The Theater Guest House, which once hosted star artists such as Guan Mucun and Yu Shuzhen, has now been converted into a tea shop
Victory Movie Theater opened in July 1977
The Victory Film Theater was once an entertainment center in the eastern suburbs of Chengdu
The shutters of the theater are taken from the Mingyuan Building, and the chairs and projection equipment have been demolished
Lu Li/Wen Hu Datian/Figure
In July this year, the 19th batch of chengdu's list of historic protected buildings was announced, and the Shengli Film Theater, which was founded in the 1960s, was listed on the list. However, nowadays, in the map and navigation software, it is impossible to search for the "Victory Movie Theater", the "Paradise Cinema" that inscribes the memories of a generation's youth. In August, we came to Jinjiang District via No. 1 South China Road, walked through the building surrounded by electric vehicle stores, walked up the stairs covered with sports and fitness advertisements, opened the locked Taiping Gate, and we traveled through time into a period of sealed eastern suburbs.
Crowded Alley The largest movie theater in the southwest region
Today's bull market mouth, high-rise buildings, traffic flowing, victory movie theater hidden in it. In the eyes of Mr. Liu Qingzhong, this place has undergone earth-shaking changes. He worked as a Sichuan opera actor at the Jinjiang Theatre, transferred to the Victory Film Theatre in 1977 when it opened, and later worked as a business manager until his retirement. The 74-year-old witnessed the glorious moments of this old building.
According to Liu Qingzhong's recollection, in the 1960s, Niushikou was renamed "Victory Mouth", so this movie theater was also named "Victory Movie Theater". When the Victory Film Theater opened in 1977, there was no shadow of the city in sight, but a rural scene: the theater was surrounded by a field dam, there was an earthen dam at the door, and opposite was a small workshop with a nailed horseshoe. There are no asphalt roads at all, it's all country roads.
So why is there such a large theater in the eastern suburbs of old Chengdu? The old gentleman set up a dragon gate array for us. In 1964, a national literary and art performance was held in Beijing. In Sichuan, 7 units, including Chengdu Theater, Jinjiang Theater, Sichuan Theater, Hongqi Theater, and Red Light and Shadow Theater, prepared programs and sent the best programs to Beijing to perform. After the performance, at a meeting of the municipal government, some people pointed out that the distribution of theaters in Chengdu at that time was very unreasonable, and there were no theaters in the east and south, which could not meet the needs of the masses to watch the performance. Therefore, the municipal government plans to build a "simple theater" in the east and south, and each theater will allocate 120,000 yuan.
However, this plan changed during the implementation of the project, due to the high price of equipment for screening films at that time, the 120,000 yuan of funds was obviously stretched, and finally decided to merge the two funds into one place to build the east film theater, that is, the Victory Film Theater. In 1965, the Shengli Film Theater was designed by Chengdu Architectural Design Institute and constructed by Sichuan Construction No. 6 Company, and the construction officially began, and was completed in 1976.
In July 1977, the Victory Film Theater was officially opened and quickly became an entertainment center in the eastern suburbs. Although the theater is in Niushikou, there are many large factories such as Chengdu Steel Pipe Factory and 420 Factory nearby, and there were hundreds of thousands of workers in the eastern suburbs of Chengdu at that time, and there was a huge demand for performances and entertainment. The opening day of the theater can be said to be a crowded alley, music and drums. When the Victory Film Theater opened, it had a total of 1722 seats in the hall and the building, and it was the largest commercial film theater in the southwest region at that time. Not only is the scale large, due to the use of factory structure in the construction of the theater, the stage of the performance is 13 meters wide and 17-18 meters deep, and the stage size is very rare in the southwest region.
Liu Qingzhong still remembers that the first performance on the opening day was the chengdu repertory theatre's drama "Ten Thousand Waters and Thousand Mountains". From the beginning of this play, victory film theater has experienced more than 10 years of glory. Compared with other theaters in Chengdu at the same time, the Victory Film Theater has another advantage: the previously built theater has almost no slope in the seats. If the person in front of you happens to be taller, you have to tilt your head over and peek through the gap. After watching a movie, the neck will hurt. Victory Film Theater in Chengdu for the first time to open a large slope, the stepped theater chairs were purchased from the southern suburbs of Beijing timber factory, the slope drop design of the theater, can be called a revolutionary change, so that the audience opened their eyes, enjoyed the vision is no longer obstructed comfort.
A ticket is hard to find Guan Mucun Yu Shuzhen took the stage
In the Spring Festival of 1979, in a festive and joyful atmosphere, the Victory Film Theater screened its first film, the animation film "The Story of Daqiao" produced by Shanghai Fine Arts Film Studio. Although it has been a year and a half since its opening, victory cinema is still in the market every day, and it is difficult to find a ticket. Movies and performances of that era, the ticket price was not high. Theater tickets are divided into A tickets, B tickets, and C tickets, which are priced at five corners, triangles and two corners respectively, and the price of movie tickets is also about two corners. Although the ticket price is not expensive, but it is difficult to buy tickets, some viewers in order to watch "The Legend of the White Snake" special leave to buy tickets, at 6 o'clock in the morning there are people queuing at the door, less than noon more than 1,000 tickets sold out, and looking for "scalpers" and "hanging tickets" people, are running to a kilometer away from the Chengdu tea factory.
According to Mr. Liu Qingzhong, at that time, the performances that could be performed at the Victory Film Theater were the top troupes in China, such as the China Opera and Dance Theater, the Sichuan Opera House, the Shaanxi Provincial Peking Opera House, the Shanghai Opera House, and the Tianjin Song and Dance Troupe. What impressed him most was that one year, Guan Mucun and Yu Shuzhen of the Tianjin Song and Dance Troupe came to perform at the Victory Film Theater and stayed in the guest house of the theater. At that time, there was no mobile phone, just by word of mouth, the masses who wanted to see the performance had to surround the ticket gate, and some people waited at the window all night to wait for tickets a day in advance, so that he could not help but feel that this was the charm of "stars". After the performance, Liu Qingzhong, who was in charge of the reception, also took guan mucun and Yu Shuzhen troupe members to visit the scenic spots in Chengdu. First went to Qingcheng Mountain and Dujiangyan, and later visited the Caotang and Wuhou Ancestral Hall in the city.
If it is the arrival of Guan Mucun and Yu Shuzhen that ignited the enthusiasm of song and dance fans, then the release of the movie "Liu Sanjie" made fans crazy. The film was all the rage at the time, and many viewers who did not buy tickets in the city ran to the cinema in the eastern suburbs to see it, and some people watched it once or twice, but they also had to watch it for the third and fourth times, and the most they watched more than 20 times. "At that time, the cinema only had one hall, so there was only one film per show, 6 to 7 movies a day, and one more per New Year's Festival." Liu Qingzhong said: "Not only is it difficult to find a ticket, but the film is also difficult to find, and the four theaters often put a movie together, which also gives rise to a new profession - running film." ”
Running a film, as the name suggests, is to carry heavy copies of movies back and forth between theaters. At that time, the Victory Film Theater shared a set of copies with dongfeng cinema, Xinqiao cinema and Shahe cinema, and the runners responsible for sending films often rode happy motorcycles to and from these four cinemas, which was very foreign. At that time, the cinemas in the city generally ran film operators on bicycles, and because the Victory Film Theater was located on the outskirts of the city, the transportation was inconvenient, and the competent authorities specially equipped them with a Dongfeng brand three-wheeled motorcycle. At that time, there were many rolls of film copied for a movie, and sometimes after one copy was screened, the next copy had not yet arrived, and the projectionist would type a subtitle on the screen that "the film did not arrive". For the audience, the "intermission" is also very fun, you can go out to buy some snacks, or talk about the plot together. In the darkness of the cinema, I don't know how many young people in the eastern suburbs successfully held hands here for the first time.
The Victory Film Theater not only attracted audiences in the eastern suburbs of Chengdu, but even became one of the units that received foreign guests at that time. Liu Qingzhong said that the books he used to record the list of foreign guests were enough to fill two large books. According to the regulations of the theater, 40 "reserved tickets" must be left every day as a maneuver in case of temporary reception of foreign guests. Performances generally start at 7:15 p.m., and according to regulations, the theater's "reserved tickets" cannot be disposed of until after 6:30 p.m., which also brings some "happiness troubles" to Liu Qingzhong - some people know that he has reserved tickets in hand, so they try to find ways to ask him for tickets. In order not to violate the rules, he had to go out every afternoon to "hide", and sometimes the ticket seekers would even run to his mother-in-law's house to "arrest" him. Speaking of the fiery red at that time, the old man's face was a little proud: "Old Chengdu knows that the most cattle in that era were the three professions - ticket takers, drivers, and meat sellers." After the conversation turned, he laughed, "Later, there were fewer people watching the movie, and my business manager began to ask for people everywhere, and the factories and mines in the eastern suburbs were all running around, and the contact group chartered the field." ”
What was once an entertainment center is now a sports venue
With the take-off of the economy after the reform and opening up, the people's entertainment activities have been continuously enriched, and modern multi-hall cinemas have sprung up like mushrooms, and single-hall old-fashioned movie theaters such as the Victory Film Theater cannot meet the demand for movie viewing and gradually withdraw from the historical stage. Since 2001, the Shengli Film Theater has no longer played movies; in 2002, the Shengli Film Theater was closed and transformed into the activity center of Chengdu Steel Pipe Factory; since 2013, this building has been partly used as an activity center, and some leased as a shopping mall and education and training institutions, but the main structure has not changed.
Today, at No. 1 Via South China Road, it is difficult to see from the appearance of the building that it was once the largest theater in the southwest. Du Yuecheng, the electrician guarding here, is the "second generation of drama", his mother works at the Victory Film Theater, he grew up here, later worked here, and still "takes care" of the elderly theater. He opened the doors and led us into the interior of the building, and a nostalgic breath came over us. The staircase opposite the old-style theater, the dusty screening hall, and the empty and wide stage are all engraved with the light and shadow memories of old Chengdu. The huge wooden floor stage has become a badminton court; the guest house where Guan Mucun and Yu Shuzhen lived has become a tea shop; and the staff dormitory where Du Yuecheng lived when he was a child on the second floor has now become a table tennis hall... The entertainment center in the eastern suburbs has become a sports space for citizens today.
Unfortunately, the seats in the auditorium, the movie projector and other equipment have been removed, and the electric bells in the corners of the lobby on the first floor have been used for many years and are covered with spider webs. Imagine that year, when the electric bell rang, the opening scene was dispersed, and people came and went, how vibrant this building was. Du Yuecheng saw our loneliness and helped us find "old antiques", and finally he pointed to the inconspicuous shutters in the theater, "The wood used for these shutters was demolished from the Mingyuan Building in the last century." "The Mingyuan Building, which has disappeared, can thus retain a little of its mutilated torso." The light passing through these blinds reflected the happy faces of many people in the past? Perhaps, today's Victory Film Theater has gradually been forgotten, but it is still deserved as a historical protection building in Chengdu, and in the youth of a whole generation, it carries the most cheerful, romantic and fashionable time in old Chengdu.
Source: Chengdu Daily