Inside the Merri Theatre on St Georges Road in the 1940s. Plush seats, festooned walls and a gently curved balcony hint at a time when a night at the pictures was the height of local entertainment. Opened in 1926, the Merri Theatre was later run by Hoyts and stood beside the Merri Palais, a lively dance hall where North Fitzroy locals waltzed, jitterbugged and fell in love under the lights. By the late 1950s, both venues had closed, and the site was eventually redeveloped. Today, it’s hard to imagine this quiet stretch of St Georges Road once rang with music, laughter and the buzz of a Saturday night crowd.