CHENNAI: In it’s heyday, film producers took pride in screening their Sivaji-starrers in Shanti Theatre, located bang in the heart of the city, besides Crown and Bhuvaneswari. Always intensely associated with Sivaji Ganesan, who named the theatre after his loving daughter Shanti, it was the place that many old Madrasis, now in their sixties, seventies and eighties, would have watched films like Thiruvilaiyadal, Saraswathiyin Sabham, Savale Samali, Pattikada Pattanama and Gauravam.
In the 1960s, the theatre was prefered because of its proximity to bus stop on both sides. Even in those days, it was an air-conditioned unlike Gaiety and Chitra nearby. Casino screened English movies most of the time and Paragon theatre was frequented by MGR fans for old and new films. But Shanti beat them all in its ambience. There was a time, when this writer was a boy, when tickets cost 84 paise, `1.25 and `1.66. The counter was located at the southern end of the theatre with iron railings separating each queue. In the first few days of a big releases, fans would walk over others to jump queues. Policemen had to walk on the railings to chase them.
Those days people used to quietly stand in the queues staring at the vast expanse of open space in front of the theatre where cars would come to drop patrons of the upper class - a balcony ticket cost `2 and `2.50. The theatre also had a VIP box, from where filmstars and other bigwigs watched films sitting on a sofa, away from the pyring eyes of the crowds. The theatre’s first floor had enlarged stills of Sivaji Ganesan’s hit movies.
Most movie goers them would reach the theatre in cycles. They had to go behind the theatre to park their bicycles. Some cars would be allowed to be parked in the space next to the queue stands. Two-wheelers were rare and would be parked along with the few four-wheelers. Those were the days when commercial establishments in the premises did spoil the ambience. First came a book shop and later a restaurant and gone was the pristine film-going experience of yore.
Of course, even Tamil movies featured Shanti Theatre, especially its facade. In Sivaji’s Neela Vanam (1965 release with Devika as the heroine), the actor appears as a ticket seller in the theatre. In the film Pattikada Patanama, villians show the hero, essayed by Sivaji Ganesan, Shanti Theatre as part of a Madras tour they will take him through even while thrashing him.
Back in the seventies, one of many marvellous experiences in watching a movie in the theatre was the colourful curtains keeping the silver screen closed. One of the curtains would lift upwards and the other sidewards to the accompaniment of popular English tunes like Come September Music as the movie started and the curtains would come down during intermission and at the end of each show. Now it is would be curtains for the iconic movie hall itself forever. Chennai will be short of yet another landmark to show off to its visitors.