On 28th December 1895, one hundred years ago, the Lumiere Brothers projected the world's first film at the Grand Cafe, Paris. A few months later in May 1896, the movies reached Budapest as part of the Millennium Exposition. A Hungarian enterprise, entranced with the new technology, ordered equipment from the Lumieres and filmed Habsburg Emperor Franz Joseph's visit to the Exposition. The Hungarian debut of moving pictures was not quite as successful as the Parisian one: the Emperor appeared in full regalia but unfortunately without his head (surely a capital offence!) and the company went bankrupt.
Despite this shaky start, the movies were in Budapest to stay. In the early part of this century, cafes formed the hub of this booming capital and thus seemed the obvious place to present the new art form. The owner of the Velence Cafe decided to boost his business by showing free films to his clientele. This later became a proper cinema (Mozi in Hungarian), the Tisza, which was only recently closed down. The City's first cinema hall, the Tivoli opened in 1912 and is currently under restoration.
Still extant however, and showing English language films regularly is one of the city's grandest, the Pushkin Mozi where I saw First Knight.. The auditorium is about the same size as Theatre 7 at Pinewood but there the similarity ends. It seats about 50 patrons on comfortable wooden armchairs which are useful because the floor is not sloped and if for any reason you need to improve your view you just move your chair - all this for an entrance fee of about 1.30!; and most cinemas charge the same. The Pushkin Mozi began life in 1906 as the Magyar Vilag Cafe and was the regular haunt of poet Endre Ady.
Leading Hungarian craftsmen, such as porcelain maker Zsolnay, lovingly decorated the building and you can view the films from its cosy balcony.It became a cinema in 1926 and premiered with Douglas Fairbanks Snr in The Thief of Baghdad. Perhaps it was memories of seeing this film here that inspired the Hungarian Korda Brothers (Alex, Zoltan and Vincent), who emigrated to Great Britain in the 1930s, to remake the picture in Technicolor with Sabu as the thief.
The Pushkin also screened the first talkie in Hungary, The Singing Fool starring Al Jolson in September 1929. By that time Hungary had already caught the film bug and the local movie industry was taking off with a vengeance. A 1914 article published in the film magazine Mozgofenykep Hirado stated that the city had been transformed into a gigantic film studio; costumed figures were everywhere and extras were apparently digging for gold in the Budda Hills. Films with huge crowd scenes were in nearly all the streets.
Parallel to the film making came film-going. Cinemas sprang up all around the city and a very sophisticated audience was born. People were so particular about cinemas that they would avoid one they disliked even if a good film was showing and go to their favourite even if the entertainment was inferior.
The most spectacular of the Hungarian cinemas is still going strong, the Urania Mozi designed in a Moorish Venetian style by Henrik Schmahl, the building originally served as a nightclub and later became the Urania Scientific Theatre (a lecture hall) in 1899. Its wonderful gilded and arabesque interior lent glamour to educational lectures but the real attraction was the films produced to illustrate them, the first Hungarian film making project. The first entertainment film shown at the Urania The Dance was a short silent starring the Hungarian actress Lujza Blaha after whom the a city square is named. In 1930 it became exclusively a cinema and has remained so, frequently screening English language blockbusters.
The first purpose built picture house was the Corvin which opened in 1921 and is currently being restored. Chilling archive photographs of the building show the takeover by a Nazi film company during the 1940s.
The Broadway cinema was built in 1938 and reflects the functional style of the period with a massive circular auditorium. During the Second World war, it also served as an air raid shelter which meant that nobody had to leave in the middle of a film if the air raid sirens went off, and as a result was always full. Another 30s cinema is the Atrium which is in the art deco style with huge columned foyer, Today you would never guess that it was used as a stable during the war with German army horses quartered under its mirrored ceilings.
Budapest is still a city with a serious movie-going public and cinemas which are often a lot more spectacular than the films they screen. Films tend to be dubbed less often here than in Western Europe and there is a good selection of films in English to see and hear but just like old-time film fans, it's worth going into some just to appreciate their beautiful interiors and atmosphere. At the time of writing there are 28 cinemas in Budapest all showing English speaking films some of them even made in England!
There are also two film studios in the suburbs of Budapest. Mafilm, built in 1917 has four not very soundproof stages and most of the usual facilities. Fot studios are further out of town and are a series of very cold and draughty aircraft hangers. On this same film I spent three very cold weeks in St Petersburg but that's another story.