The Last Days of Legendary Video Store Dr What
Make a farewell visit to this old-school Sydney institution.
If there's a time warp we still love stepping into, it's a video store like Dr What. A local Sydney institution, the shop with Australia's largest range of rental titles brings back nostalgic memories of return dates, rewinding tapes and carefully curating the perfect combo of new releases and weeklies for $10.
That was the '90s. Today, the shelves at Dr What are largely empty. The Crisford family, owners for 30-plus years, will soon be closing the doors of the iconic Bondi shop with its mad doctor mascot painted above the awning. Although the quirky name is thanks to the original owners who opened the store in 1981, it's the Crisfords who made it what is today.
"It was in liquidation, there [were only] about two thousand movies and we had to work hard to build it back up," says Neal Crisford. "Very early it was porn and horror, then the action movies came in." Gradually, Neal, his wife, Carol, and later his son, Daniel, expanded the number of genres to include no less than 40,000 videos, all curated into carefully thought-out categories.
"Rather than buying fifty copies of the one movie, we would buy a range," says Crisford. "We concentrate on buying odd stuff and in the early days, I … spent my time going around warehouses and finding little gems." You can hear the passion in his voice as he reminisces about finding these lesser-known movies, a testament to the store's support of the independent film industry. For years, filmmakers, university students and cinephiles have come to Dr What to source the rare and obscure, knowing that, as Crisford puts it, "if its available, there's a good chance you can get it at Dr What."
At its peak, video rental was a ritual for most Australian families, with VCRs selling faster here than anywhere else in the world. Crisford considers the late '80s and early '90s as the most successful years, "before cable, before people had internet". "Back then you didn't have a lot of movies at home, they were expensive to buy," he says. "Purchases were probably 10 percent of the market, so most people would rent."
But Crisford is also the first to admit the industry has been a roller-coaster. Though the store survived the transition from VHS to DVD, the online availability of films today has meant the store simply isn't profitable. "We're a non-profit organisation", Crisford adds with a wry smile.
Until the end of the month, all VHS and DVD stock at Dr What is on sale and the loyal following the store has garnered over the years means "they're all going to good homes". "We worried about breaking up the collection, but people who really appreciate films, who love them and who've been our regular customers … can take a little bit of Dr What home with them".
Crisford is also positive these regular customers will follow the store's move to an online platform. Though it may be the end of the bricks-and-mortar Dr What, part of the legendary collection will have an online life through Quickflix, which has bought some of the titles. Plus, Dr What will continue to provide film production services through their own website, and since Crisford has previously moonlighted as a film producer, he is keen to spend more time behind the camera. "That's an area we're going to expand … a TV show about films is one of the things we're looking at doing".
In the days left, drop in to the shop for a heady dose of nostalgia and some bargain film finds to boot.
Find Dr What at 562 Oxford Street, Bondi Junction, open 10am-9pm Mon-Sat and 11am-9pm Sun. The store closes for the final time at the end of August.
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