Toho Theatre Opens Tomorrow

The new Toho Theatre will open tomorrow night with all the splash of a Hollywood pageant.

Nine Japanese movie stars will wave to the fans from the stage, the president of Toho Company, Limited will give a brief greeting, and a swashbuckling pirate film called "Samurai Pirate" will be shown on the screen.

But don’t try to get in — tomorrow night is by invitation only. The public, however, is invited every night after that. The theatre — complete with air conditioning, split-level stairways, and handsome contemporary decor — is on Kapiolani Boulevard, near KGMB-TV.

The visiting Japanese stars will also be at the theatre Thursday night. They are Hisaya Morishige, Frankie Sakai, Junzaburo Ban, Norihei Miki, Kenji Sawara, Chicage Awashima, Keiki Awaji, Junko Ikeuchi and Mayumi Osora.

The theatre’s manager, Zenki Kubota, here only two months from Japan, said the movie house will play only Toho studio-made films.

The first feature, starring the famous Toshiro Mifune and made last fall, will run for three weeks.

All films will have English subtitles and, occasionally, a film will have "dubbed" English. Famous older Japanese films will also be screened from time to time.

The theatre will seat 760. And adjacent lot will park 74 cars.

What was the cost of the new theatre?

Manager Kubota put it this way:

"Everything ran to a million dollars, land, everything."

The Honolulu Toho was conceived by the Toho Studios in Japan two years ago, Kubota said. Toho is the largest motion picture company in Japan. It runs a chain of "over 100" theatres in Japan, and a few on the U.S. Mainland and other parts of the world.