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. 

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.