Vestiges of the Coliseum Theater - Bangkok, Thailand

About a year ago, I took my first trip to Bangkok with the sole intent of seeking out old theaters. A few days prior to that, I corralled myself in the library, flipping through the foxing pages of old Thai business directories to make a list of as many pre-multiplex theaters as I could find reference to. For the most part, little more than theater names and phone numbers were listed. No addresses. Nevertheless, I set out with hopes as high as the sky that between the later addition sky-scrapers and megamalls a vestigial temple of film might have been spared. No such luck. Every one of the 25 or so listed theaters belonged to the elite first-run theater circuits, occupying prime real-estate in central Bangkok's commercial and financial districts. All but the Apex 3, Bangkok's last first-run stand-alones, are gone.

While on the streets around Phayatai and Ratchathewi I spoke with dozens of shop-keepers, vendors and other ground-floor merchants hoping to get a theater lead. All they could do was point to high-rises, or vacant lots where there once stood what I sought. Names like Hollywood, MacKenna, Athens and Coliseum were mentioned frequently, accompanied often by nostalgic smiles, or reminiscent moments of silence. Once even a burst of outrage, just for show, I think.

The Coliseum Theater, featured today, was built by Mr. Maitree Kitiparaporn, one of Bangkok's more prolific theater builders of the 1960's and 70's. By the 1980's, Kitiparaporn's theater company, known as the Hollywood circuit, was being run by his daughter Pannin. She merged the Hollywood circuit with Apex, creating the Pyramid Circuit from the two. Later Pannin left the theater business and went on open Dream World, Bangkok's first and only full-sized amusement park. The Apex Three at Siam Square - Lido, Scala and Siam - are all that's left of a once-vast movie theater empire.

The above photo depicts the entrance arch and marquee to the now-demolished Coliseum Theater. It was taken by an American veteran stationed in Thailand during the Vietnam/American War, Robert Jazdzewski. A hand painted billboard above the marquee shows Aurthur Penn's 1967 romp "Bonnie and Clyde."

Though we can't see the Colisuem Theater itself, it's still a nice little capture of a time and a place.