Hawaii Cinerama

Hi Vito

CHITTY CHITTY BAN BANG also played as a Road show at the Kapahulu and that was a Joke! The film was shot in 65mm Super Panavision and all we got at the Kapahulu was 35mm and mono sound. They did exactly the same thing at the Cinerama with FIDDLER ON THE ROOF. “Fiddler” was not shot in 65mm but many major cities played 70mm prints. I saw this movie in San Francisco in large format

All that is left of the Waikiki #3 is the sign from the old theatre. They did not demolish the Waikiki Twins building. I think they just renovated the interior and converted them to retail stores. I do not know if the VarsIty building is still standing but it will be torn down soon. As you knpw the Cinerama still stands but it now houses a auto parts store. Half of the Kapiolani is a Papa John’s pizza store and he other half is a Blockbuster video outlet. The Queen still stands and it is not used for anything. It is just deserted. The Waipahu Theatre building where I saw a lot of films when I was growing up is a church. The Royal Marina in now a Outback Steak house.

-Claude

Claude, Of course when we write about roadshow theatre the Cinerama was the main venue. The Cinerama had a seperate box office for reserved seating advanced sales. Kuhio had many roadshows as well. We also had a couple at the Wailiki Twins (“Tora Tora Tora”),
and did you know “Funny Girl” played as a roadshow at the little Kapahulu? We also moved “Eathquake” in Sensaround there as a move over from Waikiki #3. To my knowledge The last roadshow to play in Hawaii was at the Cinerama back in 1974, we played the 70mm version
of “This is Cinerama”
This week I am heading back home to Florida for the winter and plan on coming back to Hawaii soon after. I will want to take Artie on a graveyard tour of all the theatres that are now gone.

Claude, you bring a lot of old friends to mind. I did not know Allen, but Westley was promoted to my position in the Home Office Sight and Sound division when I returned to the mainland in 1982.
Scott B and I worked many times together and he also joined the sight and sound team after I left.
Faith Tom was a dear friend; she got her training at the Cinerama while I was working there and later ran Pearlridge for a while before joining Home Office operations under Gene Atchley,
(who also trained with me at the Cinerama). She was a no nonsense kind of a gal, very dedicated to her work. I too heard and felt badly about her losing her job.
I did not work for Phil Shimins; he came in after I left, I worked under Art Gordon. Betty and John ran the film exchange and I worked with both of them. In fact when the new home office was built on Sand lane, they took a part of her office space to make an office for me, our offices were side by side.
And yes I remember the Kuhio as a roadshow theatre, “Hawaii” also played as a roadshow there. “South Pacific” did indeed play there in 1958, but Herman Rosen wanted to play it later when he Royal opened as a tourist venue. I may be wrong but I believe “Sound Of Music” played the Kuhio as well.

Hello again, Vito,

SOUTH PACIFIC played at the Kuhio in 70mm and in fact it was their very first in that format at that theatre. It was a Road Show engagement. Do you know, the Kuhio was Hawaii’s exclusive road show house for many years. I never used to see movie in fancy theatres like the ones in Waikiki when I was a kid but I used to remember my parents mentioning movies like DUAL IN THE SUN, IVANHOE, QUO VADIS playing at the Kuhio in Road Show. Although Royal had exclusive first run rights to Paramount’s film with their first film from the studio, ELEPHANT WALK, Decil B. Demille had insisted THE TEN COMMANDMENTS" play at the Kuhio because he wanted a venue in Waikiki and the Royal did not exist at that time. The Queen Theatre would have been fine but Demille insisted on a Waikiki venue and that is why the Kuhio got it. When his previous film, THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH, play in Hawaii, it was shown at the Kuhio as a Road Show when Consolidated still had first run rights for Paramount films.

By the way, someone mentioned in a earlier post on his thread that SUPERMAN 3 was the opening attraction at the newly remodeled Waikiki #3. It was not. The first film to play there after it was spruced up was MERRY CHRISTMAS MR LAWRENCE.

-Claude

Claude I do not recall Close Encounters moving to #2 you have a better memory than I on that. We did play “ET” there in 70mm without Dolby encoding. As for John Allen he came in after I left Hawaii in 1982 but I am told he did some magnificent sound installations perticularly in Waikiki #3.
Did you know my sound tech, Westley?
He was a brilliant kid and did some excellent work for me upgrading and installing sound systems in our theatres.
Aside from upgrading most of the theatres on Oahu, Wes and I along with Sol Kam, did the booth installations at the triplex theatres in Hilo and Kona together as well as the theatre at Pearl Harbor.

Vito,

Although CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE 3RD KIND opened at the Waikiki #3 in mono, it than moved over to the Waikiki #2 and played in 70mm without Dolby encoding. I did not see the 35mm showing at the Waikiki because I just saw the movie in 70mm at the Coronet Theatre in San Francisco on my way home from a photographers convention on the east coast. I did go again to see it at the Waikiki #2 in 70mm and the sound presentation was good but not as great as the Coronet. If the theatre had John Allen’s top of the line HPS 4000 sound system which came later, it would have blown the Coronet’s presentation away. All three. Waikiki theatres and the IMAX had awesome sound and I still miss them.

-Claude

-Claude

Claude, I mispelled Artie’s name, it is of course Wheeler.

Michael, As you know, Star Wars played day and date with the Kapioloni in June 1977, I can not recall how long it ran at the Kapioloni, do you know? The sad thing was that both theatres opened the movie in 35mm with mono sound.
In your thread of the anniversary of Close Encounters you listed the picture as having played at at the Waikiki #3, you might be interested to know we had originaly wanted to play the picture at the Cinerama in 70mm, with Star Wars moving to the Varsity. but getting a 70mm print became a problem, so rather than move Star Wars out of the Cinerama it was decided to play Close Encounters in the larger Waikiki 3 in 35mm with a mono (optical) track. Consolidated had not installed Dolby in any of the theatres at the time.

When Paramount’s FLASHDANCE opened in 1983, it played at Royal’s Marina#1 and not at Consolidated’s Pearl Ridge. I know this to be a fact because I just met and became a good friend of Arthur Wheeler who was the projectionist at the Marina and I used to visit him a lot during and after the long run of the film there. By the way, RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK was not the Royakl’s final showing before they closed. It was TRON in 70mm. I also know this to be a fact because I saw it there during the theatres finaal performance. That was a very sad evening.

-Claude

Michael, I am afraid I may have confused you. At that time, we only had Dolby stereo processors in only one other location besides the Cinerama, and that was one side of the Waikiki Twins.
Royal Development Company, or Royal theatres, had Dolby installed at the Royal and one side of the Marina Twins. We did however have several locations with magnetic non-Dolby installations.
Wesley and I decided to test playing SVR prints through some of our old magnetic sound systems by installing stereo solar cells in those systems. Since the Cinerama was one of the few theatres with stereo optical solar cells, we made the test there with “The Wiz”. Thinking back, while I am not sure,
I believe we must have played “The Wiz in Dolby Stereo.
When we tested the SVR print at the Cinerama we tied the stereo solar cells directly to the old Cinerama mag system, bypassing the Dolby processor. It worked, but without surrounds or Dolby EQ of course.
Since magnetic prints were becoming scarce, we were just trying to come up with a way to run stereo in our non-Dolby theatres. “The Wiz” did not do well and we lost interest in for a while.
I was relentless in my push to install Dolby in all our locations; but it was not until the very early 1980s when we were able to convince the bosses at Consolidated that Dolby was here to stay. It was then they loosened up the checkbook and allowed me to by more systems.
Until that time, we ran several 70mm prints at the Waikiki twins without Dolby. I recall when we played E.T, Universal struck a 70mm print for the Waikiki #1 which was not Dolby encoded, which we played through our old six track mag system. Eventually we installed Dolby in both sides of the Waikiki and Marina Twins.
I wish I could reach Wesley to enlighten us a bit more, perhaps his memory is sharper than mine,
Also there is an old friend of mine, who posts here from time to time, by the name of Scott who worked with us in those days who might remember more good stuff. I still recall the first time Scott ran 70mm at the Cinerama, when the unexpected print arrived he called me up all excited telling me how he was about to “wallow in 70mm”. Scott, are you out there??
Michael I hope I cleared up any questions you may have. I am sorry I did not make myself clear the first time, old age ya know :)

The Varsity was originally a neighborhood theatre and was one of two Condolidated theatre to show Natural Visual 3-D films in the fifties. The other 3-D theatre was the Liberty in Downtown Honolulu. Years later, the Varsity became a full time first run house and many important pictures played there. It was also another theatre Consollidated used for road show’s by installing 70mm with the Hawaii premiere of THE BIBLE. Other 70mm pictures to play at the Varsity as a road show included STAR, THE SAND PEBBLES and DR. DOOITTLE.

-Claude S. Ayakawa

Alan, we were always experimenting with the Cinerama,
it was my baby. I tried many different lenses and speaker systems, and we were able to project just about every aspect ratio.
When “The Wiz” came to the Cinerama we had not yet installed Dolby, and no magnetic stereo prints were available, the print we received was stereo optical. So Westly decided to create his own optical stereo. We installed stereo solor cells in the two projectors and Wesley took the signal coming from the solor cells and feed it into two seperate amplifiers to create “Wes and Vito’s optical stereo sound. I then challanged Wes to create a matrix that would enable us to have surrounds as well, but the movie bombed and we abanded the idea, but let me tell you, given the time, Wes would have come up with something, he is that smart. By the way, until the Dolby installation, we used the original Cinerama sound system for optical and magnetic sound.
The first Dolby installation was not at the Cinerama but at the Varsity. In those early days Dolby would assist in new installations, but Wesley took the installation manuel home, read it, and said "we don’t need a Dolby tech, I can do this” and with the help of Sol Kam, another great technician, do this they did.
Scroll up to Nov 21 comment I wrote for Michael Coate regarding the sound at Waikiki#3.

Alan, that was the work of my sound engineer, Wesley Inoyue.
He asked me one day, while we were doing the install at the Hilo triplex,if I would let him design a sound system for waikiki #3 and Cinerama. The kid was very talented and was responsible for many excellent sound upgrades in Hawaii. Wesley knows had to make a theatre sound system knock your socks off.