20th Century Cinema, Nairobi

 new photo!!

This cinema was on Mama Ngina Street

the former street name was Queensway

In 1987 ownership transferred from 20 Century Fox (EA) Ltd to Queensway Properties Ltd!!

Theatre Royal, Nairobi

 

Way before Theatre Royal became Cameo Cinema, that is, prior to the first World War you could have grabbed a drink and snacks at the Regal Bar & Snacks before the film.

The Casbah in the Regal Theatre building Mombasa used to be called the Regal Bar too!!...but there is no connection (I think!!) to the Regal bar at the Theatre Royal. Regal Theatre also had another bar next to the offices and that you could access from the balcony to the left if you were lucky enough to find the door from the balcony to the bar.

Almost all single screen Kenya cinemas had a bar attached to it in the old days. It appears this was a British tradition that started with theatres.

In the 1980s and later, almost no cinemas in Canada had a bar! Cineplex in Canada now has a restaurant (where drinks are available) attached to the multiplex!! Anything for additional revenue!!

Drive-In Cinema, Mombasa

 Here is an interesting description of an outing to see an English film at the Drive-In cinema in Mombasa around 1960:

"There was no television, and so sometimes my mother and father would go to the drive-in cinema. Since the weather was almost always hot and dry, the drive-in was a favorite venue for them. However, on occasions, during the monsoon it would rain, and they would watch the screen with the windscreen wipers going! It didn’t spoil the evening. They didn’t have carry cots or anything like that for David and I, so they used to get an empty drawer from a chest of drawers and put a blanket in it and place us on the back seat and take us with them. (No seat belts of course!). In later years we were able to stay up on the back seat of the car until the credits rolled at the beginning of the film. It was a great night out for us as well, as it usually meant a sausage in a roll and perhaps a swig of dad’s beer before bed if we were lucky. The drive-in cinema only seemed to play one record before the film, ‘Apache’ by the Shadows which echoed over the vast car park. To this day, when I hear that record, I think of the Drive In at Mombasa.

Generally, in those days the cinema was quite amateurish. The adverts before the film were usually ‘slides’ project on the screen. It was quite common for an advert on a slide to be shown upside down and hurriedly changed! The films were often 1950’s Ealing productions, they were always accompanied by a ‘funny’ (a cartoon – often Tom and Jerry), and a ‘short’, which was a ‘B’ movie. Along with this was a newsreel, by Pathé news, giving us the British national news from about two months ago, narrated in a very ‘clipped’ upper class British accent. Since there were no foreign newspapers, this was the only way of knowing what was going on in Britain."

source: https://petegoddard.pw/882-2

The Shadows - Apache: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7TwULx_wDiI

Amazing!!...I recall around 1974 the Regal had only one Beatles vinyl record album that was played every day for many months!!...until my school friend Hitesh, who worked at Assanands brought me many cassettes of the latest English Hits that I handed over to the projectionist!!

https://www.thebeatles.com/beatles-1967-1970

YouTube clip:Kenya, Nairobi & 20th Century Cinemas - post 1972!!

 This video on YouTube was probably taken after 1972. This is the only video I have seen that shows all of the 3 cinemas in CBD:

Kenya Cinema - minute 1.00 to 1.03; and again 2.09 to 2.17

Nairobi Cinema - minute 3.18 to 3.25 (right of Uchumi building - you can see the blue wall and Nairobi Cinema sign)

20th Century Cinema - minute 3.27 to 3.35 (you can see the top of the red sign '20th')

enjoy!!

also has great scenes of Kenayatta Avenue. Parliament building and New Stanley Hotel!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQXGTXmK4hc

Advertising in Mombasa Cinemas in the 1970s: Filmlets (EA) Ltd and Pearl & Dean (EA) Ltd

If you were a regular film patron to Mombasa cinemas in the 1970s you may remember the commercials that played before the National Anthem and News (News Pictorial or later the Kenya Newsreel). The industry used to call these ‘filmlets’. The term commercial was not used at the time!!

The famous Rolex commercial at the Drive-In comes to mind. This is where a swimmer wearing a Rolex watch dives from a very high cliff somewhere in Cancun. This played for a long time at the Drive-In including prior to Indian films.

Yet another one that played continuously were various British Airways commercials at only the Kenya Cinema Mombasa.

Some of the commercials at this early time were locally produced. For example, the Close-Up toothpaste commercial was filmed on a busy Nairobi Street. An attractive African lady bumps into a man and the narrative starts with “suddenly you are very close to someone...will your teeth be bright? ...will your breath be fresh?....”

And then who can forget all the slides before the commercials. At the Regal the slides would whiz by without giving patrons enough time to read them!!

Little known were the companies behind the distribution of commercials. There were only 2 companies. One was Filmlets (EA) Ltd. This was associated with 20th Century Fox (EA) Ltd. The other was Pearl and Dean (EA) Ltd.

These companies would send schedules monthly with updates and a box of new 30/60 second filmlets as needed. This part of the business was quite lucrative. Advertising revenues could be anywhere from 5% - 15% of box office takings. And of course, the higher the cinema attendance the higher the advertising amounts these companies would send each month. The cinemas could not negotiate anything! This additional revenue was pure gravy as there were virtually no additional costs! At the Regal the only headache fell to Jack the rewinder who had to spend time each week splicing up all the 5-9 filmlets. Kenya cinema in Mombasa had the most commercials ranging from 8-16 filmlets each week. At the Regal we would try and boost advertising revenues by sending Filmlets and Pearl & Dean schedules of upcoming films that would likely do well.

As the years went by some filmlets were in Swahili. Later on you could see the same filmlets on the Voice of Kenya TV!

Slides were much cheaper to produce, and local Mombasa businesses would have these made up by local photography businesses. In those days slides were around 5in by 5in. The film would be set between 2 glass panes that would be manually inserted in a slider allowing 2 slides at a time in a dedicated slide machine. The projectionist had to be careful the slide was shown right side up!

Regular patrons may remember the last slide that was used for years in Mombasa cinemas that said ‘Please check your belongings before you leave. Management is not responsible for lost items.' This started after a high-profile loss in one of the cinemas in the 1960s. Regal showed this social message by way of a business card held in the palm of one’s hand, while Kenya cinema showed a man's lower body as he left the cinema!!

And who can forget the slide that played continuously at the Kenya Cinema about a Marlon Brando film on Wounded Knee. This film never arrived!

Filmlets (East Africa) Limited was incorporated in Kenya in Sept 1960 (see below)

Pearl and Dean (East Africa) Limited was incorporated in Kenya in Sept 1961 and was dissolved in April 1994 as film attendance dropped precipitously!! (see below)

Advertising in Cinemas appeared to be still lucrative by the mid 1990s. See the Advertising Rate Sheet from the Fox group below.

see Pearl and Dean logo that played at the Regal Theatre Mombasa (the actual one had a rotating globe in the middle!)

from 1.25min to 1.40min:

https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=youtube%20pearl%20and%20dean%20history%20of%20logo&docid=607993053714016303&mid=1AA8517BF28E004797201AA8517BF28E00479720&view=detail&FORM=VIRE&fbclid=IwAR1MCHJJXkrkl6e1hsRz1lFB98DnCfwb2PWuIePdiqayscQyS8X2xu7MAbk