Bio Ponrepo: the first permanent cinema in the Czech Republic did not support its owner. He died in poverty
/FAMOUS PRAGUE ENTERPRISES/ Exactly 115 years have passed this year since the opening of the first permanent cinema in the Czech Republic. Dismas Šlambor alias Viktor Ponrepo ran it in the U Modré štyky house in Karlova Street in the Old Town. Back then it was called the Theater of Living Photographs.
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Cinema Ponrepo in Karlova street in Prague.
| Photo: www.filmovyprehled.cz
However, let’s not be fooled – in 1907, film was nothing new for the Czechs. Traveling cinemas have been touring cities for a good decade. For the first time, the thirty-second piece was shown through a kinetoscope, an invention of Thomas Alva Edison, in 1895 at the Czechoslovak Ethnographic Exhibition in Stromovka, Prague. Three years later, Jan Kříženecký appeared at the Exhibition of Architecture and Engineering with his cinematograph and several short films.
From inns to pike
Both inventions of Dismas Šlambor, a well-known magician at the time, performing under the name Viktor Ponrepo, excited. He started running a traveling cinema, touring theaters and inns with it. In the meantime, he tried to get the Prague municipality to allow him to set up a permanent cinema. This was finally achieved in 1907.
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Bio Ponrepo was officially opened on September 15 on the first floor of the newly built art nouveau house U Modré štýky. It had 56 seats and played every day except Friday. At first, the owner greets everyone personally, but as the audience grew, he had a skit filmed in which he bows to them.
The business was a family affair, Ponrep’s wife Karlička sold tickets at the box office, and brother Karel Šlambor commented on the action on the screen and created sound effects.
One crisis after another
The business succeeded only a year before the first crisis hit. Ponrepo had a hard time fighting the competition – there were already six large permanent cinemas operating in Prague alone at the time – and tried its luck in selling cinematography supplies. He didn’t do very well in this area either, and war broke out. After it, the popularity of cinema increased for a short time, but in the first half of the 20s, due to the worsening economic situation, it declined again.
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Ponrepo had to return to the magic trade because the family was barely able to survive on the screenings at the Blue Pike. The pioneer of cinematography died in poverty in 1926, but his cinema operated for the next twenty years. Now he is reminded of the name of the cinema in Bartolomejska and even the planet Ponrepo.
