Hanapepe Theatre

The cavernous Hanapepe Theatre was built for Caesar Rodriguez and Eliza G. Jardin in 1932 by Japanese-based Nakano Corporation. A vocational school provided finishing touches on the theater’s exterior. The venue appears to have opened July 1, 1932 with Colin Clive in “Frankenstein”. It was the first sound theatre in town. The Hanapepe Theatre’s wooden support beams caused incredibly poor site lines if you came when the majority of the 800-seats were filled.

Locals contend that the Hanapepe Theatre went out of business in 1977 although advertising stopped in 1976. The Hanapepe Theatre played predominately English-language films with a wide array of Filipino-language films and sporadic Japanese-language films.

The theatre stayed in the Jardin family virtually its entire run which caused locals to lovingly refer to it as the Jardins' Theatre. It was outlasted by the Aloha Theatre which had far superior site lines. The Hanapepe Theatre closed and was later demolished in the early=1980’s. However, the gargoyle flourishes on the building’s exterior / box office were salvaged.

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