Michael Fowler's Historic Hawke's Bay: Cinemas

Two milestone events occurred to long-established Hawke's Bay movie theatre sites in January 2012 - the old Odeon Theatre in Hastings St, Napier, was mostly demolished and the Heretaunga St, Hastings Reading Cinema, closed.

The Hastings St location on which the Odeon Theatre was built had contained a picture theatre since 1916, when a shopping plaza was demolished to make way for the theatre.

The previous theatre on the Odeon Theatre site - The Regent, was badly damaged after a fire in 1944 and stood derelict until Robert Kerridge refurbished and renamed it the Odeon Theatre.

When the Odeon Theatre opened on October 13, 1960, a full house of 810 watched Doctor In Love.

The Odeon Theatre showed its last picture in September 1989.

The Hastings Reading Cinema four-screen multiplex opened in 1994 as Village 4 Cinema and was built on the site of the old State Theatre, which opened in 1934.

After the 1931 Hawke's Bay earthquake, six large theatres were built - three each in Hastings and Napier. Absent in the new theatres were stairs leading to balconies - all were tiered - as many people would have refused to go upstairs due to memories of the earthquake.

By January 2012, the entire group of picture theatres opened or re-opened after 1931 had closed. The industry, first hurt by television in the 1960s, suffered further due to VCRs in the 1980s and, more recently, cable television and new media.

The Reel Story: A History of Napier and Hastings Cinemas 1896-1996 by Michael Fowler and David Turnbull, is available from Beattie and Forbes booksellers, Tennyson St, Napier.