This is topic Sad news! Demolition of Waikiki #3 announced in forum Film-Yak at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.


To visit this topic, use this URL:
https://ft-forum.com/ft/cgi-bin/ubb/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=8;t=002022

---

Posted by Claude S. Ayakawa (Member # 1401) on 04-30-2003, 03:37 PM:
 
An article in this morning's Honolulu Advertiser finally announced the demolition of the historic and beloved Waikiki #3 theatre. The article also mentioned plans for the WaiKiki Twin site and the possibility of closing the Waikiki IMAX theatre and building more retail stores on the site of the three theatres. sad news indeed!

Here is the link to the news article:

http://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/2003/Apr/30/Bz01a/html

NOTE: After posting , I tried the link and got the message that the article is no longer available. Go to the homepage and you will find the article under Business. The article is only available today, 4/30/03.

-Claude
 

---

Posted by David Stambaugh (Member # 1102) on 04-30-2003, 04:18 PM:
 
Claude, maybe you can get some snapshots for the F-T and/or CinemaTour picture galleries! I don't see many photos on C-T for Hawaiian cinemas. If they're closing the place down anyway, maybe they'll even let you into the booth!

Edit: Well, after locating & skimming that article, it sounds like they've been closed for months. Maybe you can still get exterior shots before the demolition starts.
 

---

Posted by Christopher Seo (Member # 7) on 05-01-2003, 10:40 AM:
 
Everything in the booth is gone, and apparently the effect of the hot, humid Waikiki air has not had a pleasant effect on the ambient conditions inside the building.

Really, the time to have gotten pictures of the Waikiki #3 was in 1982, before the "renovation" that stripped the theatre of virtually all its unique atmosphere.
 

---

Posted by Adam Martin (Member # 641) on 05-01-2003, 11:11 AM:
 
I don't know if the article actually disappeared from the Advertiser's site or not, but it is archived in the News forum at Cinematour.com.
 

---

Posted by Claude S. Ayakawa (Member # 1401) on 05-01-2003, 03:32 PM:
 
Hi David,

Brad asked me once if I can take some pictures of the Waikiki Twins interior and the booth and send them to him and I asked my friend Alan Sakaida at Consolidated if he could get permission from the parent company, Pacific Theatres in Los Angeles to go on the premises to take the pictures. Pacific never responded so I took that as a 'No' answer.

Christopher,

You were much too young to remember but the original Waikiki Theatre was one of the most beautiful motion picture theatre in the world! Before they installed a scope screen in 1953, the theatre had a beautiful gold curtain and a full rainbow around the stage. There was a coconut tree on both side of the stage and all kinds of tropical plants on the two sides of the auditorium. All of the plants were artificial of course but they sure looked real. The even had full size banana plants with fruits that looked good enough to eat. The ceiling had little blinking lights that looked like actual stars and when the movie was playing, you actually felt as tough you were watching a movie outdoors in a tropical jungle under starlight. The Waikiki Theatre was famous for their theatre staff who all wore white satin pants and long sleeve shirts with a blue sash and they really looked classy! The theatre was also famous for their "First View" showings every Friday night at 10:15 with the latest 'big' pictures from Hollywood. Because the Waikiki was the elete movie theatre in Hawaii, it was the site of the world premiere of films about Hawaii. I believe the Bing Crosby film "WAIKIKI WEDDING" was premiered there in 1937. I know the MGM film "GO FOR BROKE" in 1951 and the 20th Century Fox film "THE REVOLT OF MAMIE STOVER" in 1956 starring Richard Eagan and Jane Russell had it's world premiere at the Waikiki. There is also a possibility "FROM HERE TO ETERNITY" was also premiered at the Waikiki but I am not sure. By the way, "TORA! TORA! TORA!" shared it's world premiere here in Honoluly with Washington DC and Tokyo on the same day but the showing here took place at the Waikiki #1 in 1970 as their grand opening attraction in 70mm

-Claude
 

---

Posted by Christopher Seo (Member # 7) on 05-01-2003, 05:19 PM:
 
Yes, that's what I was referring to. I was about a year old when the renovation took place, I think, but I have seen some pictures of the original interior, and of course my parents remember it. One day at work I finally realized the rainbow was still there, hidden behind the new screen.

This link to the newspaper article seems to be working now: Honolulu Advertiser article. An excerpt:

quote:

---

Dubbed "The Center of Waikiki," the estimated $10 million to $15 million project would replace the three theaters hastily closed last November and add to Waikiki's gradual retail renewal of recent years.

---

That's just what Waikiki needs... more retail space. The whole area is already one big shopping mall.
 

---

Posted by Chris Markiewicz (Member # 1415) on 05-01-2003, 09:53 PM:
 
I think I have some old interior photos of the Waikiki 3. I'll see if I can dig them out tonight and post them.
 

---

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 05-01-2003, 10:02 PM:
 
It's a shame about the Waikiki theater and its impending demolition. I just can't figure out the deal. Movie theater companies will bulldoze GOOD theaters like this one, or the Northpark #1-#2 in Dallas, etc. But they'll happily leave unprofitable, obsolete dumps open, like the Wallace/Hollywood Cache 8 in my town.

Do the suits controlling the theater circuits really want us to just do all our movie watching on DVD!?!
 

---

Posted by Claude S. Ayakawa (Member # 1401) on 05-01-2003, 10:58 PM:
 
I forgot to mention how similar the original Waikiki was to the Arlington Theatre in Santa Barbara, California. I used to go to the Arlington a lot when I was studying photography at Brooks in that city and recall the similarity of the two theatres. They both had a high domed ceiling with night stars. The Waikiki had a tropical setting while the Arlington looked like a Mexican plaza with the facade of the old mission in the front. The Waikiki had a coconut tree on each side of the stage, the Arlington has a mission bell tower on each sides. The Arlington was originally a Fox theatre but was operated by the Metropilitan Theatres at the time I was a student in that city. The Arlington still stands today as the refurbished Arlington Performing Arts Centre. The Waikiki will not be preserved like the Arlington because greed for money has already doomed the once beautiful theatre and all that will remain is the memory of that magnificent movie palace.

-Claude
 

---

Posted by Paul G. Thompson (Member # 655) on 05-02-2003, 01:57 AM:
 
As crude as this may sound, the property may have been worth more money as a retail space than what the theatre could generate. Many drive-in theatres fell that way. One drive-in I worked at years ago is now a huge shopping mall. The last year it was open, it had all it could do to make the property tax committment.

More will go that way....some prime properies are so valuable and have such a high tax base. Some small businesses on those properties can't afford to be there anymore. Nothing will survive under those circumstances. It is all about money.
 

---

Posted by Claude S. Ayakawa (Member # 1401) on 05-02-2003, 05:16 AM:
 
Paul,

As much as I hate to admit it, you are very correct in your assessment. I saw the handwriting on the wall long before Pacific Theatres decided to close the Waikiki theatres that was operated by their Hawaiian division, Consolidated Theatres. For years, the Waikiki theatres played to almost an empty house even on opening weekends with pictures that have been selling out at all of the other theatres at the various malls on Oahu . It became even worse when the Ward 16 opened almost two years ago. It is sad but true, most people will not go out of their way and drive into Waikiki, pay $4.00 for parking to see a movie when the exact same film was playing in a theatre near them. Although Consolidated and Signature operates very good theatres only a few short miles from my house, I would not settle for any theatres than the Waikiki Twins and Waikiki #3 because of their awesome sound system, 60 foot screens and very plush and comfortable seats. The Waikiki theatres were all unique and I still miss them very much. I know a lot of good people at Consolidated here in Hawaii and Pacific Theatres in Los Angeles feel the same way I do but operating theatres on prome real estate must be profitable. If they continue to play to almost empty houses as I have seen in recent years, it does not make sound business sense to keep them in operation. It was very painful for me to write what I just did but such a decision had to be made because there was no other alternative. In a way, I do not fault Pacific for closing the Waikiki theatres, I blame the lazy public for not supporting the theatres with their patronage. I have a lot of friends who were upset with the closing but they never did support the Waikiki theatres or even the other magnificent Cinerama Theatre which closed about a year and a half earlier. Talk is cheap and these lazy friends proved it!

-Claude
 

---

Posted by Christopher Seo (Member # 7) on 05-02-2003, 11:59 AM:
 
Paul, Claude,

Yes, it's very true that the land under those theatres is worth quite a bit of cash. But I still can't understand how a new retail project could make a go of it there when the whole area is already strings of retail projects. I guess some people like shopping more than I do.

And, yes, we can blame the moviegoing public to some extent for not putting their money where their mouths were and actually patronizing the theatres before they closed. I personally witnessed many a night of agonizingly slow business. The worst time was when we got stuck with "Glitter" in the Waikiki #3. I think we had at least three no-shows within a two-week period... that's a 1300 seat theatre, completely empty.

But I also blame a lack of strong marketing and advertising, including incentives to come to Waikiki. Locals often avoid the area since it is such a tourist trap, and parking is expensive, but these were problems that could have been mitigated. The Waikiki #3 could even have been converted into something of a tourist attraction, who knows. Of course, big theatre chains are not prepared for such specialty undertakings.
 

---

Posted by Chris Markiewicz (Member # 1415) on 05-02-2003, 01:02 PM:
 
Here are 3 photos of the Waikiki 3. The two black-and-white shots are from 1936 when it opened, showing the original Academy screen. The color shot is from just before it was "remodeled", removing the tropical foliage from the sides and replacing it with generic drapery.





 

---

Posted by Claude S. Ayakawa (Member # 1401) on 05-02-2003, 04:07 PM:
 
Hi Chris,

Thanks for posting those pictures of the original Waikiki Theatre before it was remodeled. I had a 3X5 picture postcard of the image showing the stage and screen when I was a cHild but misplaced it long ago. My print was much wider and showed the artificial plants on the two sides. Your exterior shot of the theatre did not show very much but it did give viewers a general impression of the facade of this once beautiful theatre. The theatre had two identical box office on Kalakaua Avenue seperated by a grassed courtyard with a large water fountain in the middle with Japanese carps. On the rim of the fountain were brass plate reproductions of movie star's autographs which were provided to the theatre's management when they came to Hawaii for film premieres and other showings at the Waikiki. The print shows a little of the tower on the roof but did not show all of it with vertical letters, WAIKIKI . By the way the two boxoffice had individual marquees with a covered walkway that had extended all the way to the theatre entrance from the left and the right sides of the courtyard.. Along side of the boxoffice was a display of lobby cards of the current feature and the next attraction. Traveling into the city and get to see a movie at the Waikiki was a special treat from our parents when I was little. When I was older and allowed to go to the city alone on a bus, the Waikiki and the Kuhio were my all time favorite theatres and I frequented them often.

-Claude
 

---

Posted by Michael Coate (Member # 757) on 05-23-2003, 12:25 AM:
 
Claude wrote:

quote:

---

"TORA! TORA! TORA!" shared its world premiere here in Honolulu with Washington DC and Tokyo on the same day

---