Andrew Worsdale
The first movie I ever saw was Swiss Family Robinson at the Greenway cinema in Greenside and I vividly remember sleeping most of the way through it, waking up for an instant to see a giant python slithering down a tree, and then I burst into tears. Thirty-something years later I feel like crying because the Greenway doesn’t exist anymore.
Nor does the Lake Cinema in Parkview, where I used to bunk school to catch Marx brothers movies or Ealing comedies.
I also remember seeing Carry on up the Khyber at the Empire in Commissioner Street. I loved the movie but also the huge balustrade leading to the auditorium. It was knocked down and became the Kine Centre where I was an audience member at Mame, starring Lucille Ball.
I saw Dean Martin in Airport at the His Majesty’s and looked at the ceiling glittering with “stars” more than the movie. At the Colisseum, I watched oodles of movies (they used to have an afternoon double-bill) and, in the same theatre, I even witnessed Lovelace Watkins in action. Once again I was awe- struck by its hacienda-like architecture. It too was knocked down.
The 20th Century Fox – where I saw Carry on Doctor – closed down in the late Seventies to become a shooting gallery.
My favourite cinematic sojourn was to the Gala Cinelux in Randburg, where I paid 50 cents (to sit in the upper seats, as opposed to 30 cents for the plebeians) in order to catch Operation Code Brother, with Neal Connery as agent 003 and a half. The Pigalle, latterly named the Classic, is where I witnessed Gone with the Wind for the first time. That too has been knocked down to make way for offices.
Then there was the President, appropriately positioned on the street of the same name, which was an egte bio- caf, with seats and tables at which one could munch on a burger while watching a cult classic like Larry Cohen’s It’s Alive, which has a baby being delivered only to munch up the gynaecologist’s hands.
But those days are gone, and inner-city movie houses, as well as their suburban counterparts like the Cinerama in Orange Grove and Yeoville’s Picadilly, have made way for the multiplex. Italo Bernicchi, who owned the Piccadilly in Yeoville, is the maestro of Johannesburg’s independent cinemas. He also owned The Victory for 30 years, The Picadilly, The Corlett and The Avenue in Norwood which became The 7 Arts and then the Rex. Two months ago it was relegated to playing World Cup football – a distinct sign that times have changed. At present Bernicchi has a 40-seat cinema at his home where he shows medical videos to doctors.
The truth all over the world is that smashing down a movie house with one screen to make way for eight smaller screens is the lucrative option. So the Kine Centre, which once boasted three screens, now has five. The Odeon in Rosebank is now a Nando’s outlet. Along with the Constantia (known by my parents as The Parisia) it has been replaced by 10 screens at Cinema Noveau in Rosebank’s Mall – the ultimate destination for cappuccino avec sub- titles.
The Action cinema in Claim Street, where I once saw Oliver! on a school treat, which later became the Ster 1000 – possibly the best cinema in the country, is today a dedicated recluse for sub- grade kung-fu as well as porn – even though the manager assures me there’s no penetration. But at R6 a ticket they can keep their four screens busy notwithstanding the fact that this grand movie house – once the home of Funny Girl and Quest for Fire (one of my best Dolby experiences of all time) – has become a home for vagrants.
Same with the Mini Cine One in Hillbrow – now a dedicated doss-house for the down and out which shows action movies in rotunda and hard-core porn on Sundays.
The Good Hope Cinema in Commissioner Street is apparently Jo’burg’s oldest cinema – originally called the Uno. It was the magistrates court for Johannesburg’s Chinese community before it opened as a cinema playing silent movies to larny white clientele. Today it’s a predominantly black audience who frequent the range of action movies on show.
But owner Robbie Lutchman’s son, Sanjay, says: ” We’re catering mainly for black people. Whites come in, but they’re not the Jeremy Mansfields of the world – kind of decent white trash who want to spend some hours away from the street watching movies.”
The Lutchmans also own Good Hope 2 – the ex-Metro Market Street cinema (where I grooved to Saturday Night Fever at age 15), where they also supply a diet of big pictures showing a fortnight after their initial release (so called second- run movies). Ironically, one of their biggest earners was Peter Greenaway’s The Cook, The Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover, but – no surprise – all the existent independent exhibitors in Johannesburg I spoke to said their biggest gross to date was Titanic. No wonder the small virtues of cinema-going have metamorphosised into a morass of multi-plexed commercialism.
To ease the woes of trying to tune into individualistic cinema, on September 4 and 5 nightclub 206 on Louis Botha Avenue is holding a series of short films made by emerging South African filmmakers. And Ster-Kinekor have launched Cinema Africa at the downtown Kine Centre complex where the focus is African film. They opened with the M-Net- financed Sexy Girls and are currently showing Jump the Gun. The aim is evidently to build up a brand that will allow people in the city to see life on this continent reflected.
The CBD cinemas still exist, even though they’ve lost their halcyon past, but Wendy Naicker, manager of the inner city Carlton cinemas says: “The city centre isn’t as dangerous as people make it out to be. Everyone’s going to the suburban malls to watch movies. That’s where the money is – there’s very little money here. It’s safe and comfortable to come here and watch a movie.”
All the same, it’s devastating to a born and bred movie-buff that suburbs like Yeoville and Melville no longer have independent movie-houses that could, for example, show an Orson Welles or Buuel retrospective. The last bastion of creative cinema programming is Cape Town’s Labia, and even they are struggling not to show Titanic in order to manage their budget.