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Memories
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September 5, 2008
Biggest Non IMAX/Cinerama single theater screens ????
I was flipping through a pile of 1960’s Boxoffice magazines and saw one or two profiles of single screen theaters built during the 1960’s with screens that were as large as 80 and 90 plus feet. How common was this back then? These were not Cinerama screens…
Prior to reading about these mammoth screen sizes, 30'x 63' was the largest I had seen and those both located in New Jersey; one was General Cinema’s Cherry Hill location, the other was the Route 4, Paramus Stanley Warner theater.
Thanks.
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Remembering the Scenic Theatre
ROCHESTER, NH — This story takes a look back at the years of fun at the Scenic Theatre.
For sixty years, going to the movies at the Scenic Theatre was one of the city’s most popular activities. Many area residents have happy memories of time spent there. Children walked or rode their bikes to weekend matinees. Dating couples enjoyed a movie and then a soda, or burgers, at downtown restaurants and soda fountains.
Read the full story in the Rochester Times.
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September 4, 2008
History of Strand Theater
AKRON, OH — Yesterday’s Akron Beacon-Journal has a long article on the history of the Strand Theatre. The theatre started out as a silent-film theatre in 1915. It lasted until the 1960’s before it was closed.
It re-opened for a short time as a repretory theater, and then as an X-rated theater. Local protests over pornography soon closed the theater. It was demolished in 1990.
The Strand advertised itself as ‘'the finest motion picture theater in Ohio’‘ when it opened Sept. 2, 1915, at 131 S. Main St. Located between Mill and Bowery streets, the downtown theater cost $225,000 to build — about $4.6 million today.
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August 27, 2008
Steve Swanson visits Oregon’s drive-ins
This story takes a look at Oregon’s drive-in’s as well as one man that’s made a hobby out of visiting as many in the Northwest as possible.
For eight years, Swanson’s traveled all over the Northwest visiting drive-in movie theaters and documenting his experiences through photographs and detailed accounts on his blog, “Travels with Steve Swanson.”
Swanson grew up in Roseburg, home of the former Starlite Drive-In Theatre, which closed in 1997 after its final production, a showing of the 1978 classic “Grease.”
Read more in the Baker City Herald.
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August 15, 2008
Drive-In Theaters in San Diego
SAN DIEGO, CA — For those with fond memories of the Drive-In theatre experience in its heyday the San Diego Weekly Reader has an extensive article entitled Drive-In Theaters in San Diego: Complete Illustrated History 1947 thru 2008.
The article is huge and lavishly illustrated with photographs and newspaper ads of the time. It also covers their peak years in the 1950s when there were over 4000 operating in the United States, their adaption to new technologies such as Cinemascope and 70mm, their alternate daytime uses such as swap meets, farmers markets and church services on Sunday and, sadly, their eventual decline. It is well worth the time spent to read the entire article.
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August 8, 2008
Cate Enterprises & Boston Theatres (c. 1970s)
Curious to know if anyone knows anything about Cate Enterprises. I came across a Film Comment article from 1979 (“Alls not Welles that Ends Welles,” by Sam Lasoff) that says this “Massachusetts realty trust” bought the Welles sometime after 1976, as well as a bunch of other theatres in New England (including those formerly belonging to Boston’s Esquire chain) totaling 33 (between MA, NH, and NY) & showing “everything from gay, skin, and blaxploitation to first-run American and foreign movies.”
Anyone know how long these guys were in the Boston film scene? Which theatres they owned?
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August 4, 2008
Where have all the drive-ins gone?
SAN FRANCISCO, CA — This San Francisco Chronicle article looks back at the Bay Area drive-in landscape that once was.
At least 35 drive-in theaters have operated in Bay Area history. With the Skyview Drive-In on the edge of Santa Cruz closing last year to make room for a medical facility, now there are only two.
In the interest of nostalgia, and to look for the ghosts of drive-ins past, we found the addresses and drove to many of the sites of former drive-ins to see what’s there now. Research also included frequent visits to the sites Cinematreasures.org, Cinematour.com and Drive-ins.com. Of the 35 Bay Area drive-ins that we could confirm existed, most have been replaced by retail space, industrial parks or housing developments. But drive-in land has also been turned into a waterslide parking lot, part of a college campus and a BART station.
In addition to reminiscing, the piece also discusses how today’s economic climate might facilitate a return of demand for such an operation.
(Thanks to Dalboz17 for providing the photo.)
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July 31, 2008
A look back at the Nickel
BANGOR, ME — This story revisits the history of the town’s first regular movie theater, the Nickel Theatre.
The new movie theaters in Bangor and other cities across the nation became one of the great democratic institutions a century ago. Almost anyone could afford the nickel admission. A fellow with a nickel, perhaps a shoe shine boy, could find himself sitting next to the man whose shoes he had shined that morning. But he had to know how to act. No hissing, spitting, or wearing big hats. And be careful of that sneezing powder.
By the summer of 1908, Bangor’s first full-time movie theater, The Nickel, was only a year old. A competitor, The Gem, had existed for just a few months. Thousands flocked to see the flickering films and to sing along with the illustrated songs. A whole new class of people including farmhands and shop girls as well as the impoverished inhabitants of Hancock Street and what remained of the Devil’s Half Acre turned out. They were people who were rarely, if ever, seen at the Bangor Opera House, where the fare – plays, polite vaudeville and an occasional movie of import – was more sophisticated and expensive.
Read the full story in the Bangor News.
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Photos of Orangeville Uptown
Looking for anyone who has old photos and stories of the “Uptown Theater” in Orangeville, Ontario, Canada.
Thank you and have a great day.
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July 24, 2008
A look back at Lubbock theater history
LUBBOCK, TX — One man takes a look back in time at some of the forgotten cinemas in Lubbock like the Winchester and the Lindsey.
I arrived in Lubbock in the fall of 1970. One of the first things I did was buy a newspaper and search out the movie ads, at which point I was astonished to find an old Italian western double feature booked at a theater called the State, located on Texas Avenue.
That would become my first movie experience in Lubbock.
Weeks would pass before I found the Winchester on 50th Street, by far Lubbock’s most impressive modern theater.
Read more at Lubbock Online.