Conditions in Singapore (1916) 🇺🇸

Theater manager reports on business methods and complains of unfair competition of hotels

Editor Moving Picture World.

Dear Sir. — Perusing your columns I see notes regarding various cinemas in the States and in England, so I thought it wouldn’t come amiss for me to let you know what is being done in this part of the world. I suppose you hear very little of the cinemas out East, and I have no doubt you will be surprised to hear that in Singapore we have six cinemas. The Alhambra would compare very favorably with a good many theatres in England or the States. We opened the theatre on the 15th of January this year.

It is the largest theatre here, having a seating accommodation for 1,500 people. It is built of reinforced concrete, the whole of the ground floor being fitted up with the best American noiseless veneer tip-up chairs. Upstairs is the dress circle and boxes, fitted with special chairs, made with a view to comfort. The interior is handsomely decorated (cream and gold). The building in itself is a handsome piece of architectural work standing in its own grounds, with a splendid frontage. Attached to the theatre is a most exquisite garden fitted up with garden seats, a band stand, chairs and tables, where ice cream, cakes, tea, etc., are served during the intervals at a very small cost. We have an excellent orchestra of twelve pieces, all first class musicians and first sight readers. As manager of the theatre I am naturally enthusiastic about it, and if it should interest you, I will on some future date send you photos of the same.

My object in writing to you was far away from describing the theatre but really to point out what some of the film exchanges are doing. The Universal, Pathé, and Australasian Films Company all have branches out here. We deal mostly with Pathé and Australasian. Last week I booked Salambo from the Universal.

Saturday night is the night when everybody is out, looking for some kind of amusement, hence most of the theatres are packed up.

The Universal is running a theatre on a percentage basis, catering solely for the natives. The European trade in this particular theatre is very small, as it is in a native district, consequently the Europeans don’t patronize it much. One hundred yards from the Alhambra is Raffles Hotel, where on Saturday nights they are permitted to run a free cinema show, supplied with films from the Universal Film Manufacturing Company at a very small figure. Naturally I lose a certain amount of my patrons. Then again, the Sea View Hotel, a few miles from town, also give free cinema shows. They are supplied with films from the Australasian Films Company. As it is a nice drive from town, this also attracts the Europeans, thus taking away a good many more of my would-be patrons.

Don’t you think that this sort of thing is a disgrace to the trade? Pathé has been approached by the hotel managers, but he absolutely refused to allow them to have pictures. I cannot understand what a company like the Universal, who boast themselves as the world’s caterers, are thinking about to allow this sort of thing to go on. I know for certain they don’t get a rental sufficiently high to pay for the depreciation of the film. There is very little unity amongst the exhibitors here, each one having their own particular patronage. We get the bulk of the Europeans, and naturally, the very fact of the hotels showing free cinema affects us the most. To a certain extent most of the cinemas are dependent on the local exchanges, so it would be next to useless to boycott them. I should deem it a great favor if you would kindly allow this to be published in your valuable paper, with a view to the same meeting the eye of some of the heads concerned, who I am sure would take such action as would prevent managers of their branch exchanges from renting films to anyone other than bone-fide cinema theatres.

We give two shows for one admission, 7:30 to 9 p. m., and from 9:30 to 11:30 p. m. Very few Europeans come to the first show, as they usually dine at 8 p. m. and come to the 9:30 show. We use about 12,000 feet of film nightly and change programs twice a week. Our audience comprise Chinese, Japanese, Javanese, Indians and Malays, Dutch and English. With an audience like this, I can assure you it is no easy task to be able to give them the variety of pictures to suit each individual taste.

Charlie Chaplin is a great favorite with everybody. We have had most of the Keystone Chaplins, and a good many of the Essanay. They are very hard to get hold of. We sometimes have a lapse of three months before he is shown in any of the theatres; then again, sometimes they come in with a rush and you will find three or four cinemas showing the same pictures at the same time. As far as the other pictures are concerned, the natives like detective pictures, very emotional, or anything of the blood and thunder type, whilst the Europeans and the better class people like high class dramas which do not appeal to the lower classes, so I try my best to cater for the natives in the first show and the bitter class people in the second show, and so manage to pull along very nicely, and expect to do much better later on.

Mr. Tan Cheng Kee, proprietor of the Alhambra Theatre, has been a regular subscriber to the Moving Picture World for many years past and considers that he gets excellent value for his money. He would not, on any account, be without it.

—

M. H. Kenyon-Slade,
Manager Alhambra Theatre.
Singapore.

Collection: Moving Picture World, September 1916

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see also

• Marian Swayne (1916)
• Motion Pictures in Singapore (1914)
• Cinema Pioneer Tan Cheng Kee (National Library Singapore)