In recent years, it had become a blink-and-miss structure on the approach to the historic Kashmere Gate, but till some decades ago, the Ritz cinema, set back a few feet from the main road, was a very happening place. However, having lost its glory days with the advent of multiplexes, the demise of Ritz on March 18, 2016 elicited no more than a whimper, that too from middle aged and elderly people of North Delhi.
Once upon a time it was a swanky theatre in the heart of what used to be equivalent to today’s Connaught Place or South Extension. Flanked by restaurants like Khyber (not to be confused with Khyber Pass near Mall Road), fashionable garment stores and even a shop that sold guns and armaments, the Kashmere Gate area buzzed with activities till late in the night.
Delhi University students of the 70s recall that Ritz was one of their most favourite haunts, vying with Amba in Ghantaghar and Alpna in Model Town. Every Hindi film released in one of these three halls, most easily accessed from hostels of Delhi University colleges as well as areas of Old Delhi adjacent to the Railway Station and Civil lines.
While families would throng the evening shows, the student crowd generally preferred to go for the night show. Many a university romance and heartbreak were scripted around this hall.
A student from the mid-70s recalls the tale of a freshly heartbroken friend who decided to drown his sorrows in drink and then watch Manoj Kumar’s Shor which ran for a considerable length of time in Ritz. Accompanied by two others, he drank more than his capacity and shortly after the movie began, started to cry loudly and inconsolably. Eventually by the interval, his friends decided to escort him back to the hostel.
But the distance was short enough for them to return to Ritz just after the picture had resumed post-interval.
It was during the late 60s and 70s that Ritz was at its zenith. It was a hall with plush carpets and its upper story even had private boxes for families or young lovers to watch movies in seclusion. In the 70s, legendary leader Atal Bihari Vajpayee, an avid Hindi movie fan visited Ritz, which added to its popularity.
Varun Seth, manager of Ritz cinema told The Pioneer that in 1942, Jawab was the first movie screened in the cinema hall while Sanam Re turned out to be the last movie. “It was a hall that started in the pre-Independence era and was still popular among university students till its closure. From the Shammi Kapoor starrer Junglee to Dabangg, Ritz cinema invited an audience across all ages and social strata,” said Seth.
Recalling the golden era of Indian classical cinema, Jaiveer, an employee at the cinema complex for the last 32 years, said that after entering the cinema hall, people truly enjoyed the cinematic experience because of its comfortable ambience. Muqaddar Ka Sikandar, Pakeezah, Andha Kanoon, Kranti, Rocky, Sadak and Roti, Kapada Aur Makan were among the movies which ran in the cinema hall for 25 weeks.
“I remember when my grandfather, who served here for a long time, shared the overwhelming response of viewers during the time of Junglee in 1961. He told me that there was a time when the theatre faced shortage of tickets due to overcrowding,” Jaiveer further said.
Ram Singh, another worker at Ritz, said that not only university students, but employees during office hours, used to come to watch cinema here. “People were passionate about cinema because it was the sole medium of entertainment those days, before colour TV arrived. During the releases of Amitabh Bachchan movies, all 576 seats used to be occupied,” said Singh.
Recapturing the blurred images of the walled city of his younger days, Radheshyam, a shopkeeper in old Delhi said that Ritz had private boxes for burqa-clad ladies.
“Those days proprietors hired buses to invite viewers from ISBT or the railway station; where theatre employees sat in tarpaulin-covered cycle-rickshaws and yelled out information about new releases through loudspeakers,” he said.
“Families had to book tickets in advance, because community movie-watching was as much of an event as organizing a birthday party,” he said.
No tears may be shed for the demise of single-screen Ritz in the era of multiplexes, many of them now located inside shopping malls, but its closure brings an end to an era of cultured charm and innocent joys of youth, no longer found in abundance today.