8mm Forum: Our Last Cinema

This is topic Our Last Cinema in forum General Yak at 8mm Forum.

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Posted by Graham Ritchie (Member # 559) on December 21, 2012, 07:53 PM:

A few weeks ago I took a couple of photos of our last central cinema coming down, sad to see how the scene has changed over the years from the Cinerama..the stunning Regent with its stars etc in the ceiling.....so many cinemas are now gone.

Although most of those large central city cinemas were in decline years ago due to TV. The earthquakes over the last few years have now finished of the remaining. The buildings were to badly damaged and could never be fixed to meet the present standards.

The "Odeon Theatre" in the following pictures was built in 1880s as then a roller skating rink and in the 1930s the cinema experience was intoduced up until TV and dropping interest forced it to close in 1983. The building was also used for other purposes over its life.

I went to watch "Jonathan Livingston Seagull" back in the early 1970s at the Odeon it was a nice place to go back then...sad to see it finish this way as it was the last one to survive up to now in the central city.

Photo taken of the internet.
After it closed as a cinema and the projection equipment etc was removed in 1983 it then became a church.

Due to earthquake damage the old "Odeon" and many other buildings were to soon to come down.

...not much left..1880-2012.

Graham.

Posted by Hugh Thompson Scott (Member # 2922) on December 21, 2012, 08:03 PM:

Very sad Graham,and it has a very attractive frontage.I know the
feeling, in my old home town, they did have three cinemas,now
all gone.Maybe it's the union man in me,but I always think of
the poor souls left without their employment.

Posted by Jonathan Trevithick (Member # 3066) on December 21, 2012, 08:18 PM:

Very sad to see.

Posted by Steve Klare (Member # 12) on December 21, 2012, 08:29 PM:

25 years ago we had a drive-in theater one town over and a single screen cinema right up on our main street. They were both put out of business by a 10 screen multiplex 5 miles away, which itself has now been put out of business by a 16 screen multiplex in a shopping mall 10 miles away.

-it's not that we can't go see a movie anymore, they are just becoming further and further away!

Posted by Hugh Thompson Scott (Member # 2922) on December 21, 2012, 09:01 PM:

It's the "march of time" lads, and there's little we can do about it
but I think that on the whole,we have had the best of it, the great
features we have all queued to see, the courting, the fights,they
can't take that away, all those happy times shared with like minded
people.I'm lucky in that where I live in the North of England, Lake
District country, folks are very friendly, and it's great to listen to conversations outside the cinema, of if the picture was a
"good 'un",for instance, on leaving the cinema after viewing the
very involved spy drama "Tinker, Tailor,Soldier, Spy", one of the
patrons said to me "Well who was the "mole",to which I replied
"Who the hell cares, it was Tuesday when I came in, what day is it now?" This caused a bit of laughter, and it made me think that in the cities, where life is faster,banter among strangers
is not done,and losing cinemas is another step towards losing
that all important ingredient we have, the chance to be sociable.These are sad times we live in,but for younger generations it will be worse.

Posted by Pasquale DAlessio (Member # 2052) on December 22, 2012, 09:35 AM:

We had a cinema here that was torn down 2 years ago. When I got by there I still can't believe it's gone. I saw my first james Bond film, Dr No there in 1962 for 50 cents. I wish I had some photos to post. It changed ownership 3 times before finally closing. Nowit's gone forever. The land was used to add on the the elementary scholl right next to it. A lot of fond memories there for sure.

Posted by Graham Ritchie (Member # 559) on February 15, 2013, 10:45 PM:

I took this photo a few weeks ago looking from the rear....not much left, still showing the seats in the circle and stalls, everything now destroyed.

Graham.

Posted by Thomas Dafnides (Member # 1851) on February 17, 2013, 06:27 PM:

We had theater, called the Avalon..opened in 1936, and ceased operation in 1999. Shortly before it closed, the manager told me, the projector then in use was the original one installed in 1936..only the xenon lamp and an adaption to a single reel transport were the only modifications to it. It was lubricated nightly, at closing time.

Posted by Adam McCreath (Member # 3500) on February 20, 2013, 06:20 AM:

That is surprising from a Canadian perspective; at least in Ontario. Here we have laws that make it illegal to demo or even modify what we call "heritage buildings". A hertitage building being historically, culturally, and esthetically significant. You get in major crap and can even face criminal prosecution for modifying, altering, damaging, and for obviosly demolishing, a heritage building in most municipalities in Ontario Canada. Maybe NZ should be considering the same; earth quake or not.....

Posted by Phil Robinson (Member # 3558) on February 20, 2013, 06:33 AM:

...and no sign of reclamation, all that architectural salvage going to waste, just look at all those seats! They sell cinema / theatre seats for £45-£65 each at our local reclamation centre.

Posted by Graham Ritchie (Member # 559) on February 22, 2013, 07:56 PM:

Adam

Heritage buildings were protected up to the series of earthquakes, and most folk wanted them retained even after this following photo that taken just after the Sept 2010 one. Up to this point nobody had been killed. But a few months later the February 2011 proved to be a killer, and this time the focus of people's safety around old building was to looked on be more important.

They simply were not built for the sudden and violent on going ground movement...so I am afraid, even for the many that wanted to retain them, came to realize after February 2011 they had to go, and many so far have.

Adam this photo was taken just after the Sept 2010 shake and it gives an idea what can happen in seconds when the ground moves and the kind of energy thats released.

What none of us could imagine, what was later to come in the months ahead.

As far as cinemas..well whats left is not much, all the art house cinemas are gone as with a eight screen Hoyts.

A couple of weeks ago I bought some cinema seats that were once in the Rialto cinema. The X manager told me he was horrified to see on a visit, the kind of demolition going on to his cinema, projectors, everything being wrecked, he asked about taking some seats and was told, take what you like...so he took some. I paid $50 for 38 seats that he had and are in nice condition and hope to find a good home for them soon.

It seems a shame, I have 35mm projectors, platters, screens, sound system, and now seats, enough stuff to start a small movie theatre somewhere....but there is know where to go.

Many many seats like those I bought have been destroyed. I thought it would be nice to set up a small cinema somewhere but the rent and cost of digital projection down the line would be to expensive.

As to the future of all this stuff and in particular 35mm projectors in general looks uncertain as I have run out of room to store any more stuff.

PS. Got a phone call yesterday, people are coming round to check our ground out and hopefully fix our sinking house in the next couple of years. They are talking about lifting it up, to repair the foundations. Its going to be a big job so we will be moving out for a while when they get round to us.

Graham.

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