Urania National Filmhouse

A photograph of the foyer:
http://flickr.com/photos/potala/310201243/

If in Budapest, this really needs to be seen. Amazingly the cinema retains splendid and really ornate entry spaces worth a visit alone. An Indian themed cafe in the crypt like basement, though new, is amazingly appropriate while another cafe upstairs on the first floor is also worth a visit.

Amazing architecture, although since it is 100% Moorish/Moroccan, one cannot begin to fathom how come the Urania is the one that became the Hungarian National Film Theater. Anybody knows?

Beats circles around most other Budapest old-school film theaters, especially that God-awful, kitschy multiplex, the Corvin.

I had one of the worst cinematic film presentations at the Urania Filnmszinhaz, however. As a child, my mother took me there to see “The Wizard of Oz.” Well, this was in the summer of 1958 or 1959, and the Urania had recently been equipped with a wide screen and projector capable of showing CinemaScope films. It also had some sort of a “cooling system” installed for the auditorium. Although “The Wizard of Oz” was not a CinemaScope production, somehow the Urania projectionist had left the anamorphic lens on the projector. I guess he must have figured that since the movie was American and shot in color, it must have been in the CinemaScope format and therefore needed the anamorphic lens attachment.

So, we were perhaps the only movie audience in history who have watched “The Wizard of Oz” theatrically in the then prevalent 2.55:1 aspect ratio CinemaScope, instead of in 1.37:1 normal frame. I remember really getting a mega-headache looking at the distorted human shapes on-screen.

I did not know all the technical details of why the picture looked as funky as it did back then, but in the intervening years figured it out. :~))

And some photographs of the beautiful auditorium from the same visit:–

PANORAMA

STAGE

PROSCENIUM

SIDE

BOX