Everybody’s Theatre (pictured) was proposed to be built on Lichfield Street the 1930s, and I’m thinking it might have been quite flash for a night out.
The image is from of our collection of digitised plans of Christchurch buildings, where you’ll also find the original floor plan of the Majestic Theatre. I read recently that the Majestic building will be refurbished again, and I started thinking about the disappeared theatres in Christchurch.
From the tiny Savoy 1 & 2 (where I saw everything from Star Wars and 2001 : A Space Odyssey to Arnie movies and the eye-popping Evil Dead 2) to the West End (Stripes), or the Avon (Goodbye Pork Pie, I think), there’s several theatres that have disappeared over the years.
Which Christchurch theatres do you remember? And which movies did you see at them?
15 July 2010 at 10:09 am
There was a theatre by the Papanui roundabout when I first moved into the district…can’t remember the name…
15 July 2010 at 10:50 am
Michael it was the Barclay. I remember cycling out there over three nights to watch Sergei Bondarchuk’s epic War and Peace. Alice in Videoland still has this – it’s fantastic.
15 July 2010 at 4:36 pm
From the Canterbury Film Society website:
History: Opened as the Papanui Memorial Hall by the Waimairi County Council. It bacame the centre of most social activity in the area during the next generation. During the 1930′s it became a picture theatre, well known as the Empire, then as the Barclay.
The Barclay closed in 1975 due to earthquake regulations. Now demolished and the site a Memorial Garden.
15 July 2010 at 10:54 am
Richard I was watching Towering Inferno at the Regent when there was a fire alarm and we all had to leave the theatre for awhile. Heart pounding moment! I used to love the Square when it was full of movie theatres – it made it a destination for locals instead of a tourist desert. There was a great coffee house in Chancery Lane which was good for after movie debates.
15 July 2010 at 2:26 pm
The Tivoli is one I remember – I was forbidden to go there because it was too ‘rough’ so that added an extra frisson to any movie. I hope my mother is not reading this. Guilt has caused me to forget any actual titles but I do recall a certain air of faded glory. I loved The Odeon as well, and was there one called Cinerama? I remember seeing A Clockwork Orange on a fake I.D. (it had an R20 rating)
at a theatre in Gloucester Street but can’t remember the name of the theatre. Why are my movie memories bound up with naughty behaviour?
It’s all coming back to me now; double features at The Rex in Riccarton Road. Francis the Talking Mule at a really bizarre place in Hornby that was like someone’s front room.
15 July 2010 at 3:43 pm
I think the Cinerama was Worcester Street – near where Cathedral Junction is now? I found this fascinating page on the Canterbury Film Society site – a brilliant piece of work by Hugh Taylor: http://www.canterburyfilmsociety.org.nz/localcinemas/cinemas.html
15 July 2010 at 5:24 pm
My favourite memories are of the Tivoli (later the Westend(in the north side ot the Square. Alovely art deco building, but I chiefly remember the films,notably “Rock around the Clock” and on a more arty note “Black Orpheus”, Ingmaar Bermann’s “Virgin Spring” and “Wild Strawberries”, “Blow-up”, “Jazz on a Summer’s Day” and many others. There is a great article from a 1961 “Canta” about the theatre on the Film Society website http://www.canterburyfilmsociety.org.nz
16 July 2010 at 9:22 am
Tip of the hat for your movie taste Sue!
15 July 2010 at 6:52 pm
A great resource is the Wayne Brittenden book Celluloid Circus :heyday of the NZ picture theatre. It’s full of great pics
http://christchurchcitylibraries.com/Catalogue/keyword.asp?TI+celluloid+circus
16 July 2010 at 11:47 am
That looks like a great book – it’s interesting how many suburban and smaller cinemas there used to be. I had no idea for instance, that Wilson’s Pharmacy on Barrington Street used to be a theatre …
16 July 2010 at 4:55 pm
I am on a cinema remembering jag – the suburban ones were great – The Century in Edgeware Road, and there was one in Fendalton across from where Misceo’s is now, and one in Brighton, and Pantages in Hornby was great. I scarred my children for life by taking them to The Princess Bride there.
15 July 2010 at 7:01 pm
Does anyone have any photos to go with their memories that they could put on the libraries’ flickr pages?
16 July 2010 at 9:38 am
I remember visiting the metropolis of Christchurch from my hometown of Gore and being stunned by the red glamour of Regent 1 and 2.
And I remember seeing Dracula starring Gary Oldman there. Who needs Team Edward or Jacob when there is Team Gary to shout for?
16 July 2010 at 4:51 pm
” I have crossed oceans of time to find you”. Ohhh Gary.
16 July 2010 at 10:07 am
This is a great topic!
It was a revelation to me that underneath it all the Tivoli (or the Westend as I knew it growing up) was actually a gorgeous Art Deco building. I was sad to see it knocked down after that. At least it got a chance to look pretty again for a while beforehand though. I can’t remember any of the films I went to their but I do remember going to a rave there in the nineties!
I definitely remember going to see a Smurfs movie at The Avon, which is now The Holy Grail nightclub.
I agree with Donna about the red glamour of the Regent, though I would sometimes trip up on the shallow stairs that led up to the theatre area. For some reason I always judged them to be more shallow than they were and tried to carelessly run up them with mixed results.
We once went to the Regent to see Mel Gibson in Hamlet on a school English trip.
We couldn’t have imagined then that Mel Gibson would actually turn out to be a raving nutter…
16 July 2010 at 12:02 pm
I liked the Regent’s comfy red seats – I think I saw Moonraker there – and come to think of it, The Man with the Golden Gun. The Avon was where my bus home stopped, so I’d be forever looking at the movies that were on …
19 July 2011 at 10:31 am
I went to a rave there too! I thought no one remembered that. They played Anime on the big screen, the seats had all been ripped out, it was the best rave ever.
19 July 2011 at 9:42 am
[...] Richard’s post about the Ghosts of cinema past drew a host of reminiscences. [...]
19 October 2012 at 10:44 pm
What was the New Brighton theatre? I saw the Carroll Baker “Harlow” there in 1966. Apparently, Carol Lynley was better, Harlow, Harlow, Whose Your Lady Friend?