A short history of the Odeon Cinema in Nairobi, Kenya

Photo: Odeon Cinema Latema Road 1956.

 

Did you ever hear ODEON is the acronym for "Oscar Deutch Entertains Our Nation".

Wikipedia indicates, 'Odeon Cinemas was created in 1928 by Oscar Deutsch. Odeon publicists liked to claim that the name of the cinemas was derived from his motto, "Oscar Deutsch Entertains Our Nation", but it had been used for cinemas in France and Italy in the 1920s, and the word is actually Ancient Greek ᾨδεῖον, Ōideion, meaning "a place for singing" '. 

Odeon Cinema opened in the 1950s. After the Odeon was built, Mr. Dahyabhal K Patel obtained the lease and the Odeon franchise. A the time Odeon Cinemas was a large international company. Mr Patel also opened an Odeon in Nakuru. The Business Daily reports that before the cinemas picked up the Mau Mau conflict started. Additionally there was competition from other Nairobi cinemas showing Indian movies. These included Shan, Liberty, Embassy and Globe cinemas.

Mr. Patel sold the cinema to a non resident company, the Indian Film Combined Ltd in 1959. He continued to operate the Nakuru Odeon. (see a separate post of the history of the Odeon Nakuru cinema). 

Indian Film Combined Ltd operated the cinema until 1969. The business was then sold to Kenya Exhibitors. Kenya Exhibitors was a Kenyan organization, It's directors were all Kenyans. 

In the 70s an 80s the Odeon showed most of the new Kung Fu blockbusters and first repeat Hollywood blockbusters. It ran continuous shows everyday at around 1pm,3,5,7,and 9pm. It was usually in the top 10 of all cinemas in Kenya with respect to movie attendance and box office revenues.!!

Kenya Exhibitors ran the cinema until the proliferation of pirating, VHS and DVD crushed movie attendance in Kenya.

 In the 1990 it was transformed into a church. And in 2011 it became the Kenya Aviation College.

 Photo: Odeon Cinema

 Photo: Odeon building with 5 floors and windows covering the front of the premises is occupied by the Kenya Aviation College.

Kenyans still remember the Odeon Cinema in Nairobi. Here are some of the comments from Facebook:

'The first fim screened at this cinema was Anarkali, starring Pradeep Kumar, Bina Rai, Mubarak etc. © Rajni Shah'

'Watched The Ten Commandments there multiple times'

'Gosh! There was a tree on Latema road!!! Compare this to the matatu menace right now!!!!'

reference:

Oct 4th 2011:

https://www.businessdailyafrica.com/bd/lifestyle/society/lights-out-for-odeon-after-a-good-run--1994052

https://m.facebook.com/KenyaHistory101/photos/odeon-cinema-on-latema-road-1956-the-first-fim-screened-at-this-cinema-was-anark/502068589806122/

Cinemas in Kenya and the Entertainment Tax

                                                       

The sample tickets from the Metropole Cinema (above) and Shan Cinema (below) provide the statement 'Including Tax'. This refers to the entertainment tax. Cinemas in Kenya were subject to an Entertainment Tax of 10%  in the 1970's and 1980's. It is interesting to note that the government implemented a complicated system to ensure it received the tax. The system was not as simple as just reporting 'sales x 10%' as in many VAT jurisdictions today. 

Cinemas had to print their tickets way in advance, and then store the tickets at the local tax office. I had the opportunity to accompany a couple of staff members from the Regal Cinema, Mombasa. We made  the trip to the local tax office to pick up ticket booklets when the current stock of tickets booklets in the cinema office was running low.  Such trips were made monthly or more often when cinema attendance spiked due to popular movies being screened.

Cinema staff had to show up at the tax office with a cheque on hand. The tax had to be paid in advance!. The cinemas therefore had to estimate demand for the next little while for each ticket category. They also had to estimate how much cash they could afford to dish out!!  

At the time of my visit there were 4 ticket categories. These were common to all Mombasa cinemas. Balcony tickets in the mid 1970s were 6 shs. Stalls had 3 ticket categories. These were 4.80, 3.60 and 2.40. Management had to estimate the expected demand for each category and crunch up the total entertainment tax.

I remember my visit well. On a particularly hot afternoon we walked from the Regal Cinema on Digo road, down Nkrumah road towards Old town. The shop awnings kept the hot sun away from us. As we were avid movie buffs, we paused outside the Kenya cinema to view the posters of upcoming releases. Having made a mental note of the competition and what to watch next we continued down Nkrumah road, past the Banki Kuu ya Kenya building and entered the white colonial building on the other side of the roundabout which was just before old town. 

A tax official met us. After some pleasantries he accepted our cheque, He then led us down a corridor to a large stock room. The room was lined with wooden shelves. Each shelf was piled with cinema tickets.  The shelves had labels identifying each Mombasa cinema. These included Kenya, Naaz, Moons, Drive In, Chox, and the Regal cinema. 

At the end of the shelves we found a wooden table and 2 chairs. The tax official brought the applicable tickets to the table. Each ticket booklet had 100 tickets. They were all in numerical order. You can see the numbers on the top right of the sample tickets from Metropole and Shan cinema (above).

The tax official provided a government stamp (holder) and stamp pad that was refilled with blue ink. The stamp holder basically provided the date and a statement that said something like 'tax paid'. We then spent the next hour stamping each ticket!!.

On completion of stamping all the tickets we packed all the ticket booklets in a box and made our way back to Regal. The task that afternoon took a good 3-4 hours!!  

Interestingly the sample ticket from the Avalon cinema (see below) in Dar-es-salaam has a government stamp similar to a postage stamp. This system was not followed in Kenya.

Also note that the sample tickets (see above) from the 2 Nairobi cinemas do not have a government stamp indicating tax was paid. Perhaps they had a different system in Nairobi. Or perhaps these particular tickets were issued without paying entertainment tax!. Staff, owners and cinema patrons had all sorts of ingenious ways to bypass the tax man and in fact avoid paying anything. But that is a topic for another day! 

 

The day in 1986 when 20th Century Fox sold its Cinemas in Nairobi

Fox Theatres (E.A.) Ltd owned the 3 big cinemas in Nairobi. We have all been to them! These were the magnificent Kenya Cinema, 20th Century Cinema and Thika Fox Drive-In. Kenyans were entertained to the latest Hollywood movies in world class cinemas for more than 35 years!!  

Well, all good things come to an end. Internationally 20th Century Fox changed hands in 1985. Rupert Murdoch had purchased the company from Marvin Davis for around US $430 million!  

A decision was made to sell Fox Theatres (E.A.) Ltd. The business including the properties were valued around Shs 32 million. An offer was accepted at Shs 29 million in 1986. At the time this was roughly equal to US $1.8 million representing less than 1% of 20th Century Fox’s assets. But for Kenya the sale was a big deal.  

The deal did not sit well with some members of parliament. In parliament they chastised the government for allowing scarce foreign currency generated from exports of coffee to pay the seller 20th Century Fox! The government argued that it was good for the company to be owned by Kenyans as foreign expertise was not essential to operate these cinemas.  

Even more telling were the MPs' accusations that scarce US$ was provided to the buyer, an individual Mr S.H. Alibhai. Could the MPs' be referring to the same Mr Alibhai that partnered with Moi in various ventures including Marshalls? The assistant minister of Finance stood up in parliament and refuted that Mr Alibhai was the buyer. He said in fact US$ was provided to a private Kenyan company by the name of Piccadilly to purchase the assets.   It is another story as to who the buyers were and what happened to the cinemas as the years went by!!  

Interestingly the sale also included the movie distribution arm managed by Anglo American Film Distributors. Readers will recall in a previous post that barely 20 years ago, (in 1968) the government wanted the Kenya Film Corporation, a state-owned company to be the sole movie distributor in Kenya. KFC relented after 20th Century Fox closed its cinemas in protest for months refusing to give up its movie distribution segment. Well, in 1986 KFC was effectively shut out of the 20th Century Fox sale. By 1995 KFC was insolvent and there was no government bailout. But that too is another story!! 

(Ref: Kenya National Assembly Official Record (Hansard) Sep 30 - Dec 11, 1986) 

Cinemas in Kenya and its role in enriching the Indian culture and vice versa Contributory article by: Ojwang Plante Okula, Bachelors (Education Arts) History, Moi University

The Indian population had grown in most parts of the country by the 1930s. This was especially the case in towns like Kisumu, Nairobi and Mombasa.

The Indian community had a huge role in shaping up the cinema industry across East Africa right from Mombasa to the streets of the Clove Island (Zanzibar). There were many reasons for this.

Indian movies provided an escape from the day to day working life. The movies were entertaining as the movies provided lots of dance scenes. The key heartthrob actors lip synched the latest songs by popular singers. The movies held everyone’s attention whether it was a comedy, action or a sad story.

The popularity of Indian movies from the 1930s onwards can also be understood given this was the era of no Television, VHS or DVDs. The only other form of entertainment were live Indian shows.

The Indian movies also provided avenues for getting up-to-date with the latest fashion and trends as men and women tried emulating fashion trends from their stars in the films. When the famous film star Sharmila Tagore wore a revealing swimsuit in the 1967 film 'An Evening in Paris', she opened the door for many Indian women to go swimming without covering themselves fully!!

Watching Indian movies was one more way of keeping in touch with their indigenous culture as the Indians who had settled in East Africa had started to lose touch with their motherland given that it was expensive to travel to and from their motherland.

As the years went by, first-generation Indians born in Kenya had one further way to maintain and learn their culture, customs and tradition by going to see an Indian movie. The movies acted as custodians and stewards of the Indian beliefs and practices. Almost all the movies were in Hindi, and this was one more benefit of watching Indian movies as it allowed first generation Indians to maintain their parents' language.

Indian movies allowed all Indians to maintain and enhance their sense of identity given an ever changing local cultural and political landscape.

The cinemas actually offered much more than entertainment and culture. There were like temples, mosques or churches. They acted as meeting points for the Indian community. The shows actually became family bonding events. One author actually quoted that cinema were not lifeless chunks of brick and mortar. They resonated with soul and spirit. This is where you mingled with others. The cinemas were places that gave individual lives meaning, and spaces that gave a town emotional life. Across generations, cinemas were central to community formation.

So, and for example, on a typical Sunday evening a lot of Indians would throng the Globe Cinema. This was considered a 'posh' cinema because of its luxurious seats, excellent acoustics and projection. As journalist Kul Bushan quoted, ‘perched on a hillock overlooking the Ngara roundabout, the Globe became the first choice for cinemagoers for new Indian releases as it became the venue to ogle and be ogled by the old and the young.’ Such was the appeal of the Globe Cinema, that it is was here in the heydays of the popularity of Indian movies and in the heydays of KANU, that President Daniel Arap Moi was convinced to hold fundraisers for various national projects including the building of the Armed Forces Memorial Hospital.

The day in 1931 when Regal Theatre, Mombasa screened the first Indian movie with sound ALAM ARA and the story behind it...!!

The day in 1931 when Regal Theatre, Mombasa screened the first Indian movie with sound ALAM ARA and the story behind it...!!

(from the book: Jambo, Samji Kala!, The Life and Times of Mohanlal Kala Savani)

The Regal Theatre opened in Mombasa in 1931. It was built and operated by 2 brothers Valli Hasham and Janmohamed Hasham. Regal showed English movies and at other times rented the space for live plays and performances. The clientele was mainly British expatriates.

In the same year, India produced the first 'talkie' Alam Ara. It starred Master Vithal and Zubeida. Mohanlal Samji Kala acquired the distribution rights and imported this movie. This was before he constructed the Majestic and Kenya cinemas in Mombasa. He therefore rented showtimes at the newly opened Regal Cinema to exhibit the movie. The rest is history......

Interestingly no print of Alam Ara exists today. Unfortunately, the last print of this movie was reportedly destroyed in a fire at the National Archives of India in Pune.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alam_Ara

THE DAY 20TH CENTURY FOX CLOSED ITS 3 NAIROBI CINEMAS

The day 20th Century Fox closed its 3 Nairobi cinemas in protest against the Kenya government's policies of (1) Africanization and (2) economic boycott of (apartheid) South Africa!!

In 1967 the state-owned Kenya Film Corporation was given sole rights to distribute all movies in Kenya.

However Anglo-American Film Distributors that was owned by 20th Century Fox and some South African shareholders, refused to give up distribution rights to movies produced by United Artists, and 20th Century Fox amongst other Hollywood studios. The Kenya government in response stopped them from importing these movies. In protest 20th Century Fox closed the Kenya, 20th Century and Fox Drive In cinemas for months!! These cinemas also refused to screen movies distributed by KFC!!

Additionally, the Motion Picture Exporting Association of America (MPEAA) which controlled over 80% of the global cinema business, would hear none of giving up control to KFC. In a Feb 1968 meeting in Nairobi a vice president of MPEAA said American film companies could not accept to deal with “citizen only companies"!!

The Kenya government considered making all the 20th Century Fox expatriate staff persona non grata. Additionally, they considered directing the Commissioner of Lands to withdraw the rights to the use of the cinema premises. Nationalization was also considered. However, open nationalization would create negative publicity and would not attract foreign investment.

The Kenya government relented!! The cinemas were allowed to open after 9 months and AAFD continued distributing movies in Kenya!! However, there are indications AAFD then became solely owned by the US company and all local staff were mainly Africans!!

(ref: EVALUATION OF KENYAN FILM INDUSTRY: HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE Edwin Ngure Nyutho)

Avalon Cinema, Dar-es-Salaam

 AVALON CINEMA Dar es Salaam

from AFRICA'S WINDS OF CHANGE by Al Noor Kassam

At that time, Dar es Salaam had only two cinemas and, because the

tickets were expensive, the audiences were usually the well-to-do. My brother Hassanali was fascinated by films and he and some business partners formed an enterprise called Indo-African Theatres Ltd. They had cinemas in Nairobi and Zanzibar. The partners were Harbanslal, a Punjabi from Nairobi; a Parsee named Talati from Zanzibar, who imported films from India; and Thawer, an Ismaili from Zanzibar. They also gave me some shares in the company. They suggested to my father that he build a cinema which they would then lease from him. Our family owned a godown that was leased by an Arab businessman named Yahya Mohammed, which was ideal for conversion into a cinema. After the businessman vacated the premises, I supervised the conversion of the building into the Avalon cinema, which was opened in 1944 by the Mayor of Dar es Salaam, Tom Tyrell. In addition to Indian films, we also screened films from the UK and USA. We imported the latest films and screened them for a week.......

In April 1971, when I was back in Tanzania, the government

nationalized all private buildings from which the owners were earning rent in excess of a certain amount. My brothers and I expected our father to be furious about losing the properties he had acquired through hard work over more than half a century. However, he surprised us. ‘I am happy the buildings have been nationalized – I will no longer have to pay income tax since I won’t be earning rent,’ he said with a broad smile.

Nairobi Cinema

(View of Nairobi Cinema taken from the balcony, last row). 

Nairobi Cinema built in 1972. It is housed in Uchumi House on Agakhan Walk. 

I think it was the first cinema to be constructed since the early 60s in Nairobi or Mombasa. No other cinema was constructed during the 1970s to mid 1990s!!

The Nairobi Cinema was usually in the top 3 cinemas in box office revenue and attendance.

Unlike any other cinema in Kenya it had a curved screen which meant you could sit at the end of a row and still see the screen as if you were sitting in the middle!! The projection room was downstairs at the back  of the stalls. This was also unusual. Almost all cinemas at the time had the projection room placed at the back of the balcony. Placing the projection room at the back of the stalls meant more higher price seats could be placed in the balcony!

It had 850 seats. As seen below all the seats were lush red comfortable seats. Royal circle had one row. This was the front row seats in the balcony which was separated from the other  rows behind by a low partition.

After purchasing the tickets you had to climb the outdoor stairs to reach the lobby. If it was raining you would be drenched. Once in the lobby you had to climb more stairs to reach the circle (balcony).

This cinema was leased by ICDC (government parastatal) to the ICDC owned Kenya Film Corporation...it meant new blockbusters from Paramount and Columbia pictures released thru KFC did not have to play at the competitors Kenya and 20th Century cinemas.

Nairobi Cinema operated from 1972 to 1995.  It was a very successful government venture!!

As it was owned by the government it did not suffer the same fate as other historic cinemas. It was never renovated to other uses such as offices and shops. Today it is the Nairobi Film Centre run by the Kenya Film Classification Board. The objective is to facilitate local movie producers.

Metropole Cinema Nairobi

 Metropole Cinema Nairobi

In 1964, the Metropole Cinema opened at Adams Arcade. The grand opening ceremony for the cinema was presided over by the Nairobi Mayor of the time, Charles Rubia.

https://adamsarcade.co.ke/

Sample ticket for the Metropole Cinema:

the date appears to in 1968!

Adams Arcade:

https://nairobifashionhub.co.ke/adams-arcade/

stories about the Metropole:

...the star attraction of the arcade was the Metropole cinema. I only watched a film there twice as the movies were adult rated but we still showed up at Adamsv every opportunity to drool over the movie posters and envy lucky movie goers....Metropole cinema closed down alongside a host of other cinema halls in Nairobi some years after the '82 coup....Oyunga Pala 

http://oyungapala.com/children-of-a-revolution-that-never-was/

...my entire pre-teen years were shaped by Lance Spearman's near eternal battle with arch enemy Rabon Zollo.....Lance made the preferred toy of the time his Beretta "Little Friend" toy pistol bought at a toy shop outside the Metropole Cinema House, also where I watched Sean Connery as James Bond in Gold Finger. The Metropole died and has since morphed into a gym inside Adam's Arcade, Woodley, Nairobi...Sulubu Tuva

https://m.facebook.com/AfricanFilmComicMagazineLanceSpearmanMagazine/photos/a.302526979843106.41812559.287803504648787/302527336509737#_=_

Having missed the movie Airport numerous times I finally saw this movie at the Metropole on a Saturday matinee show. Lucky for me block buster movies in Kenya (as in many countries) would repeat so often in the cinemas in those days. I was struck at how the stalls seats led into stadium style seating, ie the balcony did not have a separate entrance. Years later this design is now commonplace!!