The Belle Bids Farewell

Another of our dwindling number of our built heritage in the city is lost and along with it the countless life stories intertwined with this landmark.

Original text and photos submitted to Fudge Magazine. March 2008
Edited (uncredited) by Vicente Garcia Groyon III
With acknowledgements to Ms. Anna Gan, Managing Editor of Fudge Magazine
Double cover issue: Indiana Jones or the 'Hot Issue' with Beng of Drip, Karen Agarrado, Caren of Sigh and Sara Marco of Taken by Cars
Pages 18 to 20. Fudge/ Magazine. Entertainment/ Pop Culture. Yr.4/ISS.0/May2008.

The Belle bids farewell
By Melanie Casul

It doesn’t have the name of a National Artist for Architecture associated with it, nor was it ever considered a first-class cinema with famous personalities attending its inauguration. Appropriately, this anticipated obituary of Bellevue Theater located at 1115-1117 Pedro Gil Street is written by a non-architect, a non-historian, an ordinary person.

The “For Rent/Lease” sign that hung on its marquee since December 2006 has been taken down, and its box office sold its last ticket on January 28, 2008 to a meager number of people who came to watch “She Walks By Night” starring Belinda Bright doubled with the Russian horror flick “Daywatch.”

The Bellevue stood, until then, as one of the two oldest remaining and functioning pre-war movie theaters in Manila. Now it is survived only by the Times Theater (opened in 1941) on Quezon Boulevard.

The Bellevue, as a space of spectatorship for the moving image, appears as early as 1933 in the book “Manila and the Philippines” published by the American Express Company, although a number of architect academicians estimate this structure to have been built between 1931 and 1933. It was listed among 10 other cinemas, with its address indicated as 932 R. Hidalgo. It survived World War II, the seasonal floods in the area, and the migration of audiences to nearby Robinson’s Place Ermita and other multiplexes with up-to-date screening technologies and better parking spaces. Sadly, her marquee is now dimmed, after almost 75 years, as she bids farewell to the urban jungle of megamalls and disappears into the cracks of history.

The theater property is owned by the ALC Theater Circuit, which also runs the Vista Pasay and the Vista Recto. It was purchased from the family of its second owner, Enrique Gruenberg, in 1981 along with the Joy Theater in Pasay.

The facts of its origins prior to this are hazy. Enrique’s wife Candelaria said in a 2001 interview that her husband worked as manager of the Bellevue around 1952 and later purchased it from her Spanish mestiza owner in 1971. On the other hand, Pabling Honrado, an employee of the theater since 1961, recalls the original owner as an Arab (or Indian) that paid off his huge debt to Enrique with the sale of both the Bellevue and the Joy.

The Gruenberg brothers—William, Alfredo, and Enrique—owned and managed a number of theaters during the 60s and 70s. When Enrique died in 1980, the theater was sold for 10 million pesos since none of the family members wanted or were prepared to run the theater.

Like Toto in the film “Cinema Paradiso,” its current owner Ambassador Antonio Cabangon Chua of ALC fell in love with the movies in this theater when he was a young boy. He told his mother that he would one day own it so that they could watch movies any time. He did just that and more—created a film production company called Libran Motion Pictures which produced their last movies in 1997 entitled “Butas ng Karayom” and “Tapusin Natin ang Laban.”

My love affair with the Bellevue started, like most relationships, with an ordinary introduction. In 2000, I was Project Director for the national touring exhibit and lecture series called “Arkitekturang Filipino: Spaces and Places in History,” funded by the National Commission for Culture and Arts. I saw the first photo of this magnificent structure on the glossy photo panels of the exhibit taken by architect academician Dr. Gerard Rey A. Lico. I’ve been hooked on Bellevue since, investing the next six years to researching my recently defended master’s thesis on her and other movie palaces.

As if summoned by forces beyond our understanding, in mid-February I received a call from Gerard, asking for the Bellevue’s number, as his regular throng of UP Architecture students was set to make a plate on the cine. I was only able to text him the digits of the Bellevue the following morning, and to my surprise I received a call from him minutes after, informing me that the cine was in its final phase of demolition. I quickly placed a call to theater manager Frank Lamila and then to ALC’s head office in Makati to confirm the sad truth.

As I relayed news of the tragedy to my friend Gerard, little did I know that he had already hatched a plan to salvage what he could of the Belle. He obtained details from me of whom to write a letter requesting to have the cine artifacts donated to the soon-to-be-opened Museum of Filipino Architecture at the University of the Philippines in Diliman. This was not difficult to do, as I already knew all the details by heart, and with that, a fax was sent and I raced to the site to assess the damage, hold the fort, and get permission to document the theater.

Even in her heyday Bellevue was always a double-feature cine unlike her movie palace counterparts in downtown Manila, but despite this, the Bellevue still held her own. Various architect academicians and art historians hail the Bellevue as a fine example of Art Deco architecture despite her lack of pedigree. Her Islamic/ Moorish design is described as being in the Neo-mudejar style. Typical of this style are the gilded harem maidens bronzed by time and dust gracing her lobby and façade. She also features a pseudo-grand staircase in the middle of the lobby and a chandelier with small glass globes.

The two domes visible from the street enclose the high ceilings of the male and female toilets on the second level. As an occasional patron, I can say that the theater was kept clean and sanitary. Also cunningly disguised are the fire exits which look like tall gates with arched sculpted doors. The second level still retains the original Tanguile wood flooring. The orchestra section seats 400 and the balcony 200. The auditorium is topped by a huge dome with wooden rafters while is screen is framed by carved wooden “curtains.” However, the Bellevue’s visually striking design fails to compensate for its technology—it is only ventilated by fan blowers and a noisy Porta-Cool system, and its ancient Super Simplex projector which has only survived thanks to numerous repairs over the decades.

A few years back, I chatted with Honrado before he retired. ALC’s retired billboard painter told me that they found an old war-time helmet, perhaps a Japanese soldier’s, under the basement trap door at the rear left side (now covered with concrete). Tito Frank Lamila fondly recounts that an elderly balikbayan who told him the sculpture of a lion with his paws once sprawled lazily in the middle of the lobby.

Perhaps more could have been done to save it? We did not visit her as regularly as we should have, and Tito Frank had lost my cell phone number. As much as he wanted to tell me the news earlier, he could not reach me. I was caught off-guard despite my steadfast championing of our Belle.

Since I started documenting Bellevue’s significance as a public space of socialization for her disenfranchised audience, I have subtly rallied her employees to take up the cause with their bosses. They have even given him samples of the studies I conducted. However, the realities of her dwindling economics were too harsh to ignore and it being a private establishment, certain boundaries could not be crossed. I have become quite close to the employees of the Bellevue over the years, including her former manager, the late Romeo Oseo, retired theater booker Pat Alvis of Libran, and a regular lame-mute patron nicknamed “Putol” who got around with a makeshift skateboard. I wonder where he would watch movies now.

I became less of a historian and more of a loyal patron, simply enjoying the banter with the blue-collar workers in the lobby between shows and sharing a laugh with the occasional sex cruiser over a soft drink at the commissary. And there lies my regret at not having been more aggressive with the politics of saving her. I accepted the fact that the end of her days was imminent and thus I simply chose to love her as a spectator for as long as I possibly could.
With the green light from management to document the demolition, a day after the news came of her curtain call, three neurotic devotees of the Belle met in the disheveled orchestra pit amidst the smoke of a makeshift fire to help illuminate the darkness that enveloped the construction workers as they pounded away at the ground. Dr. Gerard Lico, his apprentice Foom Cobilla, and I—two architects and an ethnographer—fell silent at the scene that lay before them.

All 600 seats had been taken out in sets of five and donated to a cockpit arena in Meycauayan, Bulacan and the famous harem maidens guarding the staircase were resting in wooden crates lovingly constructed by Tito Frank and carefully transported to a warehouse in Guadalupe. All was set for the next tenants of this historic landmark—a clothing department store called Novo that would take up residence with a 5-year lease.

As the workers continued to demolish the interiors Gerard and I went up to the mezzanine to say our goodbyes to the façade maidens that stood steadfast despite the destruction below. All that is left of my muse is a rusted screw and washer, pocketed from the balcony in the insidious smoke that rose from the pits, and broken blocks of marble from the staircase.

But my Belle, never one to disappoint, bequeathed a final gift to her audience... a glimpse of her soul: glorious red and blue hand-painted wall ornamentation behind a demolished wooden wall in the orchestra foyer. As we carefully chipped away at the wood to reveal the treasured find, we were astonished to discover the same ornamentation all over the orchestra walls, hidden for decades underneath acoustic paneling. This was a revelation that would ignite our romantic memories of her forever.

There are no movie lines good enough to express how sad I am for her demise. However, some silver yet glimmers from the tatters of her screen—her owners are intent on keeping the Moorish façade intact and have expressed interest in reviving the Bellevue after five years. Wishful thinking, perhaps, but in the wake of your muse’s death, wouldn’t you gratefully accept every scrap of hope, albeit offered in memoriam?

Gratitude goes to Melanie Casul for allowing Pogi Shirts to post her article.