Not at all, Harvey. I also share your fascination with the porn era and am quite concern at the white washing of history we are seeing today. The classy Roadshow Sheridan down the street was the South Florida premier house for “Deep Throat” and Leroy Griffith kept many a theatre open well past their due date.
I agree the future is dim for this location and the neighborhood has greatly changed as well, but it was once a luxury reserved seat house. The posts above, including mine, refer only to its deteriorated subrun, rock and porn years.
I didn’t take it personally but I have read a lot of more posts from people bemoaning the lost era of BACK TO THE FUTURE than the palaces of the thirties. After all, how many 75 year olds are online?
Each generation waxes melancholy about their own increasingly fuzzy youth.
Louis, I don’t have an ad to share but I do know that the original PLANET OF THE APES opened at the Carib exclusively then went wide to include the MIAMI, MIRACLE, 163rd St, PALM SPRINGS and SUNRISE CINEMA.
BENEATH THE PLANET OF THE APES opened at the Paramount and ESCAPE at the Florida. CONQUEST did not play downtown, a fact not quite as tragic as the fact that I know this information from files I started as a kid.
“It wouldn’t be a stretch to assume that many of the regular posters on ‘Cinema Treasures’ comprise a crotchety, curmudgeonly, really bad-tempered assortment of 75 year old men who bemoan ‘progress’ and bewail ‘the good old days’.”
As a regular poster, and reader, I find that this statement badly misrepresents this site. As a matter of fact, I can think of only one poster who can be described that way and he has yet to comment on this page.
Scmadrian, although it is an interesting challenge, you seem to have missed the thousands of posts on CT from younger people also decrying the loss of their suburban multiplex treasure.
This site stopped being about 75 year olds once any theatre could be included. You will find that among the most popular pages are those dedicated to the 1969 Ziegfeld and the 1963 Cinerama Dome & Arclight.
Many if us still still plop our dollars down for good experiences at those remaining modern day palaces but we have our own memories or long to have seen a movie at the Roxy.
In an environment where fuel costs make remote living more expensive and inefficient every day, clustering around cities makes perfect sense.
The British Film Minister, an inexplicably pompous twit from a northern industrial town that had not had cinema in ten years, once told us that people did not go to movies anymore because they disliked the smell of popcorn.
Interesting that London’s Ken Livingstone’s incompetent administration and failed congestion program is implied as a way forward. Having lived in Mexico City also, that city is much better tuned to handle its problems than fast deteriorating London.
Among Ken’s plans, a tax on multiplex theatre movie tickets that would finance a government run chain of new purpose built arthouses. The industry rightfully booed him off the podium for his tragic misunderstand of how the business works.
If the UK greenfields were not protected then, they sure are now. Whether it was a result of the socialist years or anti-Thatcherism, government protection of city centers is very apparent there since the nineties, a practice that would be considered un-American here.
Having lived in the U.K. for many years I can tell you how they avoided it.
The greenfield lands surrounding cities are protected from housing or shopping developments. This forces the town center(centre?)shopping areas to stay active. The theatres, however, still suffered from post war neglect and alternative entertainment so many towns had no theatres at all during the seventies and eighties. Multiplexes started booming in the nineties mostly in leisure parks chosen by the town councils. They would not allow any new suburban retail that could hurt the town center. In most cases there is only one multiplex per town and near the city center. They did this in reaction to what happened in the U.S.
Miami’s downtown area still has poverty pockets today and even had race riots during the late seventies. On the main street, Flagler, there were five movie palaces operating within four blocks when I was growing up. Only one survives as a concert hall and that one was saved by a local philanthropist, not the city.
Just to clear up one point. I did not mean imply that the “white flight” was a racially motivated. I just happened to turn out that way for socio-economic reasons.
Where I grew up (Miami) the “white flight” included first generation Cuban immigrants (like myself)while the more recent arrivals stayed around the downtown areas. In the Western cities the same occurred with Mexican immigrants. While the remaining economically deprived downtown areas were mostly ethnic ghettos, many hispanic and African-American “yuppies” fled to the suburbs as well.
The post WWII “white flight†to the suburbs of American cities had more to do with the demise of movie palaces than any other element. These huge theatres could not survive on “Super Flyâ€, Bruce Lee and Cantinflas sequels alone to satisfy their almost strictly ethnic support. (This subject should also hold some tribute for those palaces kept as money laundering porn operations and in some cases, truly profitable ones that also attracted commuter trade.)
White audiences mostly saw movies at their closest mall and politicians were hard pressed not to use public funds for movie theatres that were badly needed for poor and blighted downtown area social programs. It is a miracle any theatres survived at all.
The new downtown redevelopment programs have done a lot in some cities to help some old palaces but it is impossible for them to operate profitably without being carved up into the multiplex dynamic the current industry economics demand. It is this same model that has destroyed the next generation of suburban “palaces†that a new generation now wants restored. In some cases the rebirth of downtown areas, and even some sixties suburbs, have made the properties too valuable to keep as any kind of theatre at all.
If the Ian McEwan novel did not reach the masses I am sure the novel has better character development than the film. The movie distributor sure tried to reach the masses. At one point “Atonement” was booked into 1400 theatres in the US market to predictably poor results. I consider it “arthouse lite”. Shallow crude entertainment that looks classy.
Having spent most of my career in exhibition I have seen the changes. Theatres have been amazingly able to adapt to their audience in order to survive in the long run. Snobbery aside, consider how many palaces have been kept alive by kung fu, blaxploitation, porn, Bollywood and Mexican action movies. Thousand of others made it on popcorn and cola alone. Outside the US screen advertising is also most lucrative. Few have been able to survive by taking the high road. It is the economics of Hollywood that fail us, not the public.
I still go the movies and I like multiplexes. I also watch many movies at home. I find less interesting new ones every year at the theatres but mostly great ones I missed on DVD from before I was born. They are the ones that keep me going back to my local 25-plex looking for more. Not the food, valet parking or the prices.
Stanley, if you don’t get a response here, try the CEA. They have contact with many industry retirees and the British branch of the Motion Picture Pioneers.
e: .uk
t: 020 7734 9551
Cinema Exhibitors' Association Ltd
22 Golden Square
London W1F 9JW
SOUTH PACIFIC just opened on live at Lincoln Center for the first Broadway production since the 1949 original. Although reviews have been good, another film version would depend on audience reception.
Not at all, Harvey. I also share your fascination with the porn era and am quite concern at the white washing of history we are seeing today. The classy Roadshow Sheridan down the street was the South Florida premier house for “Deep Throat” and Leroy Griffith kept many a theatre open well past their due date.
If the magic works, this should link to the opening day program.
View link
I agree the future is dim for this location and the neighborhood has greatly changed as well, but it was once a luxury reserved seat house. The posts above, including mine, refer only to its deteriorated subrun, rock and porn years.
Easycinema was the most profoundly stupid cinema concept I have ever seen in the last fifty years.
Bad theatre, crap seating, no popcorn, no service. Cheap prices for new movies.
Easycinema operated at a loss for a whole year!
No one showed up.
Fucking Idiots!!!!
So did anyone show up?
I think the posts above greatly underestimate the value of this early Miami Beach Cinerama Roadshow house.
This is the future of ‘Cinemas Treasures", Schmadrian. Not just internet tombstones as you see it…
http://cinematreasures.org/newns/18906_0_1_0_C/
CONQUEST was summer of 1972. I think RETURN was just on TV.
There were double feature pairings of the first two over the years and GO APE weekends, mostly at the drive-ins .
I didn’t take it personally but I have read a lot of more posts from people bemoaning the lost era of BACK TO THE FUTURE than the palaces of the thirties. After all, how many 75 year olds are online?
Each generation waxes melancholy about their own increasingly fuzzy youth.
Louis, I don’t have an ad to share but I do know that the original PLANET OF THE APES opened at the Carib exclusively then went wide to include the MIAMI, MIRACLE, 163rd St, PALM SPRINGS and SUNRISE CINEMA.
BENEATH THE PLANET OF THE APES opened at the Paramount and ESCAPE at the Florida. CONQUEST did not play downtown, a fact not quite as tragic as the fact that I know this information from files I started as a kid.
“It wouldn’t be a stretch to assume that many of the regular posters on ‘Cinema Treasures’ comprise a crotchety, curmudgeonly, really bad-tempered assortment of 75 year old men who bemoan ‘progress’ and bewail ‘the good old days’.”
As a regular poster, and reader, I find that this statement badly misrepresents this site. As a matter of fact, I can think of only one poster who can be described that way and he has yet to comment on this page.
Scmadrian, although it is an interesting challenge, you seem to have missed the thousands of posts on CT from younger people also decrying the loss of their suburban multiplex treasure.
This site stopped being about 75 year olds once any theatre could be included. You will find that among the most popular pages are those dedicated to the 1969 Ziegfeld and the 1963 Cinerama Dome & Arclight.
Many if us still still plop our dollars down for good experiences at those remaining modern day palaces but we have our own memories or long to have seen a movie at the Roxy.
In an environment where fuel costs make remote living more expensive and inefficient every day, clustering around cities makes perfect sense.
The British Film Minister, an inexplicably pompous twit from a northern industrial town that had not had cinema in ten years, once told us that people did not go to movies anymore because they disliked the smell of popcorn.
Interesting that London’s Ken Livingstone’s incompetent administration and failed congestion program is implied as a way forward. Having lived in Mexico City also, that city is much better tuned to handle its problems than fast deteriorating London.
Among Ken’s plans, a tax on multiplex theatre movie tickets that would finance a government run chain of new purpose built arthouses. The industry rightfully booed him off the podium for his tragic misunderstand of how the business works.
Cool info. The NYC library Miami Herald collection starts in 1957 so I cannot see earlier newspapers unless I go to Miami.
If the Coral was already there in 1949 why did it always look so modern?
I think this confirms that the Dixie indeed became the Rio.
Did the South Miami become the Sunset?
If the UK greenfields were not protected then, they sure are now. Whether it was a result of the socialist years or anti-Thatcherism, government protection of city centers is very apparent there since the nineties, a practice that would be considered un-American here.
Having lived in the U.K. for many years I can tell you how they avoided it.
The greenfield lands surrounding cities are protected from housing or shopping developments. This forces the town center(centre?)shopping areas to stay active. The theatres, however, still suffered from post war neglect and alternative entertainment so many towns had no theatres at all during the seventies and eighties. Multiplexes started booming in the nineties mostly in leisure parks chosen by the town councils. They would not allow any new suburban retail that could hurt the town center. In most cases there is only one multiplex per town and near the city center. They did this in reaction to what happened in the U.S.
Miami’s downtown area still has poverty pockets today and even had race riots during the late seventies. On the main street, Flagler, there were five movie palaces operating within four blocks when I was growing up. Only one survives as a concert hall and that one was saved by a local philanthropist, not the city.
Just to clear up one point. I did not mean imply that the “white flight” was a racially motivated. I just happened to turn out that way for socio-economic reasons.
Where I grew up (Miami) the “white flight” included first generation Cuban immigrants (like myself)while the more recent arrivals stayed around the downtown areas. In the Western cities the same occurred with Mexican immigrants. While the remaining economically deprived downtown areas were mostly ethnic ghettos, many hispanic and African-American “yuppies” fled to the suburbs as well.
The post WWII “white flight†to the suburbs of American cities had more to do with the demise of movie palaces than any other element. These huge theatres could not survive on “Super Flyâ€, Bruce Lee and Cantinflas sequels alone to satisfy their almost strictly ethnic support. (This subject should also hold some tribute for those palaces kept as money laundering porn operations and in some cases, truly profitable ones that also attracted commuter trade.)
White audiences mostly saw movies at their closest mall and politicians were hard pressed not to use public funds for movie theatres that were badly needed for poor and blighted downtown area social programs. It is a miracle any theatres survived at all.
The new downtown redevelopment programs have done a lot in some cities to help some old palaces but it is impossible for them to operate profitably without being carved up into the multiplex dynamic the current industry economics demand. It is this same model that has destroyed the next generation of suburban “palaces†that a new generation now wants restored. In some cases the rebirth of downtown areas, and even some sixties suburbs, have made the properties too valuable to keep as any kind of theatre at all.
Most Manhattan chain theatres are only part time union. Previous posts will reveal the Ziegfeld’s disastrous history with Local 306 incompetence.
D.O.A. opened at the Criterion in early May 1950.
If the Ian McEwan novel did not reach the masses I am sure the novel has better character development than the film. The movie distributor sure tried to reach the masses. At one point “Atonement” was booked into 1400 theatres in the US market to predictably poor results. I consider it “arthouse lite”. Shallow crude entertainment that looks classy.
Having spent most of my career in exhibition I have seen the changes. Theatres have been amazingly able to adapt to their audience in order to survive in the long run. Snobbery aside, consider how many palaces have been kept alive by kung fu, blaxploitation, porn, Bollywood and Mexican action movies. Thousand of others made it on popcorn and cola alone. Outside the US screen advertising is also most lucrative. Few have been able to survive by taking the high road. It is the economics of Hollywood that fail us, not the public.
I still go the movies and I like multiplexes. I also watch many movies at home. I find less interesting new ones every year at the theatres but mostly great ones I missed on DVD from before I was born. They are the ones that keep me going back to my local 25-plex looking for more. Not the food, valet parking or the prices.
I think that “relase” anniversary has been overshadowed by the real thing.
Stanley, if you don’t get a response here, try the CEA. They have contact with many industry retirees and the British branch of the Motion Picture Pioneers.
e: .uk
t: 020 7734 9551
Cinema Exhibitors' Association Ltd
22 Golden Square
London W1F 9JW
Unnoticed?
SOUTH PACIFIC just opened on live at Lincoln Center for the first Broadway production since the 1949 original. Although reviews have been good, another film version would depend on audience reception.