Sao Paulo in the 40s, 50s & 60s.

Sunday, July 22, 2012

Cine Ritz-Consolacao / Cine Trianon / Cine Hollywood in Santana

Cine Ritz-Consolação passando 'Meu último tango' com Sarita Montiel em 1961. Foi o último filme passado ali antes de ser fechado e alugado à TV Tupi, que o transformou em teatro, onde se apresentaram Eartha Kitt, Della Reese, Aurelio Fierro e outros cartazes internacionais. O Cine Ritz do centro tinha sido demolido ainda nos anos 1950s para dar lugar ao Cine Rivoli.

When TV Tupi heard Cine Ritz-Consolação was about to shut down due to the approaching widening of Rua da Consolação they thought it would be a good idea to lease the premises and turn it into a Theatre just like TV Record had two blocks down. That's how Teatro Tupi came to be. It had a short life though: from 1961 through to 1964 when it closed its doors. This photo was taken in 1964, when TV Tupi presented 'Musica, sempre música' conducted by maestro Bernardo Federowski. On Fridays, they had 'Sabatinas Maizena'.

com 'Meu ultimo tango', Sarita estava no auge de seu sucesso no Brasil.

Inauguração do Cine Ritz, na Avenida São João em 17 Fevereiro 1943.

note que o Ritz da Avenida São João e o Ritz da rua da Consolação eram exclusivos da United Artists.

Cine Ritz na Avenida São João.

Cine Ritz on Avenida São João, in 1953.

Avenida Ipiranga corner with Avenida Sao João in the 1950s. Bar do Jeca on the right-hand corner; one can see Cine Ritz neon-light further down the block and Cine Broadway across the street on the left-hand side.

Cine Trianon inaugurado em 1958, esquina da rua da Consolação com a Avenida Paulista.

Cine Trianon foi fechado para reformas em 1967 e reabriu em 29 Junho 1967. Note que o Cine Ritz, à esquerda, apesar de estar fechado, ainda não tinha sido demolido. Muita gente acha que o Cine Ritz-Consolação e o Cine Trianon eram um mesmo cinema. O jornal Folha de S.Paulo ainda persiste nesse erro. Não, eram 2 cinemas distintos existindo lado a lado, pelo menos de 1958 a 1966.

em 1968 a rua da Consolação já tinha sido alargada; o Cine Ritz foi, finalmente demolido, e o Cine Trianon mudou de nome para Cine Belas Artes.

Rua da Consolação sendo alargada em 1967. Da Avenida Ipiranga até o Cemitério da Consolação, a parte alargada era a esquerda de quem sobe. Do Cemitério até o trecho da Avenida Paulista, o lado alargado foi o lado direito de quem sobe. O Cine Trianon, construído de 1957, já tinha sido projetado de uma maneira que havia um grande espaço vazio em frente, justamente para o futuro alargamento da Consolação.

a 'Bolsa de Cinema' da Folha de S.Paulo trazia a lista dos filmes mais populares do momento. Veja essa listagem de 10 Setembro 1959.

Cine Hollywood em Santana, rua Voluntários da Pátria, já em fase de acelerada decadência.

SANCTA EPHIGENIA July 2012

Sancta Ephigênia on a Saturday afternoon - July 2012.

Art-Deco bus-shelter on Avenida Casper Libero circa 1950.

St. Ephigenia in 1916.

Sancta Ephigênia por dentro.

Requiem Mass for Pope Pius XII in 1958, in a church very much like Sancta Efigenia.

Marian Hotel, near Sancta Efigenia Church.

Sancta Ephigenia's tower surrounded by other towers...

Portal da Sé.

Sé Cathedral's back...

Art-Deco galore on rua Capitão Salomão.

rua Antonio Godoy.

Galeria 24 de Maio aka Galeria do Rock.

Graffitti at Largo do Paissandú.

Avenida Tiradentes.

Avenida Tiradentes circa 1967 before they removed the monument to Ramos de Azevedo...

Cinemas de Sao Paulo - Janeiro 1961

Tuesday, July 3, 2012

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.