taken over by property developers.
In 1986, former TV host Mike Walsh OBE stepped in as part of his passion for restoring theatres and cinemas. It was a "crappy shopping arcade", says Walsh, with only the ceiling and parts of the proscenium remaining from the original building. "It really was clapped out completely," he says.
General manager Paul Dravet has worked with Walsh since the start. "It was literally like a pigeon's coup, there were hundreds of pigeons flying through the place. It was painted dark green. It was bloody ugly, but we saw the potential."
The potential was to fill a gap in the market for a lower north shore cinema, and an aim to chase an audience with mainstream and foreign-language films – it re-opened in 1987 with quirky Swedish drama My Life as a Dog, alongside Fatal Attraction and Planes, Trains and Automobiles.
Together with the theatre historian John Love, it was lovingly reimagined with impressions of its art-deco heritage, complete with the imported Wurlitzer, which has had its own resident organist, Neil Jensen, since the relaunch.
Its survival, says Walsh, is down to an imaginative mix of films – "we're brave, we try everything" – and the sheer magic of the venue.
"We're good at programming and we're good showmen, and that's really what it's about. It's a showman's paradise. It's a big, glitzy old place."
Seniors, the matinee market and Golden Age classics are a large chunk of the mix among its six screens. It also carves out a hugely successful niche in the cult and quirky, such as its I Love Retro series, with films like Ferris Bueller's Day Off and The Goonies and all-day Lord of the Rings marathons.
Its monthly screenings of The Room, a United States cult hit quite accurately tagged as the worst movie ever made, is now into its second year, drawing fans dressed up, participating in rowdy traditions such as throwing plastic spoons at the screen and shouting out lines.
"That's been exciting," says Walsh. "We're the only theatre that can make The Room work in Australia, and I don't know if I should be proud of that, it's a terrible film," he says laughing.
Deputy general manager Alex Temesvari, who is behind the younger-oriented strand of programming, says it has a relative flexibility in terms of inventive programming, but "we're not reckless" and the question is always "will this get bums on seats"?
The popularity of home streaming follows a long line of threats to cinemas, from piracy, DVDs and the like, but can't replicate the event of going to a cinema, smelling the popcorn and on occasion, seeing Darth Vader playing the organ.
Walsh puts it more simply. "It's a bit like a yacht. If you've got a yacht that's the right size, you can sail it in any water. If you got a great big liner, it's harder to turn around. We do such varied programming, it's not circuit programming. You couldn't do this across a chain of 100 theatres."
The Hayden Orpheum's 80th Birthday Celebration and Australian premiere of The Danish Girl is on Friday, November 27, at 7pm.
