Rex Cinemas Mackenzie
cinema in Singapore
Rex Cinemas Mackenzie, formerly Rex Cinemas and Rex Theatre, is an Art Deco style cinema building in Singapore. The cinema was adjacent to Ellison building along MacKenzie Road. The cinema was bounded by major road, Bukit Timah Road and secondary roads MacKenzie and Selegie Road.
History
Built on the former site of the Singapore Boxing Stadium which was closed and demolished in 1946, the theatre opened in 1964. It started out as a cinema, a concert venue, then an ice skating rink, into a church, a disco and back to being a cinema again.
The theatre hall was different from the other cinemas in Singapore in terms of its layout organisation. The front and back stalls seats of the cinema hall sloped downwards to meet each other. This gives movie watchers seated in the front to have a better view of the screen without straining their necks.
The first film screened in Rex Theatre was an English film, The Jungle Book.
In 1967, Shaw Organisation took over the cinema.
“Rex Cinemas Mackenzie” enters the record as cinema in Singapore. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Cinemas, Mackenzie and cinema can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“Rex Cinemas Mackenzie” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Cinemas, Mackenzie and cinema provides the most credible route into that argument.
Reception evidence should be dated and situated: later canonical status may differ sharply from the work’s initial circulation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 30, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q29378714. VIAF identifies the subject as 37163155731301310744. Authority coordinates are 1.305, 103.850. 1 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1946, 1964 and 1967.
Later fame can flatten the distinction between original context, subsequent adaptation and institutional collecting history. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.
- Identifying works and editions
- Tracing reception history
- Finding collection records
The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Rex Cinemas Mackenzie”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Rex Cinemas Mackenzie primary sources, Rex Cinemas Mackenzie archive and Cinemas research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Rex Cinemas Mackenzie”?
- How did later circulation or interpretation alter the work’s reception?
- Where is authorship, date or provenance documented?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Rex Cinemas Mackenzie” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.