Mark Twain Theatre
4532 S. Lindbergh Boulevard,
Sunset Hills,
MO
63127
4532 S. Lindbergh Boulevard,
Sunset Hills,
MO
63127
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Showing 26 - 40 of 40 comments
Al Savage was the house projectionist when I was there and I believe he was the Pres.of the Union. I can’t remember any of the other guys!
Worked there 72-77, HS and College years for me. Great building, made a lot of friends and had fun! Started at $1.10 /hour.It never did the business that NG or Mann intended during my time there.Projectionist’s made a whopping $7/hour at the time I left! Remember projectionists? We had a cutting premier of Towering Inferno(of course the real one.I still can’t drive by and not smile! Many things innacurate about the history above, but cleaned up by other posts! The history in the lobby of Two Hearts is wrong also! My last Mgr. was Ben Littlefield! Split into a twin by Wehrenberg before closing after I left.
cerjda:
The the 70s time frame you talk about I was relocated up in Michigan (Butterfield territory). None of my family was involved in exhibition. As for my knowledge of St. Louis theatres, that’s from living here and continuing to do research.
The original owners of MT and Cv in 1968-1969 was National General
which was owned by Gene Klein who also owned the San Deigo Chargers.
In 1968 2 “Stars of the Future” were Clint Eastwood and Raquel Welch.
Gasoine was .25 cents a gallon and price of admission to MT was 1.00.
The stone on the front of the MT was limestone from Calif.
Locally owned Kreinenkamp Const. Built the MT.
Hi I’m Terry Metz. I was an original usher at Mt in 1968, asst manager to Ben Littlefield in 1969,CV and asst manager at MT in 1970.
Bob Hockensmith was the original manager at MT and Loren Boedker was
his asst. One of the original projectionist at MT was Ted Savage.
The best time of my life !
ok, now to comment here. everybody is right about star wars. I sat in line opening day at the creve coeur for an hour and a half and took the afternoon off work from the cypress to see it. And I’m thinking, “why in the hell didn’t mann buy this movie for me????” LOL. The house capacity was 986 – and the seats at this place were the thick plush american stellars that WEREN’T at the cypress village.
and
Damn, JAlex. with your knowledge of these two Mann Theatres, I gotta believe I know either you, your momma or your daddy: one of the 3 of you. But here’s a toughy – do you know any of the projectionists that worked at the CV or MT???? Or any of the people at the CV from 1976 to 1979: those people were incredible: a very good group to work with. I miss them to this very day…..
Thanks, Mike.
St. Louis Public Library…on microfilm.
Off-topic, but where in the world did you cull info from the St. Louis Post Dispatch, Michael? I’ve been scouring the internet for years looking for old movie sections from the 70’s & 80’s via that newspaper to no avail!
I’m glad to see that my memory of seeing “Star Wars” multiple times at the Mark Twain is substantiated; having to constantly worry about early onset Alzheimer’s is a b*tch. :–)
CREVE COEUR did have an exclusive on “Star Warsâ€â€¦for five weeks. A second area theater opened the movie during week six. Then, in the film’s eleventh week, a few additional bookings were initiated. See list below for a comprehensive breakdown of the original St. Louis area showings of the original “Star Wars.â€
“STAR WARS†ST. LOUIS AREA BOOKINGS
05.27.1977 … Creve Coeur â€" Creve Coeur Cine (10 weeks) Dolby Stereo
07.01.1977 … Maryland Heights â€" Westport 2 Cine (25 weeks) Dolby Stereo
08.05.1977 … Belleville, IL â€" BAC Cinema (9 weeks) Dolby Stereo
08.05.1977 … Des Peres â€" Des Peres 4 Cine (19 weeks)
08.05.1977 … Florissant â€" Jamestown Mall (15 weeks)
08.05.1977 … Sappington â€" Mark Twain (19 weeks)
12.23.1977 … Creve Coeur â€" Creve Coeur Cine (25 weeks) 70mm-Dolby Stereo
Source: St. Louis Post-Dispatch/forthcoming “Star Wars” history article.
The Mark Twain opened in August 1968 with a reserved seat subrun of the 70mm version of “GWTW”.
Capacity of the house listed as 986.
Architectural credit given to firm of Levitt, LeDuc, Farwell and Associates.
Theatre part of the Fox Midwest branch of National General Corporation.
Actually, the Mark Twain was open through at least 1985… The last film I saw there was A View to a Kill, in June of ‘85…
My friends and I drove up from Springfield in May of 1977 to see the first “Star Wars” but it was at the Creve Coeur, NOT this theater. We did see “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” there in Dolby Stereo, which nearly made our ears bleed. I would swear that Creve Coeur had “Star Wars” exclusively.
I remember seeing “Star Wars” at the Mark Twain. Many, many times in fact. And quite a few other movies; it was one of my favorites once I got my driver’s license and could easily get out of the south city area for amusement.