Pongrácz Erzsébet: The Cinemas of Budapest - Our Budapest (Budapest, 1998)

The Tisza in 1986

were laid on by the Frenchman Eugen Dupont in the café- bar of the Royal Hotel on the Körút, but soon enough these early slapstick scenes on the screen became constant features for entertaining regular patrons and casual customers in the Reigner Beerhouse on Rákóczi út and the interior hall of the Kohn Café in Dob utca. The first real movie hit, however, was shown at the Velence (Venice) Café; a public entertainer’s permit issued in 1899 providing the basis for establishing the cinema there, baptised the Tisza in 1959 and operating until 1994.

Encouraged by their success, the talented owners of the Velence founded a shop to repair cinematographs followed by their own cine-projector manufacturing company to further the cause of Hungary's cinema industry and, incidentally, increase their own profits.

The café of Mór CJngerleider and József Neumann was a flourishing undertaking, but even more successful was the cinema on its premises, an establishment whose fame soared beyond the café, the neighbourhood and even the city. When the café was closed down in 1918, its building was demolished, but only to make room for a popular picture house called the Phoenix, which with its capacity of 430, featured mainly Westerns, adventure films, thrillers, and romances.

Across the street from the Velence was the Wekerle night club, whose owners were prompted by the success

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