Cinemas de Sao Paulo - Janeiro 1961

CINEMA LIXO... trasho !!!

Cine Regina on Avenida São João, which had been one of the most luxurious cinema-houses in town in 1960, havind shown 'Ben Hur', was turned into a parking lot. Sheer trash!

Cine Saci, no final de sua existência, já 'emparedado' pela péssima administração do prefeito Gilberto Kassab - PFL, DEM ou PSD - 2006-2013... lixo total.

Mounted Military Police with Bruce Lee starring one of his many flicks at Cine Saci on the right hand side... it could be late 1970s. 

Av. São João in the 80s? Cine Saci can be seen on the right-hand side.

Avenida São João in the early 1980s. See Cine Sací on the left-hand side. 

Cine Sací can be seen on the left-hand side on Av. São João in the mid-1970s. 

Avenida Sao João in 1984. Cine Avenida on the right-hand foreground and Cine Saci further down the block. 

Cine Rancho at Rua General Couto Magalhaes, 140 in the late 1970s. 

Circa January 1980, downtown Sao Paulo was going straight down-the-drain. Economic stagnation was set in around mid-1970s due to the petroleum-crisis started in 1974. The 1980s would be poisonous times... followed by the 1990s with hyper-inflation and more of the same. Deteriotation set in at an amazing speed... and the City has never regained its balance...                                                                                                                                                     Big cinema-houses that had been built in the 40s and 50s suddenly were cut in two or three to make room to smaller projecting spaces so the exhibitors could make more money showing 2 or 3 different movies at the same time.                                                                                                                                                                                                                               Cine Rio Branco was devided into Blue Room (Sala Azul), Sao Paulo Room and Red Room (Sala Vermelha)...                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           Smaller cinemas popped up here and there. Cine Rancho, Cine Texas on Rua Roberto Simonsen, Cine Can Can etc.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            jornal 'O Estado de S.Paulo' 13 January 1980. 

24 November 1963 - a brand-new trash-cinema opens on Avenida Rio Branco, 49 - Cine Arizona was opened to the public on Thursday, 28 November 1963, with 'Jim das Selvas' (Jungle Jim) a movie released 15 years earlier - in 1948. Cine Arizona had a long career until it changed its name to Cine America... only the flies were new for the same old shit. As the 1970s progressed the the city of São Paulo entered a decadence that until today (2017) has not find a way to reverse its rot. Now the whole area stinks of shit, urine, body odor and all...

Cine Texas opened for business on 9 February 1971. I was in the habit of attending cinemas with double-feature programmes so when I saw it in the paper Cine Texas was showing 1966's 'Batman' with Adam West as the Caped Crusader, Burt Ward playing the Boy Wonder, Cesar Romero as the villainous Joker and Burgess Meredith as the wicked swaying Penguin I had no doubt. I told my kid brother where I was going and he came along. We spent the whole afternoon in the cinema which seeemed 'nice' to me for it was fairly new and didn't have that foul smell so common to those kind of movie theatre. 

It must have been a Saturday afternoon for the cinema was pretty croweded. Mostly males, as usual. Women usually were afraid of entering these kind of theatres (dens of perversion). 

As I was soon to move out to the USA, much later on, when I reminesced about that particular day I wasn't sure it really had happened or I had made it up in my mind. You see, Cine Texas must have closed down a few years after X-rated movies were allowed in the country, circa 1985, when the military dictatorship came to an end. Suddenly myriad of porno cinemas sprang up in the city and competion was fierce. Cine Texas must have become a victim of this It didn't last too many years, 

When I tried to locate the site where Cine Texas existed in the 1990s I didn't have a clue where it could have been. But I remembered distinctly well the name of the street: Rua Roberto Simonsen, a side street that branches off Praça da Sé. Not much later I came across these photos at this cinema site: http://salasdecinemadesp2.blogspot.com/2016/08/texas-sao-paulo-sp.html

It says Cine Texas closed down in 1985 - so it actually lasted 14 years, which is no mean feature when one had so much competion. Then it re-opened in 1993, to show X-rated movies.  

Cine Texas on Rua Roberto Simonsen, 88 in its X-rated phase which started in 1993. 

Cine Texas, in 1977, on the right. 

former Cine Texas became a parking place. 

West Side Story

I like to be in America 

okay by me in America 

everything's free in America 

for a small fee in America...

words by Stephen Sondheim

music by Leonard Bernstein.

I know a boat you can get on... 

George Chakiris, Jerome Robbins, Robert Wise & Rita Moreno.

handsome George & lovely Rita...

Rita Moreno in a relaxing mood... 

Marni Nixon is the voice that comes out of Natalie Wood as Maria in 'West Side Story'.

any similarity is mere coincidence... 

West Side living...

Escolas FISK - 1970

'Immediate Converstion in English' double-album made by Chantecler in the 1960s. 

Fisk News 20 November 1970.

Festa de criação da Grande Fisk Centro - Depois de longos anos, as Escolas Fisk conseguem concretizar um velho sonho! Ampliar a Francisca Miquelina. A escola da Chica Mica, 118, é a primeira Fisk, o berço de toda a organização. Cômoda por sua construção e localização, em pleno centro, a falta de espaço impedia a sua ampliação, obrigando as EF a manter, para poder atender todos os seu alunos, outros locais no miolo da cidade. Agora, conseguimos pegar (meio na marra), um conjunto idêntico no mesmo prédio, ocupando-o todo. Podemos agora, concentrar todo o nosso esforço num só lugar, dando aos nossos alunos todo o conforto que eles merecem. 

Criamos a Grande Fisk Centro, que será formada pela fusão da antiga 'Chica Mica' e da XV de Novembro. Isso proporcionará maior movimento escolar, além de contínua atividade social ('Saturday Club', biblioteca, discoteca etc.) Assim, no dia 5 Dezembro 1970, haverá um dia inteiro de festividades, recepcionando os alunos que vem da XV. As 15:00 horas haverá conferência proferida por Mr. Leonard Fisk, irmão de Mr. Fisk, que virá dos USA para prestigiar as solenidades. Todos os alunos e amigos são convidados (não haverá convites individuais).

a newsletter with a lot of information. 

9 January 1955 - Long before Escolas Fisk was established there was Yázigi which was big enough by 1955, to advertise its recorded course on 'O Estado de S.Paulo'. 

Mr Richard Fisk playing the proverbial teacher on TV.

Escola Fisk at Praça Getúlio Vargas, 47, 2o. andar  in Guarulhos in 1968. 

an Escolas Fisk ad at local Guarulhos newspaper. 

I was in Newark, N.J., USA, the first time I ever heard about 'Escolas Fisk'. I was part of a working force made up of Brazilians, South and Central Americans, Portuguese migrants and African Americans who worked at a vynil record factory on Francis Street. By January 1972, I met a Brazilian fellow called Damazio Nazareth who had a knowledge of English superior to most of Brazilians I had met so far. As we became friends, he told me he had learned English at Fisk, at Praça Getúlio Vargas, 47, 2nd floor, downtown Guarulhos-SP. 

In late 1973, back in São Paulo, Brazil, after taking a Teachers' Training Course provided by Fisk at their original school on Rua Francisca Miquelina, I somehow was sent to that same school Damazio had told me about some18 months before in the USA. Isn't it a small world, indeed? I was sent there to attend some classes given by a particular Brazilian teacher with a small moustache and dark skin. Unfortunately, I can't recall his name, but I was positively impressed by him as a teacher and as a speaker of English as a Foreign Language. He seemed quite proficient to me. A few months later I had the chance to see him at Fisk's Main Office on Rua Lins de Vasconcellos, and I noticed he was revered by many a-teacher. 

Mind you, Damazio was not to be seen around this time (late 1973) for he was still living in the USA. 

Much later, in 1977, after I returned from my second stint in the USA, this time having worked at the Nevele Country Club in the Catskill Mountains, NY. I managed to finally meet up with Damazio at his parent's house in Guarulhos. We hadn't seen each other since early 1973, when I returned to Brazil from my first trip. Damazio and I liked to reminisce of the times we had spent in the USA, 1971, 1972 & 1973. Every time we saw each other we'd sing all those Neil Young, Chicago e other hits from that era. 

Damazio said he had a friend called Claudio who was a musician too and loved to sing in English. We ended up meeting up one day and I was really pleased to know a very good-looking young man who really enjoyed working with music and with the English language. He had never been abroad but he knew a lot of English. We sang a few songs together and he lent me some lyrics he had written on paper which I never gave back to him. A few years later, Damazio told me Claudio had an incurable disease something related to multiple sclerosis and was really sick. Not much later Claudio died. I was really sad to know such a beautiful creature had died.  Here are 3 lyrics with Claudio's handwriting that I still cherish. 

words of 'Dream weaver' written & sung by Gary Wright, which reached # 2 at Billboard on 27 March 1976. 

'Rain and tears' by Greek band Aphrodite's Child, released in July 1968, made it to # 1 in the Netherlands.

'Sweet painted lady' by Elton John & Bernie Taupin, a track from the 1973 album 'Goodbye Yellow Brick Road' that played on the radio quite often. 

I'm back on dry land once again

opportunity awaits me like a rat in the drain

we're all hunting honey with money to burn

just a short time to show you the tricks that we've learned

If the boys all behave themselves here

well, there's pretty young ladies and beer in the rear

you won't need a gutter to sleep in tonight

oh, the prices I charge here will see you alright

So, she lays down beside me again

my sweet painted lady, the one with no name

many have used her and many still do

there's a place in the world for a woman like you

Oh, sweet painted lady

seems it's always been the same

getting paid for being laid

guess that's the name of the game

Oh, sweet painted lady

seems it's always been the same

getting paid for being laid

guess that's the name of the game, oh

Forget us we'll have gone very soon

just forget we ever slept in your rooms

and we'll leave the smell of the sea in your beds

where love's just a job and nothing is said

So she lays down beside me again

my sweet painted lady, the one with no name

many have used her and many still do

there's a place in the world for a woman like you

Oh, sweet painted lady

seems it's always been the same

getting paid for being laid

guess that's the name of the game

Oh, sweet painted lady

seems it's always been the same

getting paid for being laid

guess that's the name of the game, oh!

PINHEIROS cinemas

Cine Brasil on rua Theodoro Sampaio, Pinheiros in the 1940s.

'Forced landing' (Aterrissagem forçada) a 1941 Hollywood production.

Cine Brasil by 1950 already showed the ravages of time; its façade had turned dark from white after a few years of rain and soot from traffic on Rua Theodoro Sampaio; 'Kiss in the dark' 1949.

Largo de Pinheiros circa 1962, when tram cars still trundled the cobble-stoned Rua Theodoro Sampaio.  

Cine Goiás' very cool box-office...

Cine Goiás' hall on rua Butantã in Pinheiros.

1951's 'Os Fortes' ou 'Across the wide Missouri'; 'Gota de sangue' (Code Two) 

11 May 1952 - Cine Goias with 'poltronas estofadas' (stuffed seats) shows 'Pandora' with Ava Gardner & James Mason. 

Artigo sobre o Cine Goiás, na rua Butantã em artigo da Folha de Pinheiros on 31st November 1954.

Cine Goiás had a strange shape... it was like one was inside a triangle. 

One entered into the cinema itself by a side door...

By 1963, only 9 years after Cine Goiás had opened one the rot had already set in; could smell mould in the air and the seats were wobbly because they had been unfastened from the floor.

14 October 1962 - Vittorio de Sica's 'O juízo universal' (Il Giudizio Universale) was a black-and-white which turned into colour at the end when God himself appears in the form of a thundering Voice to the audience of Theatre Scala di Milano. It was filled with celebrities plus Silvana Mangano, Jack Palance, Alberto Sordi, Ernest Borgnine, Fernandel, Melina Mercouri, Vittorio Gassman etc. 

Av. Pedroso de Morais looking towards Av. Rebouças. See Colégio Estadual Fernão Dias on the right. This is 1950. Look at the cobblestones paving Rua Theodoro Sampaio with tram car rails.

a bad photo of Cine Jardim.

Isso é o que restou do Cine Jardim, da rua Fradique Coutinho, 277, que era distribuidor de filmes da MGM. Ao seu lado, foi inaugurado o Cine Fiammetta em 1963.

Cine Fiammetta at Rua Fradique Coutinho, Pinheiros. 

Cine Fiammetta foi inaugurado em 12 Julho 1962, com a exibição de 'Esse Rio que eu amo', de Carlos Hugo Christensen, com Odete Lara, Jardel Filho e Tonia Carrero.

O nome Fiammetta foi tirado de um elegante cinema de Roma. O nome nunca foi muito popular entre nós, devido a semelhança com o verbo 'copular' em português-brasileiro.

Argentine actor Domingo Alzugaray poses next to the advertising of Carlos Hugo Christensen's 'Meus amores no Rio' (1958) which was the prequel to 'Esse Rio que eu amo' (1960).

Audrey at Cinema Fiammetta in Rome, in 1961.

Audrey Hepburn e marido Mel Ferrer na première de 'Breakfast at Tiffany's' no Cinema Fiammetta original em Roma, em 1961. 

Cine Festival foi inaugurado em 19 Junho 1967, na  Rua Deputado Lacerda Franco, 60, uma travessa da rua Teodoro Sampaio em Pinheiros. Exibidor: Circuito Serrador.

Cine Festival inaugurado em Junho de 1967, não durou muito. Logo os cinemas saíram de moda.