The white colonial elites were just as proud to have a theater in their town or territory. The British resident of Zanzibar was obviously inspired by the opportunity to draw plans for the Royal, and he proudly attended the grand opening and made a habit of treating visiting dignitaries to a film. Zanzibar may have been just a small crumb in the great scheme of the British Empire, but it was the only place between Egypt and South Africa with a picture palace in 1921.21 When Jariwalla’s second picture palace, the Empire, debuted in Dar es Salaam in 1929, it was opened by the governor of Tanganyika, who entered on a red carpet to the applause of white dignitaries and the fanfare of the army band. Colonial officials took delight in cutting the ribbons at cinema openings, and press coverage of these events was extensive. Film screenings were also big events for the European community. The Tanganyika Standard covered one such event at the Avalon in Dar es Salaam in 1946. Attended by the governor of Tanganyika, the screening was described as “the most brilliant social function held in the center of town for many years.”22 A few years later when the Avalon was refurbished, the mayor spoke at the grand reopening, noting how venues like the Avalon provided him and others with an immense sense of civic pride. White journalists frequently emphasized how these modern cinemas served as proof of the tangible rewards of colonial development
Figure 1.3 Christmas/New Year’s greeting card from colonial Zanzibar. From the personal collection of Asad Talati
Tanzania exhibitors continually strove to enhance the physical pleasure of patrons and improve the associated pleasures afforded to passersby. Jariwalla’s first effort to update his khaki tents in Zanzibar came in the form of Cinema ya Bati, a permanent structure built of corrugated tin. The building, which had previously served as a potter’s warehouse, was located on the poor side of town, across the bridge from the central market, in Ng’ambo (literally meaning “the other side”). The building was more permanent than a tent but far from regal. Inside, it was stifling hot during most of the year, and patrons sat on the floor. This was a step up from a tent—but only a small one. Jariwalla knew he and his town could do better than Cinema ya Bati. Thus, he began negotiating with the British resident of Zanzibar and designing plans for the Royal Theater—which would be built just down the street from the colonial court and the home of the resident. As World War I drew to an end and the Tanganyikan mainland fell from German to British hands, he also upgraded his exhibition venues in Dar es Salaam. There, he retired several of his khaki tent venues and moved the projection equipment to renovated buildings renamed the New Cinema and the Bharat (later the Globe). These venues were solid but small, seating only two hundred and three hundred patrons, respectively. Again, his vision was grander than the available architecture. So in 1929, he opened a second picture palace, the Empire, which was built in the Victorian style and was located, like the Royal, adjacent to the commercial and administrative centers of power. The Empire accommodated nearly six hundred patrons and quickly became a node of urban social life in the Tanganyikan capital.23 Like the Royal in Zanzibar, the Empire in Dar es Salaam was a rare public space drawing all ranks of urban society—from the British governor to the average urban resident—into the same place at a time when colonial policy invested heavily in reifying difference and segregating space by race and class.
During the 1920s and 1930s as theaters spread across the land, Tanzanian proprietors worked hard to provide their communities with the most up-to-date and technologically sophisticated experience possible. Few theaters erected in these years were as impressive as the Royal or the Empire, but exhibitors did the best they could given their resources and the size of their towns. Most entrepreneurs began small. The first theaters in every town were tents, converted storerooms, or parts of warehouses. Regional differences in entrepreneurs’ rates of capital accumulation and patrons’ wages and access to cash impacted the timing and extent of upgrades. In Tanga, the tents used for exhibition were replaced in 1929 with two permanent theaters: the Regal Cinema and the Novelty Cinema.24 In Pemba too, makeshift venues were replaced with permanent theaters at that time. By 1931, Pemba had three cinemas, one in Wete and two in Chake-Chake.25 Nearly as soon as synchronized sound films hit the market, Jariwalla upgraded his equipment to accommodate “talkies.” By 1932, both the Royal in Zanzibar and the Empire in Dar es Salaam featured the latest sound films. Three years later, striving to provide the most recent films to the widest public, Jariwalla also upgraded the projection equipment at the Globe to accommodate talkies.26 Keeping up with trends in global technology and style was a hallmark of the cinema industry from its earliest days.
Shavekshaw Hormasji Talati was another Zanzibari cinematic entrepreneur who dedicated himself to bringing the latest cinematic technology and the best in global films to East Africa. Born in Zanzibar in 1889, he retired from the colonial civil service in 1932 and purchased the Cinema ya Bati from Jariwalla. The cinema would provide Talati with a little income after retirement, said his son, and it would help him stay active and engaged in the community.27 After a few years of running the theater, it became clear to Talati that commercial cinema had financial potential, but he also realized that if his business was to grow and prosper, he needed to upgrade to sound and modernize the viewing experience for his patrons. So in 1939, Shavekshaw Hormasji Talati partnered with three other small businessmen from Zanzibar—Abdullah Mohammed Thaver, M. S. Sunjit, and Manilal Madhavji Suchak—and opened the Empire Cinema in Zanzibar, adjacent to the main city market. Being men of fairly modest means, they leased an old stable in a prime location and converted the interior to accommodate four hundred seated patrons. The structure afforded no room for a balcony, but what the partners’ renovation lacked in physical attraction it made up for with cinematic style. The Empire featured first-rate projection and sound equipment and easily competed for customers with the more ostentatious Royal (which had been renamed the Majestic in 1938 when a new owner, Hassanali Hameer Hasham, purchased it from Jariwalla). Making the most of their personal and business connections, the partners quickly gained a reputation for bringing some of the best and most recent films from India, Egypt, Europe, and the United States to the isles. Thaver, for instance, had connections to the Egyptian film world that rivaled Jariwalla’s in India; through the 1960s, Thaver was recognized across East Africa as the source of the best Arabic-language films in the land.28 Actually, it is a wonder that the men were able to secure any films at all, given that they opened their theater and struggled through the first years of operating a new business just as World War II was heating up and global shipping lanes were closing down. But succeed they did, and from the modest beginnings of screening silent films inside a corrugated iron godown where patrons sat on old gunnysacks on the floor, these partners became, over the next two decades, the premier exhibitors and distributors in Tanzania.
Crowds thronged to the Empire in Zanzibar, and many consistently rated it as their favorite cinema, but the owners had grander visions for their town.29 A converted barn simply did not live up to their idea of a modern cinema. The Empire lacked a balcony, which by the 1940s many patrons considered essential for theatrical savoir faire. The absence of a balcony also made it difficult to accommodate the sultan and his family, who wanted to see more movies but required semiprivate seating at public screenings. The high-class films the partners screened also frequently attracted crowds that exceeded the available seating capacity. Thus, by war’s end the owners were