Skive Bio was started by agent Chr. Jensen in 1907 and was housed in Torvegade 8 next door to Postgården. For 99 years, the cinema operated at the address until the opening of the cinema in Kulturcenter Limfjord.
The early days
Agent Chr. Jensen was a wholesale merchant. One day in 1907, he said at the Sunday table: “Well children, no more going to Kosmorama on Sunday afternoons, because we’ll soon be able to do it ourselves.” Agent Chr. Jensen had contacted the Minister of Justice Alberti after being refused a license by Skive’s police chief, and through his intervention, Chr. Jensen got his license.
Chr. Jensen had bought bank director Müller’s property in Torvegade and built an extension in the garden where the “Biograftheater” was to be. The auditorium could hold 300 people and was built with a beautifully illuminated glass ceiling and painted wall decorations. One of the first programs shown at the Cinema was a mix of current affairs, suspense, fun, tragedy and maudlin. One of the numbers was called “The Pirate Ship”, a deadly story from the time of Tordenskjold.
Agent Jensen was only director for six months, then he died suddenly in November 1907, leaving his widow Camilla and a large brood of 16 children.
The widow took over after a few months
Camilla Jensen continued to run the theater until 1929, with the help of her children, especially Cicilie Jensen, who served as both usher and substitute at the piano. In the silent era, movies were accompanied by piano music, so it was an important part of the entertainment.
Only four days after the sound film premiere at competitor Kosmorama in 1931, the sound and speech film also came to Skive Bio.
From 1929, Camilla Jensen’s son-in-law Johannes Nielsen managed the cinema until his death in 1947. Cicilie Nielsen then took over the helm for almost 25 years. In 1970, her son Svend Stjernholm Nielsen took over a well-run business.
Conversions and extensions
In 1929, Skive Bio was modernized and 10 years later came the second major renovation. An extension was built to the rear, which provided significantly more space.
In 1939-40, Johannes Nielsen built a new cinema building from Torvegade combined with a hotel building at Østergade 11.
During Mrs. Nielsen’s time, there were no more major changes, except that the screen became larger, because “a modern cinema can’t manage with the small ones we used until the TV era came.” mrs. Nielsen said in an interview in Christmas 1967 to Folkebladet.
New director
In 1970, Svend Nielsen became director of Skive Bio. In 1979, the cinema was rebuilt so that instead of one auditorium, there were two. The new auditorium, which was housed in the former foyer, had 81 seats. The large auditorium still had 329 seats. The entrance was moved into the courtyard of the building on Torvegade. Bio changed its name to Bio 1-2.
In 1982, the cinema celebrated its 75th birthday with a “1907 party”. The staff and the directors, Lis Richardt and Sven Nielsen, were dressed in clothes from the cinema’s childhood. The ticket prices matched the clothes, i.e. 35, 25 and 10 ears per ticket. Musician Poul Hansen played for the dramatic actions up on the screen, where the films were from the period 1907-10, including “The Lion Hunt at Elleore” and films with a couple of Knold and Tot boys, which amused the children.
Change of ownership and municipal guarantee
In 1987, Sven Nielsen sold the 700 square meter cinema building to director Karl Thygesen, Højbjerg for DKK 2.5 million. The cinema continued to operate as a double movie theater, but now Sven Nielsen was renting.
In 1990, the money changer Karl Thygesen went bankrupt. The married couple Birgitte Abild and Anders Holm-Knudsen bought from the bankruptcy estate with the
condition that the municipality would guarantee an annual amount. Holm-Knudsen had previously run a cinema in Års. The Culture and Leisure Committee agreed to buy performances for school children and pensioners for DKK 50,000.
Initially, things went well, but in 1993 the couple sold Bio 1-2 to Leif Søgaard Pedersen, who had run Kino og Bio in Nykøbing Mors. Søgaard Pedersen ran the cinema as Biocenter 1-2 until it closed in 2006, when he took early retirement.
Cinema on Skyttevej
The desire for more modern cinema facilities became urgent. The cinemas in Holstebro and Struer were modernized and attracted customers.
Around the turn of the millennium, some investors, led by Knud Bjerre from Bowl’n’Fun, presented an idea to build a cinema and bowling center at Skyttevej/Sdr. Boulevard close to Skive Hallerne. This was rejected by the municipality. Then came a new proposal to build a cinema at Stadion or Ågade. There were objections from various groups, partly because it would affect Børnenes Paradis or access to Åen. This gave rise to many mentions and letters to the editor in the newspaper and debates in the city council. There were also youth demonstrations in favor of a cinema in the city center.
In the noughties, Skive-hallerne was undergoing an upgrade. In 2003, the name was changed to Kulturcenter Limfjord A/S and cinema was included in the plans. On October 12, 2006 – the 100th anniversary of the opening of Skive’s first cinema – 3 new cinema halls in Cinema3 were opened to the public.
The saga in Torvegade came to an end
The cinema site and buildings, which were adjacent to the municipality’s new administration building, were owned by the company Torvegade Skive ApS – consisting of Knud Bjerre (city councilor for the Liberal Party), his brother-in-law Mogens Halborg Jensen and Leif Jensen.
In 2008, the inventory of the old cinema was auctioned off. In 2009, the building was demolished and construction began on a corner building adjacent to the property at Østergade 11 for rental/sale to the municipality and rental for residential and commercial use.
Sources:
- Skive bogen 2003 : 97 years of film in Skive by H. Frank Jensen
- Skive Folkeblad 2005 – 2010
- KulturCenter Limfjord, Skive – 50th anniversary, 1967 – 2017