Changes between Version 19 and Version 20 of Plaza (Bangalore)


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Timestamp:
Jan 7, 2013, 7:41:01 PM (11 years ago)
Author:
Lawrence Liang
Comment:

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  • Plaza (Bangalore)

    v19 v20  
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    31 Arcot Krishnamurthy got married and his wife passes away after giving birth to their first son. He goes into a depression and his family decide to send him to England to help him recover in 1930. He travels from Bangalore to Madras to Aden and then to London where he falls in love with movies and decides to come back and set up a theatre in Bangalore. After retuning he buys a lorry and sets up a 16 MM cinema projection on it which he travels with to the cantonment areas to show short films to the British soldiers in the military camps in the Cantonment . After Plaza was set up the same lorry was used to show advertise the films that were being shown in Plaza 
    32 He then mortgaged the property on MG Road to Asiatic Mortgage Company to raise money to build the theatre 
     31Arcot Krishnamurthy got married and his wife passes away after giving birth to their first son. After his wife's death he went into depression and his family decide to send him to England to help him recover in 1930. He travelled from Bangalore to Madras to Aden and then to London where he fell in love with movies and decides to come back and set up a theatre in Bangalore modelling it on the Plaza in Piccadilly circus.  
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    34 The architect of Plaza was Richardson and Cruddas of Bombay  who were given instructions to model the Plaza on the Plaza Theater in Picaddily Circus. The equipment for the new theatre was obtained from Century Film. There was also a ballroom and a Bar “Silver Screen Specials”  in the balcony which conducted dances for the British soldiers with a live orchestra . On the first floor of the theatre was a 50-foot-square wooden dance floor, used for the annual Christmas Ball and New Year Ball, and for balls held to herald major motion pictures releases.  
     33[[Image(Plaza in Picadilly.jpg)]] 
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     36After retuning he bought a lorry and sets up a 16 MM cinema projection on it which he travels with to the cantonment areas to show short films to the British soldiers in the military camps in the Cantonment . After Plaza was set up the same lorry was used to show advertise the films that were being shown in Plaza. He then mortgaged the property on MG Road to Asiatic Mortgage Company to raise money to build the theatre 
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     39The architect of Plaza was Richardson and Cruddas of Bombay  and the equipment for the new theatre was obtained from Century Film. There was also a ballroom and a Bar “Silver Screen Specials”  in the balcony which conducted dances for the British soldiers with a live orchestra . On the first floor of the theatre was a 50-foot-square wooden dance floor, used for the annual Christmas Ball and New Year Ball, and for balls held to herald major motion pictures releases.  
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    3642Plaza was inaugurated on March 10, 1936. There were two shows, and 433 seats were filled up on the first day. Two films were screened every week, with three shows each day. The first film Broadway Melody to be show was in 1936. In 1936, tickets were priced between 9 annas and Rs 2 and 8 annas — from Gandhi Class to Dress Circle. In 1960, the rates went up to 75 paise and Rs 2.75. By 2005, the balcony tickets were selling at Rs 70 . 
     
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    4349At Plaza's opening ceremony, to seat the chief guest in style, a sofa was borrowed from the house next door, in which lived Mr. Jose Mariano Dias and his family. This house was demolished and, decades later, made way for the Blu Moon theatre complex, which was demolished to make way for a shopping complex. Mr. Dias, one of the earliest Goans to migrate to Bangalore, ran Dias Music Salon, a stone's throw from his house. He opened the shop, which sold musical instruments, in 1927, and was a violinist who played for silent movies at Globe (before the talkies arrived, every cinema had an orchestra in the pit which provided background music). After his death the shop was run by his daughter, Irene, and her husband, John Lemos, until it was sold and turned into a Zodiac tie showroom, which morphed into a snack shop.  Irene who, along with her sister, used to hop across next door to see movies for free because the kindly ushers would sneak the girls in after the paying crowd had entered. 
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    4552The second world war was the best time for the theatre when it did the best business with the influx of soldiers form many parts of the country but after independence the theatre struggled for a few years and it was only in the mid fifties with the popularity of Indian audiences for English films that the theatre started doing well again. For a long time the primary audience were anglo Indian  families. In the fifties going to Plaza was a major event for many families who treated it akin to going for a picnic with many preparing their trip, dressed in their best and a number of families would come from the other part of Bangalore- the old Bangalore. The two brothers were also influenced by Gandhi and Nehru and Rajamanickam Velu wanted to join the Congress. During the war they also had to play a lot of wartime propaganda films. 
     
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     69[[Image(plaza3.jpg)]] 
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