The Budapest palace of movies is 100 years old: this is the story of the Corvin cinema
It survived World War II and the 1956 revolution, and although regimes came and went, not even its name was changed in all that time. Let the story of the hundred-year-old Corvin cinema follow!
The people of Józsefváros were happy when they read in the papers in 1921 that a huge movie palace was being built on the corner of Ferenc körút and József körút at a cost of 42 million kroner, modeled on New York. They were happy because Józsefváros had enough cafes, but not enough theaters and cinemas. As one newspaper wrote about the opening of the cinema: “There is nothing here in Józsefváros. The silence is great here, there is countryside here, a good bourgeois, quiet countryside.”
The site of the Corvin cinema was long before a swampy area, which later became the property of the Gschwindt family. The head of the family, Ernő Gschwindt, was a rich man, for a while he also patronized the football players of Ferencváros, and was even made president. He got rich from his far-famed liquor and rum factory, and when he was approached with the idea of a cinema, he sold the plot to investors.
Construction began in 1921 and people were excited to see what the cinema palace would be like. Anyone who went there could see the construction fenced off with planks in the crevices. Then on November 21, 1922
within the framework of a colorful celebration, the first building in Budapest that was really intended as a cinema was given,
since the previous cinemas all rented their premises. The city’s dignitaries also attended the ceremony, and governor Miklós Horthy and his wife also appeared.
We lived in the era of silent films, and domestic cinemas mainly showed American, French and German silent films. That is why it was refreshing that the Corvin cinema undertook to show Hungarian silent films as well. In 1923, for example, the “viable” cinema entitled White Pigeons in the Black City was shown.
This is how the Corvin cinema looked after the suppression of the 1956 revolution (photo: Fortepan/Nagy Gyula)
The director of Corvini, József Daróczy (he was also a director and producer), asked the journalists, for example, to be more critical of cinema, because it serves progress: “Write it mercilessly if something is not good, because I am convinced that the time has come for us to take the film seriously and this will only happen if we not only cherish it, but also point out its shortcomings” said the director.
The cinema gained more and more space in the entertainment industry, producing its heroes.
This was also the case with the American child actor Jackie Coogan, who played the lead role in Charlie Chaplin’s cult film The Kid (1921). Coogan has also become a favorite of children in Budapest. This is how it happened that in 1925 an 11-year-old boy named Karcsika invented it, and he will surely also become a famous actor. At least as famous as Coogan. He sat in the Corvin cinema all the time, sometimes he watched three shows in one day. Then he left a farewell note to his mother saying that he had gone into the world because of fame. The papers did not report on his further fate.
The Corvin cinema enlivened Józsefváros, and it is no coincidence that large-scale construction began in its vicinity. In 1926, for example, the construction of a 36-apartment apartment building for investors began in the immediate vicinity of the cinema. Many people also discussed the date in front of Corvin. The movie theater even appeared in classified ads: “Italiano. Be in the lobby of the Corvin cinema on Wednesday at 8:30. Alis is waiting.”
In 1928, detectives visited the Corvin cinema. It happened that in connection with the presentation of a new film, the cinema ordered a statue of the famous actress Greta Garbo. Its unveiling was timed for the premiere, but the statue arrived at the cinema the day before and awaited its fate covered up. Then, early in the evening, when only the ticket collectors were in the cinema, four men appeared and announced that the detectives of the state police had to take the Garbo statue away on official business. They even showed me some paper. The four people carried the statue out, and the ticket collectors didn’t think of any trickery. Then it turned out that the statue was stolen by cunning thieves.
Then the sound film came out. As the papers put it:
“The siege of the sound film in Budapest can also destroy the remaining strongholds of silent films.”
In 1930, the Corvin cinema also showed a sound film, initially after a silent film. For example, the newscast of the American Paramount film company was a great success, with “a negro baritone” singing. The audience rewarded him with applause for finally hearing sound during the screening.
Of course, all this made a big difference. Many film stars became victims of the sound film in this country as well, not to mention that the bands used during the silent films also had to look for new work. In 1933, the news came as a surprise that 11 years ago, after the handover of the building, the architect Emil Bauer went to court, because he claimed that the spectacular palace of the Corvin cinema was built based on his plans, but someone stole them from him. At the court, he asked for 145,000 pengős to be compensated and to demolish the building. He eventually lost the lawsuit.
In 1935, people talked about the fact that one night the cinema’s cash register was broken into and someone left with two thousand coins. The cashiers discovered the shortage the next morning. According to the police, it is certain that the robber is hiding in the building at the end of the last performance. A year later, it wasn’t stolen, but a diamond-encrusted wristwatch was lost in the cinema. Its owner was looking for the extremely expensive jewel in a classified ad and offered a reward (if anyone knows about it, it is located at Bakáts utca 8, behind door 14 on the second floor, the building is still there today).
The main entrance and surroundings of the cinema in 1990. Since then, a pedestrian street has led to the movie theater (photo: Fortepan/Katalin Erdei)
Then came the 2nd World War and then the communist rule. In 1945, Corvin was the first cinema to open its doors, for example in April The party secretary was shown, which documented the heroism of the Russian partisan struggle. During the Rákosi regime, peace meetings were often held in the huge cinema hall.
In 1950, the IX. the residents of the district chanted in Corvin that we will defend the peace. According to local newspaper reports “this small army of the peace fight was brought together in such a burning enthusiasm that only the hatred of the common enemy and the fearful love for the homeland, which is equally dear to all of us, can forge them.” In 1952, a letter of an outraged worker appeared in the newspapers, who took to the pen because many people arrived late to the screening in the cinema hall, thus disturbing the Ruszlán and Ludmilla enjoying the movie.
Then the Rákosi regime went, and the 1956 revolution came. it’s over
In Pest, the Corvin cinema was one of the main bases of the freedom fighters.
The cinema building was used in the fighting, and the Russian tanks caused serious damage to the building. In the building from which the projection screen, speakers and other furnishings disappeared in the whirlwind of the revolution. Shortly after the defeated freedom struggle, it appeared in Népszabadság, which wrote that they could return stolen objects.
The cinema was restored surprisingly quickly, and was in operation again in 1957. And since then, the jewel of Budapest’s cinemas has been the Corvin cinema, which has successfully survived the past hundred years, and its name has not even been changed in all that time.