The film The Patriot, starring Emil Jannings, attracted large crowds on the State Theatre’s opening night. Originally financed by the owner of Union Theatres, Stuart Frank Doyle, and designed by New Zealand–born architect Henry White, this was to be the ‘Empire’s greatest theatre’. A hundred years later, it is one of the few early twentieth century Sydney theatres to remain virtually intact, and its opulent interior is a reminder of when ‘picture palaces’ were at their most spectacular.