Cathay-Keris Studio

The development of Malay films in Malaya is suspected to have its beginning in the 1930s, based on the fact that two Malay films, Nelayan and Laila Majnun, were made during this period. The popularity of Malay movies was evident shortly before the outbreak of WWII, when Indonesian movies began to catch on with Malayan viewers. After WWII, Cathay, which by then already owned a network of cinemas in Malaya also rode on the boom in Malay movies by forming Cathay-Keris.

Cathay Organization was established on 18 July 1935 by the late Dato’ Loke Wan Tho and his mother, the late Mrs. Loke Cheng Kim as Associated Theatres Ltd. In 1936, the company opened its first cinema in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, the Pavilion with 1200 seats. The year 1939 saw the landmark Cathay Building opened in Singapore with the Cathay Cinema premiering Sir Alexander Korda’s Four Feathers.

In 1952, Ho Ah Loke opened a studio in Tempines Road, Singapore, calling his company Rimau Film Productions. Ho owned a few small theatres through his earlier venture as a film distributor. The company was renamed Cathay-Keris Film Production with its studio in East Coast Road, Singapore. This studio produced its own films in the Malay. These were former barracks occupied by the Japanese and were converted into processing labs, sound studios, offices and even a canteen. That year, Cathay –Keris produced Singapore’s first color film, Buloh Perindu. More than 100 films were made at Cathay-Keris’s studio 1953 to 1973 including five Pontianak movies that were Pontianak (1957), Dendam Pontianak (1957), Sumpah Pontianak (1958), Pontianak Kembali (1963), and Pontianak Gua Musang (1964). Sadly the first two classic Pontianak films are long lost.

Facing competition from television and the loss of the Indonesia market due to the Confrontation, Cathay-Keris retrenched 45 studio staff in 1965, and a further 17 staff in 1966. In 1967, Shaw closed down its Malay Film Productions. A few years later, in 1973, Cathay-Keris produced its last film, Satu Titik Di-Garisan, marking an end to Malay film production in Singapore. For the next few years, the studio focused on production of advertisements, public relations film lets and news reports before stopping operation in 1977.