Nostalgia – The West End of Madras

by N.S. Parthasarathy

That title might lead readers to expect my theme to be on the West End of Madras, like the real West End of London, the residential area of the rich elite and one that is close to the seat of power. My subject, however, is a different West End; it is not an elitist area of Madras but a cinema house with that name. My recollection, stretching back to the 1940s, centre on the West End cinema on -General Patter’s Road (name of the road, thankfully, remains -unchanged) where now stands a dilapidated dysfunctional -building bearing the name Jayapradha Theatre. This structure is not the same as that of the original West End but built on that site. Suffice it to say that, as a schoolboy were my haunts and the West End was one.

West End was then the premier cinema theatre for English, mainly movies, and as such, was largely patronised by members of the British community in the city. Their number was quite substantial air included those who served in senior positions in banks, business houses, courts and government. On a rough count, West End had a seating capacity of about 300-400 divided into two common classes besides the first class and, above all, what was called the Dress Circle. Gentlemen and ladies of the expat community, occupying the Dress Circle, were dressed more than casually, the men often in suits and, at times, in black and white with bow tie, probably to attend a banquet after the show. I have heard it said that many of them had the facility of signing chits for a consolidated bill to be sent at the month end, very much like today’s practice in Clubs. Now and then, touring Shakespearean troupes from England staged their shows at the West End.

There were then three cinema houses, other than West End, that showed English movies – New Elphinstone located in, what was called Round Tana, opposite the present new secretariat structure, Roxy in Purasawalkam and Minerva in Broadway. But West End was most preferred due to its first claim on new releases. Because of the limited audience, each movie needed only a week’s -exhibition to cover the demand. Generally, there was a weekly change, but big “road shows”, as  they were called, had enough ticket sales to justify a second-week run. There was enough supply of English movies to keep up with this rapid change.

As an aside, Tamil movies, in contrast, ran for several weeks to full houses as the demand was very much larger and the available “reel” copies were just a few for the whole province. Just one theatre in the city had to exhibit the movie till the entire demand was satisfied, virtually in batches. Haridas starring the popular singing star M.K. Thiagaraja Bhagavathar, ran for 50-60 weeks!

The Roxy had the second run of the movies. Roxy catered to the large Anglo-Indian -community in the Vepery–Pura-sawalkam area. Elphin-stone’s attraction was the soda fountain. It was a popular venue for college students cutting classes to hang out in. Minerva carved out an interesting niche for itself – it specialised in -reviving old English classics, had a compact small hall and had air-conditioning, all suggesting exclusiveness; the last mentioned was a rare comfort those days. Globe and Casino came later to avail of the -increasing popularity of English movies. Casino switched to Tamil movies unable to bear the language competition from Gaiety cinema next door which was of very old vintage, going by its dilapidated masonry and zinc sheet roof.

MGM, Paramount and Warner Bros of Hollywood had one-person, one room offices in the city to distribute the “reels” to cinema houses, mainly in Madras, and to the very few upcountry in accordance with pre-determined priority turns and collect the agreed share of revenue for credit to their bank accounts.

Collection of colourful leaflets on art paper and signed photo cards of Hollywood stars was a popular hobby among movie buffs. Greta Garbo, Norma Shearer, Ginger Rogers, Betty Grable, Bette Davis, Grace Kelly, Rita Hayworth, Olivia D’Havilland, Hedy Lamarr were the famous female stars of Hollywood whose picture cards were sought after. The male stars who captured the imagination were Clark Gable, Cary Grant, Ronald Colman, James Stewart, Charles Boyer, Tyrone Power, Errol Flynn, Spencer Tracy, Wallace Beery, Eddie Cantor. Notable omissions in this list are unintended and due to fading memory.

Movies were produced in ‘series’ to hold audience interest. Here are a few examples of series that were popular – the Road series: Road to Rio, Road to Singapore, Road to Morocco, starring Bob Hope and Bing Crosby, who separated later; the Bud Abbot and Lou Costello comedies; the Boy’s Town series with the inimitable Mickey Rooney-Judy Garland pair; the Belvedere series like Mr Belvedere Goes to College starring David Niven; the Charlie Chaplin series and the Laurel and Hardy series which gave way to Abbot and Costello who were followed by Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis.

West End and Wellington, located within a furlong of each other, were on lease with the two Dorabji brothers who, probably, were one of the oldest Parsi families in Madras. The descendants of Burjoji Dorabji were still in Royapuram where I met them at a party a couple of years ago. The brothers were running the two cinema businesses first in partnership and subsequently separately – West End with Burjoji Dorabji and Wellington with Framji Dorabji. West End rendered valuable service to the armed forces stationed in Avadi during the World War II. Burjoji’s sons, Jamshed (Jam) and Homi, shared the responsibility, one staying at Avadi to run the armed forces cinema house and the other shuttling, on his motor cycle, initially, and later by a Morris tourer, between Avadi and Madras to take the “reels” back and forth.

The Wellington buildings and the adjoining large estate extending from Cosmopolitan Club to about half the length of General Patter’s Road – known as the Dinroze Estate – was owned by the Italias of Hydera-bad. The senior Jamshed Italia, Squadron Leader by rank – served in the Nizam’s Air Force – was the lessor. Later he -became also a partner with Framji in Wellington Cinema. The front part of the Welling-ton building was the show room of the Wellington Cycle Company for Raleigh and Hercules cycles imported in knock-down condition in boxes, re–assem-bled and sold. The cinema business survived the cycle company and did well exhibiting Tamil movies. For many years Wellington had a strong mutually reinforcing relationship with S.S. Vasan of Gemini Studios. Wellington was prominently located which Vasan wanted for the premiere of his box office record-breaking movies.

It was a synergy that lasted many years with Wellington showing box office hits like Chandralekha, Mangamma Sabha–tham, Apoorva Sagodha-rargal. The strategy worked out well as evidenced by the fact that Wellington outlasted West End by many years. The West End property was owned by A.K. Ramachandra Iyer. When time came for renewal for the lease, the talks broke down because, according to rumour then, the landlord wanted a partnership which Burjoji was unwilling to give. Burjoji gave up his interest and moved to Bombay. A.R. Srinivasan, son of Ramachandra Iyer, took over and continued the business under a new style as Midland Theatre. Midland continued as an exclusive English Cinema till about the late 1950s and, in due course, had to submit to the Tamil tide and eventually shut down altogether.

Please follow and like us: