It may be hard to imagine
now but there was a time when the only affordable public entertainment in Johor
Baru was going to the movies because only the affluent could afford to own a
television.
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| The former Capitol theatre at Jalan Station |
Movies are a popular entertainment choice because it’s an avenue to
unwind and escape into another realm, to get involved with the plot and lives
of screen characters, even for a while. Enveloped
in dim darkness, it’s perfectly all right to cheer for the underdogs, scream
aloud at shocking scenes or shed tears at tender moments.
But there’s simply something
magical about watching movies on the big screen. Many will fondly remember their first date of
going to a movie after a meal because couples, getting to know each other,
could enjoy being with their date for several hours without trying to impress
or make intelligent conversation!
The movie halls of today are small compared
to former movie theatres that were stand-alone landmarks built with adjacent
parking lots.
Theatre locations were
within convenient walking distances and as few people owned cars then, there
was sufficient parking space.
JB’s first cinema was the Sino-English theatre at
the corner of Jalan Trus and Jalan Dhoby, opposite Hua Mui Restaurant. A few concrete steps is the only evidence left
of this theatre today.
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| The former Cathay theatre on Jalan Bukit Meldrum |
The Capitol at Jalan Station was a premier theatre
popular for screening Chinese movies.
During an era when operas were made into movies, this attracted hordes
of fans who enjoyed watching their favourite stars perform opera on the big
screen.
Besides Chinese movies, Capitol used to screen coloured, talking
movies, mostly American Western or cowboy movies and blockbusters like The Greatest Show on Earth. The Capitol
boasted of a stage which often hosted live shows by visiting opera stars from
Hong Kong to promote opera movies by performing an excerpt of the film in a
live show.
In addition to large
billboards displayed outside the theatre, publicity for coming movies and stage
shows were also done by distributing printed flyers. Publicity flyers, commonly cut in landscape
format with one-colour printing, were distributed by a vendor who walked around
to shops, businesses and homes in town.
My siblings, cousins and I, who stayed
with our grandparents at No. 154 Jalan Ngee Heng during our school-going years,
used to be fascinated by these flyers received in the letterbox. They were printed mainly in Chinese with
brief English or Malay translations but we understood enough from the interesting
pictures.
Our grandparents, who were
opera fans, made it a point to attend the live shows whenever Hong Kong stars
came to perform. These thung thoi shows were very popular and
the theatre offered free-seating on a first-come-first-served basis.
But if our
grandparents were to walk from Jalan Ngee Heng to Jalan Station, their
favourite seats might have already been taken.
So grandfather or Ah Kong,
used to have an arrangement with his friend, the theatre manager, James Ho, to reserve their
seats by tying a handkerchief to indicate that two seats were booked!
At that
time, tickets cost RM2 for upstairs seats while the best seats downstairs were
only RM1.25 and prices ranged between RM 1 and 65 sen for seats closest to the
screen. Even though Capitol did not have air-conditioning, it was popular until
it was demolished in 1972.
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| The former Lido theatre on Jalan Wong Ah Fook |
Later, a
cinema hall by the same name was reopened within the Merlin Tower building. At the
same time, two of the most important landmarks along Jalan Wong Ah Fook were
the Rex and Lido theatres.
Rex, the
older of the two, was ventilated only by ceiling fans. Audiences flocked to the
adjacent Lido when it opened as a modern air-conditioned theatre and this
probably forced the owners of Rex to upgrade and install air-conditioning!
On
Saturday morning, if we finished our chores early, Ah Kong would take his grand-children for a morning show at Rex or
Lido. The cheap seats for matinee and
morning shows was just 80 sen and if the show was popular, we would end up with
tickets for the dreaded first row seats!
These were the most uncomfortable
seats in the house because we had to sink deep into the seats to angle our
heads almost horizontal to watch the screen.
Thankfully, this did not happen often because we always tried to walk to
the theatre on time to get good seats!
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| A collection of theatre tickets and movie promotion flyers at the JB Kwong Siew Heritage Gallery |
Perched on a hillock on Jalan Bukit
Meldrum was the Cathay and we were sorry to see it demolished to make way for
the Customs, Immigration and Quarantine complex. A nearby row of shops that served food conveniently
provided meals before or after shows.
Here, a popular laksa noodle
adopted its name from the theatre and is known as Cathay laksa to this day! While
all the other theatres were demolished in the 1990s, Broadway at Jalan Segget, popular
for screening Tamil movies, is still in business.
In those days, tickets were
bound in booklets and various priced tickets were usually identified by
different colours. The lady at the
ticket counter was a familiar neighbour and she would mark our tickets with a
thick red pencil before tearing it off from the counterfoil.
In the lobby was a
snack stall and Ah Kong would let us choose our favourite treats and we would
select Mentos mints or Roundtree fruit gums while he picked Hacks cough-drops. It also sold a range of soft drinks, crisps,
chewing gum and cut fruits on sticks but we were not to choose these.
A kacang puteh man and his parked bicycle would offer a choice of toasted nuts
and sometimes we bought our pick of nuts wrapped in paper cones made from paper
recycled from old telephone directories!
If popcorn is the staple snack for
modern movie-goers then it must have replaced kuaci or melon seeds. Our movie
watching experience was always punctuated by click-clicking sounds and at the
end of the show, we would walk gingerly out of the theatre, crunching piles of
kuaci shells underfoot!
Old photos are courtesy of Johor Baru Tiong Hua Association
A version of this was published in the November 2016 issue of The Iskandarian
Thanks for your wonderful blog. Bringing much sweet memories of those gone days.
ReplyDeleteIn the 1960, late Lok Yun Tao has one of his cinemas in Johor. And on the top floor of this cinema was a small private cinema room of Lok where he show his own films of wildlife to his close friends. Lok love icecream, he used to order icream from the cinema canteen owned by a lady who stay just near by the cinema.
I wander which cinema was, is the cinema building is still around.