Features: Magazine | Literary Review | Life | Metro Plus | Open Page | Education Plus | Book Review | Business | SciTech | Friday Review | Young World | Property Plus | Quest | Folio |

A craving for classics

As multiplexes hold sway over the populace there is no space for screening classic films, discovers M. RAGHURAM

FLASHBACK Shankar Pai, proprietor of New Chitra, says he started screening English films with Sound of Music in 1973

Behind the vanishing movie theatres of Mangalore, there are hundreds of untold stories about the passion for films. Perhaps it is also true in other cities, but here the feeling for tinsel town — Bollywood and Hollywood — appears to be riding on a wave of nostalgia.

There are only a few old cinemas left in the city. Many have fallen to the lure of commercial complexes. The city has caught on to the worldwide trend towards multiplexes so film buffs can still go to the movies. But multiplexes only show brand new movies. So whatever happens to the old movies that turn back the clock? Some of them even today are green in the memories of cineastes. Rajendra Shenoy, who spent 40 years in Mumbai between 1945 and 1985, remembers the classics he watched when he came to Mangalore on vacation, some of his favourites being Raj Kapoor's Awara, Sree 420, Sangam and Kal Aaj aur Kal. There were only a few cinemas here, such as Balaji, New Chitra, Central and sometimes Jyoti, screening good films. If not regular shows, there were special morning shows and film festivals where one would get to see the celluloid masterpieces. But it seems the good times will never return, Shenoy laments. When Mughal-E-Azam was released in colour recently, the theatre was packed. The who's who of the city (mainly those who were young when the movie was first released) were there. For the first time in over 35 years one heard whistles and claps at the opening scene with Prithviraj Kapoor on the throne. It was as if the good old days were back again.

Films from Hollywood have an equally dedicated following. Shankar Pai, proprietor of New Chitra, formerly known as Hindustan Cinema, says: "We started screening English films with Sound of Music in 1973."

The cinema was started in 1926 by Kochikar Vithaldas Pai, the pioneer in film exhibition. All Hollywood aficionados swear by the cinema's commitment to English movies.

But suddenly the magic of classic has disappeared. Gen Y does not seem to know what classifies as a masterpiece. The oldies they know are the ones produced a mere five years ago. Praful Kumar, a doctor, one day brought home the Gene Kelly classic Singing in the Rain, which he and his orthodontist wife Sangeeta had seen during their student days. The video session was meant to be a family affair but just 10 minutes into the film, their daughter fled the spot. Five minutes later, the son followed suit saying his dad had no taste for good movies!

Samson and Delilah, Fiddler on the Roof, The Great Train Robbery, The Great Escape and the recent classic Back to the Future are some of the movies that get a mention in the list of all-time greats amongst movie buffs here. However, even the video libraries don't seem to stock them anymore, complains Maj. Arnold D'Souza.

The city still has a sizable number of those who would like to see classics of all languages. People who lived in Bangalore remember Naaz theatre in Shivajinagar where only old Hindi movies were screened.

Nostalgic Mangaloreans feel that classics still hold sway. Exhibitors should venture into screening them in Hindi, English and Kannada.

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail