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- Elite Movie Palace, Jhansi -
Harkening back to the days of Hindi cinema's "Golden Age" (the 1950s, 60s, and early 70s), the Elite Movie Palace in Jhansi, Uttar Pradesh, is a classic example of one of India's grand old "movie palaces". In an era when cinema held the masses undivided attention, the Indian movie palace was the commons of Indian popular entertainment. It was a time when Bollywood movies were king, and the movies were the only game in town. This was before the playing field of mass entertainment in India was changed forever by television, videotapes, VCD/DVDs, satellites, and the multiplex theater . Today the single screen Indian movie palace is a dinosaur, at once to large and single minded to support itself. The concept of 500 or 600 seat single screen theaters are no longer profitable. As such, movie palaces like the Elite in Jhansi will someday soon become extinct. They will sadly become just a memory, of when all of India flocked to the movie palace for a night of excitement and entertainment.Jahnsi's Elite Movie Palace is a classic example of an Indian movie theater from Hindi cinema's "Golden Age". Like many of the grand old movie palaces of India, today the Elite has been reduced to a disheveled yet charming specter of its former self. Built during the heyday of Hindi cinema's Golden Age, it opened February 1956. Its massive main floor holds 442 "first class" seats, and it has a balcony that accommodates over 150 more. For decades the theater played Bollywood films to sold out crowds. Today because of competition from newer, smaller, more profitable, and better equipped theaters the Elite theater just can't compete in the marketplace. Without the capital, the Elite can't afford the high price of screening prices for the top Bollywood films and is relegated to showing less expensive, B Grade, and C Grade movies, which bring in a much smaller audience. The day I visited, the Elite was screening a C Grade Italian exploitation film from the 1980s. There were about 15 patrons in the whole theater.