Majestic Days: Timaru’s Phantom Movie Theatre

Saturday, 5 October 2024, 10:01 pm
Article: RNZ

Robert Smith, Digital Journalist

Popcorn that was bought for the last film ever screened at Timaru's Majestic Theatre is still there in the upstairs circle of the cinema, a quarter of a century later.

Former theatre manager Gavin List saw the abandoned snack during a recent inspection of the large cinema and realised that on that last night - he's fairly sure it was a showing of Payback, starring Mel Gibson - he and his wife Joanne had not done the usual post-screening clean-up, and just shut up shop.

The lower part of the theatre was still used for a video store for a decade after that, sloping floor and all, but that faded away in 2009. There are still posters for films from that era in the glass display windows out front. Nobody cares about Outlander starring Jim Caviezel these days, but the poster for the Vikings versus aliens film has been on display for 15 years and counting.

It looked like that poster and the building behind it would soon be disappearing when owners Timaru District Holdings Ltd (TDHL) announced late last year that the theatre was about to be demolished. It's still standing - for now - and advocates say there is more to be gained by saving the building than destroying it. That it's still got good bones after a century, and that it can have a future.

Just look at the popcorn, says List.

"That shows the building hasn't just been leak-proof for all the years it's been abandoned, it's been vermin-proof. It's still tight."

Cinemas of the living dead

Timaru movie theatres have a quiet tradition of hanging around, long after the lights in the projection room have gone out for the last time. The Regent Theatre - which closed down in the 1960s - was still being used as furniture storage for a department store in the early 2000s, although it has since been torn down. And while little survived of the State Theatre across the street when it was eaten up by the Stafford Mall in the 1980s, one of the exit doors can still be found in a nearby alleyway.

Further down Stafford Street, the Majestic had traces of an even earlier theatre in its DNA. The Lyceum Theatre opened on the same patch of ground in 1911, before being extended and renamed the Majestic in 1929. Those trying to save the current theatre say the auditorium, built with 300,000 red bricks, was part of the earlier cinema, and that the screen once used to show silent era epics can still be found inside.

It's been totally silent inside the Majestic since Mel Gibson went on a rampage of revenge in the '90s, but with 1100 seats, it was once a big part of Timaru's entertainment life. While it can be hard to imagine in an age of Netflix, Disney+ and other streamers, screenings at the Majestic could attract 3000 cinemagoers in one day, in a town of less than 30,000.

Gavin List started at the cinema in the late '50s, putting up posters around town and tearing tickets for The Ten Commandments, and remembers all the big films - with packed houses for things like Ghost, or the Footrot Flats movie, or the first Beatles film.

"I screened A Hard Day's Night on the Saturday morning at 11am. We were full, and I started the volume off at normal levels. And then the girls started screaming - and I mean, really screaming - and in the end I had it flat out, I couldn't get any more volume.

"They tell me they could hear the screening at the town hall, 1100 girls screaming their lungs out."

List started at the theatre in a different era, where cinema was a mass medium and a patron could get tossed out for not standing up for the singing of God Save The Queen. He still recalls the angry protests outside when the first movies were screened on a Sunday, and more protests against the screenings of West Side Story and Jesus Christ Superstar.

"People did not want that one, they poured cement down the toilets. Luckily we found it quickly."

There were still lines down the street for Forest Gump as late at 1994, but the writing was on the wall by then, especially with a multi-screen opening on the other side of the town centre, (which is still going today). List knew the Majestic would have to close when they failed to get a print of Titanic to show.

A long, slow goodbye

Timaru is in for some tough times ahead, with the likely closure of the Smithfield meatworks and the loss of hundreds of jobs, but the main street has been struggling for a long time. When the Video Ezy on the lower floor rented its last DVD in 2009, it became the latest in a long line of shuttered shops in that part of town.

The southern end of Stafford Street in particular has been in a slow decline for decades, and while there are still some brave antique stores, cycle sellers and auto electricians hanging in there, many others are slowly disappearing.

A musical instruments store and a second-hand bookshop that neighboured the theatre have both closed this year alone, although the council's holding company is now restoring the building they were housed in, uncovering its original bluestone exterior.

Timaru's largest entertainment venue - the Theatre Royal - is across the road from the Majestic, but has also been closed since 2019. The fate of that theatre has been controversial in the town, with the council not happy with the hefty price tag needed to get the theatre functioning again.

With the very stale popcorn upstairs, and the random movie posters getting yellower every year out front, the Majestic has been in limbo for years, until TDHL announced late last year that it had got the clearance for demolition, and the building would soon be gone.

The discovery of asbestos paused that destruction, since it had to be ripped out before a proper demolition could begin, and this gave a local group time to organise an effort to save the building.

A possible future

Architectural designer Nigel Gilkison has been one of the people spearheading this effort and told RNZ they swung into action when they heard the demolition order had been granted.

"We wrote to them and the council, saying there are a few locals who are interested in at least exploring the possibility of reusing the building in several different ways.

"So we're looking to put in a bid to acquire it, and then earthquake strengthen it and re-use it, based around a cinema a theme - potentially a cinema museum, with similar themed shops.

"We're not planning on changing the building that much, other than we'd need to put a lift in. We'd have to earthquake strengthen it to get it up to those modern standards, but really it's about fitting it out and getting it operational."

List tells RNZ that they still have access to projectors from all the old theatres that could be put on display, which kids could use and put film through to see how film projection used to work.

After the asbestos removal, there is a lot of debris inside the auditorium, but the upstairs circle still has his seats, and there are still art deco decorations on the wall, dating from the Majestic's opening in 1929.

"The Majestic has a bunch of really ornate decoration," says Gilkison. "It's from an era when going to the cinema was really an event. And it's also got all that up lighting, the non-direct lighting, all of that is still there."

Gilkison says the ideal result would be something more than just a community cinema, and the Majestic could have further uses with theatre, dancing, music and corporate events.

"It doesn't have a backstage area, so it's not something that could be used for full theatrical performances, but there is a whole host of things it could be used for. There is a back-door right onto the stage, so you could hold gigs, or lectures, or anything like that."

Quaking in the aisles

The elephant in the room - even a room that can seat more than a thousand people - is the issue of earthquake safety. In the wake of the Christchurch and Kaikōura earthquakes, older buildings throughout the country have been scrutinised, with many of them deemed beyond saving and demolished.

Earthquake risks closed down the Theatre Royal for the past five years, and were used to justify the destruction of the 105-year-old Hydro Grand hotel on the Bay Hill, which was torn down in front of a large crowd of locals one Saturday in 2017 (the site, with arguably the best views in town, remains empty, other than a handful of food carts that rarely open).

Old cinemas are not immune - the only other ongoing movie theatre in South Canterbury, up the road in Geraldine, is also dealing with the council there over quake safety.

Like most other buildings in its part of town, a notice declaring that the Majestic is earthquake prone is the only new thing to appear in its front windows for some time. The group trying to save the building had a seismic technician check the building out last month, although a full report on the situation is not due until next year.

Gilkison admits that all the plans for the Majestic's future will be vaporised if the cost of the quake strengthening proves to be too much.

"If we get a seismic assessment that says it's going to cost us five million to strengthen it, then that's pretty much going to scupper it. But if we could do it for one or two million, then there is the potential that we could raise that money.

"Besides, if you pull that building down and try to build something of the same size again, that's going to cost you $15-20 million, especially if you're building something like a theatre on the same site."

Something is better than nothing

Even with a history of huge crowds and cultural events throughout the 20th century, the Majestic Theatre is just another abandoned old building in a town that is, unfortunately, full of them. And it is not like the town is short a cinema - the Movie Max 6 still supplies Timaru moviegoers with all their blockbuster needs, as well as plenty of arthouse meatiness.

But Gilkison says the movie theatre is part of the bigger question of art and culture within our society.

With the fate of the Theatre Royal also now unclear, he says the Majestic can also be part of the ongoing discussion about stimulating the arts community in Timaru and giving them more venues to perform in.

"Kids want to get into music or dance, you've got to give them the opportunities to have options growing up, it's really about nurturing talent, and there's certainly talent here.

"If we lose these things, they're really hard to get back."

Gilkison says giving the Majestic a new lease of life is still a long shot - as an architect and designer, he knows how difficult and expensive these projects are to get off the ground as a community project. But a recent fundraising screening of the architectural documentary Maurice And I at the Movie Max was a sell-out, showing there is plenty of enthusiasm for the Majestic plans.

"It's really about giving it a go and seeing if it can be done," says Gilkinson. "Buildings don't need to be bulldozed just because it seems easier, they can last forever if they are properly maintained. It's so much more sustainable than pulling them down every 35 years."

The former manager agrees. List hasn't screened a film at the Majestic for decades, but would love to see the lights at the theatre turn on again in the dark Timaru night.

"The foyer itself is still in good condition, there is the odd window getting broken, and the odd piece of graffiti beginning to appear, but it's looking pretty good for something that has not had much done in the way of maintenance since 1997.

"If you're going to do something, you've got to have somewhere to put it, and the space is there. You've got a space, some lovely little corners, and it all comes with so much history, why wouldn't you try something?"

© Scoop Media

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