Safire Theatre complex
Encyclopedia
The Safire Theatre complex was India
's first multi theatre complex located in the southern city of Chennai / Madras. The complex consisted of three theatres, Safire, Blue Diamond, and Emerald. The complex was demolished recently after being acquired by local political organization AIADMK.
Started by the Veecumsee Family, Safire opened its door to the public in 1964. The first movie to play in Safire was Cleopatra. Safire was perhaps the first 70 m.m. theatre in India. It was spacious, if a bit spartan in furniture, and for the first few years screened only English language films. My Fair Lady, Sound of Music, Lawrence of Arabia, Funny girl (Barbara Streisand, and It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World were some of the early movies.
Later Safire ran into some problems with availability of films, it seems. They contracted with Sovexport films and for a period many films from Soviet Union were screened here. Solaris of Tarkovsky was one of the few memorable films. Safire also screened morning shows on Sundays, when relatively non commercial films from India's many art film directors were screened. Pather Panchali Trilogy, Pratidwandi,Seema Baddha, and Jana Aranya were some such films screened and were quite popular with the city's multi-lingual audience, who did not have many other such venues.
Blue Diamond was famous for its continuous shows and was extremely popular with the business travellers and the youth, being the only one of its type in India. The shows ran from 1 p.m. to post midnight 1 a.m. One could get in any time and stay till closing time, if one did not leave the foyer. Students loved it as it provided a place to retreat from the heat of Chennai, and also to view films repeatedly. Blue Diamond screened almost always only English films.
Both Blue Diamond and Emerald were small theatres with about 300 seats at the most.
Emerald screened a lot of Hindi movies.
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
's first multi theatre complex located in the southern city of Chennai / Madras. The complex consisted of three theatres, Safire, Blue Diamond, and Emerald. The complex was demolished recently after being acquired by local political organization AIADMK.
Started by the Veecumsee Family, Safire opened its door to the public in 1964. The first movie to play in Safire was Cleopatra. Safire was perhaps the first 70 m.m. theatre in India. It was spacious, if a bit spartan in furniture, and for the first few years screened only English language films. My Fair Lady, Sound of Music, Lawrence of Arabia, Funny girl (Barbara Streisand, and It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World were some of the early movies.
Later Safire ran into some problems with availability of films, it seems. They contracted with Sovexport films and for a period many films from Soviet Union were screened here. Solaris of Tarkovsky was one of the few memorable films. Safire also screened morning shows on Sundays, when relatively non commercial films from India's many art film directors were screened. Pather Panchali Trilogy, Pratidwandi,Seema Baddha, and Jana Aranya were some such films screened and were quite popular with the city's multi-lingual audience, who did not have many other such venues.
Blue Diamond was famous for its continuous shows and was extremely popular with the business travellers and the youth, being the only one of its type in India. The shows ran from 1 p.m. to post midnight 1 a.m. One could get in any time and stay till closing time, if one did not leave the foyer. Students loved it as it provided a place to retreat from the heat of Chennai, and also to view films repeatedly. Blue Diamond screened almost always only English films.
Both Blue Diamond and Emerald were small theatres with about 300 seats at the most.
Emerald screened a lot of Hindi movies.