Another prestigious theatre on Subedar Chatram Road Kapali is closing its shutters in a few months. The proposal for demolition and transferring the land to buyers in the market is a discussion going on in the family confirmed Ravi Dasappa one of the beneficiaries.

The land of Kapali theatre is estimated at Rs.100 crores and 1465 seats, highest in capacity is the first Cinerama theatre in Asia.

The first Kannada film to screen at Kapali theatre is ‘Mannina Maga’ in the early 60’s of director Geethapriya debut that starred Dr Rajakumar. ‘Mannina Maga’ was the first cinema to run for 100 days at Kapali theatre. Probably after a few more films in less than one year this huge building will be razed.

Apparently the first Kannada film to screen in Kapali theatre was the 100th film of Dr KS Ashwath ‘Matheye Maha Mandira’.

It was Gopal Enterprises according to sources that got the land first at this place. As the Gopal theatre situated in Yeshwanthpur, Bangalore was coming under railway department zone the alternative land was given at this place in the initial days where the structure came up. Out of a contest the name was selected for the theatre. 100 plus names came up but ‘Kapali’ was finally selected. Fortunately for Gopal Enterprises the Gopal theatre was not under railway zone in the later days.

The culture of ‘Cinerama’ was started in 1968 in this Kapali theatre. Cinerama was a 3-strip, three-projector technology. Each 35 mm projector ran one third of the image, which was projected on a screen that had a 146° arc, and was much bigger than the 70mm widescreen.

Screening English, Hindi language films ‘Kapali’ theatre again switched to Kannada movies from Dr Rajakumar ‘Haalu Jenu’.

The biggest tragedy the theatre faced was when the adjacent Gangaram Building collapsed that resulted in death of 123 persons on 12th of September 1983. The building collapse also stalled the running of Kapali theatre for quite long time. The screen wall of Kapali theatre was damaged when high rise building toppled.

The sound system failure was another trouble inside the theatres when Dr Rajakumar ‘Shabdavedi’ was in progress. For improvement of sound the theatre was temporarily shut down. When Upendra ‘H2o’ got released at this theatre, there was lathi charge outside the theatre injuring many persons.

The permanent stock of film at Kapali theatre was Shivarajakumar ‘Om’ directed by Upendra. More than 30 times for the stop gap ‘Om’ was screened at this theatre.

On the same line of Kapali, Kino theatre was demolished for a complex. The complex situation faced by the single screen is reaching the pinnacle of problems.

A few furlongs behind Kino – theatres like Geethanjali, Central, Swasthik were demolished long ago. A few furlongs from left of Kapali theatre towards KG Road theatres such as – Geetha, Majestic, Alankar, Prabhat, Kalpana, Sagar, Himalaya, Kempe Gowda got razed.

Monuments have turned monsters for the people with business eyes!