MUMBAI: Chennai’s first 70 mm theatre Anand is soon going to be demolished. It is learnt that the cinema will make way for a shopping complex.
Anand was opened by Umapathy in 1962, which has a seating capacity of 814. The capacity per show was Rs 20,883.65 and that of 28 shows was Rs 584,742.20. The first film to open at the cinema was Bruce Lee’s martial arts movie Enter the Dragon, which ran for a year.
After three years, in 1965, Umapathy opened another cinema Little Ananda, in the compound of Anand cinema. Little Anand had 318 seats with a capacity of Rs 206,012.80 for 28 shows. The first film released here was Rajesh Khanna starrer Aradhana. The film celebrated its 100 weeks run here.
Films starring top heroes of the South like MGR, Sivaji Ganesan, Kamal Haasan and Vijaykanth have run for 100 days and more. However, the theatre declined after the Umapathy’s demise in 1995. The cinema hall, was eventually closed for a brief period and for some time was even converted into a marriage hall. Thereafter screenings resumed at the cinema.
