Cinema Village
22 E. 12th Street,
New York,
NY
10003
22 E. 12th Street,
New York,
NY
10003
31 people
favorited this theater
Showing 51 - 75 of 103 comments
My brother is looking to open movie theater in Ethiopia at small town, can anyone advice me, how much it cost to open small theater, for just one projector and one screen, he already has a big building. For about maximum of 200 people seat. I read some comments here about digital or 35 mm system, but I don’t know which one will be good for him, any advices? Since he may not have a good technician there, I was thinking digital, but the cost of bulb is too high, any one recommends me good digital with cheap bulb. Thanks.
The Cinema Village opened on October 5, 1964 with Ingmar Bergman’s “All These Women”, not 1963 as previously stated.
Like the Quad, it spent much of the late seventies blurring the lines between porn and arthouse.
It is operating as a twin in January 1999 and a triplex by March 1999.
I think there’s been some confusion with the Village East Cinemas, which ARE part of City Cinemas.
I don’t think it ever was either.
Information needs to be updated. This is no longer part of the City Cinema Chain. To my knowledge I can’t rememebr when it ever was.
I loved Cinema Village and went there often during the 1980s. A friend of mine, Alan Shaw, and his boyfriend, Gabriel Garza (anyone know what’s become of them?), used to run the projectors, and Gabriel would often let me sneak into the projection booth and hang out. I loved the double-features, and the staff was always wonderful. I returned in 2003, where I saw the filmed version of “Reno: Rebel with a Cause,” Reno’s hilarious account of her 9/11 experiences. Great to see it’s still there, as so many of the theaters I frequented in the 1980s are gone.
Irv, I feel just as you do. I miss the days of Cinema Village revivals. I saw classic films like BREATHLESS, the original Japanese version of GODZILLA, Fellini’s 8 ½ and a festival of Bugs Bunny cartoons!
City Cinema is the chain name.
In the late seventies/early eighties you would have found TRANS-LUX EAST, PENTHOUSE EAST, LIDO EAST, 59th St. EAST, EASTWORLD, ART EAST, TOWER EAST, UA EAST, and 86TH St. EAST. MAD Magazine ran spoof movie ads that looked like the real thing.
Chances are, if the word Village was anywhere on the page you would find a link in the NYT with CINEMA and EAST.
If the words “Village East” were associated with an address in the 50’s, that would definitely be a misprint. The Village – either East or West – runs below 14th Street… if in fact they are referring to Greenwich Village.
Lost Memory
No it wasn’t Village East. It was Cinema Village East and the address looked like it was on the upper east side maybe around the 50’s. MAybe it was a misprint in the paper.
Thank you, Ed. It was Times Select, like you said. Guess I’ll be back to the microfilm machine before too long (I do enjoy doing that, though).
Bill… I simply did a search on the NY Times site for “weekend movie clock,” using the “1851-1980” option and a great number of results came back predominantly (if not all) from 1976-1980. The results are all in “pdf” format. I also have a free online account, but I do have a home delivery subscription for the weekend. That grants me access to the “Times Select” program which allows me to access up to 100 archived articles per month that would otherwise be pay-per-item. I believe the movie clocks fall into the “Times Select” category. Even without the subscription, however, you should still be able to see a listing of all the results of an archive search.
There are no archived movie ads that I have found on the Times site, just to be clear.
Anyway… I’m still not convinced this was the theater where I caught my “Magical Mystery Tour” triple feature, because I’m not sure there was ever a balcony here.
I have a similar Magical Mystery Tour story. 1974, The Park Theater in Caldwell, NJ : My friends and I came in about 20 minutes late so, after the co-feature Yellow Submarine, I was all set to see what I had missed. But the friend who had driven us there insisted on leaving because he had to be home by a certain time. We fought about it all the way home.
Ed: Where did you find the weekend movie clocks on NY Times online? Is that a special pay service? I have a free account with them and I accessed the movie reviews archive, but I haven’t seen any actual movie ads or movie clocks. Thanks in advance!
Does anybody know much about the Cinema Village East. It was in the paper one week. Where is it located exactly? I si t showing first run films?
The distinctive neon lettering on the marquee of the Cinema Village is replicated to this day in newspaper advertisements for the theater’s offerings (although not in the individual movie ads themselves).
Anyway, I’m trying to ascertain if this is the theater where my father once took me to see The Beatles' “Magical Mystery Tour.” I was a huge Beatles fan when I was a kid (still am, but not quite as obssessed) and had heard so much about the existence of that made-for-British-TV special that I just had to see it when I saw it listed in the newspapers in early January of 1978. The thing is, the film was on a triple bill with the Rolling Stones in “Sympathy for the Devil” and Grand Funk Railroad in “We’re an American Band.” That became problematic when we arrived to the theater late for the Beatles' film and I wanted to stay around after the other two flicks to catch what I had missed. So, there we sat in the theater’s balcony after “Mystery Tour” had ended.
The “American Band” film was actually a mercifully short documentary about Grand Funk Railroad that – looking back – had the feel of a industrial film. Almost like a corporate film short explaining the nature of a particular company’s business and recapping their accomplishments to date and future goals. I was bored silly – I can only imagine how my father felt.
Next up, the Rolling Stones. Only, the film wasn’t a documentary about the Stones… it wasn’t even a concert film. “Sympathy for the Devil” was the USA distribution version of a highly didactic and political bit of avant-garde filmaking called “One Plus One” by the French new wave director Jean Luc Godard. I could barely stand Godard’s polemics when I studied his films in college – at the age of 12, the film was an absolute nightmare to sit through. Even the clips that did feature the Stones recording the title track seemed disjointed and uninteresting in the context of the whole feature. About 30 minutes in – after much shifting in his chair and loud sighs of frustration – my Dad had finally had enough and annoucned that we were getting the hell out of there. As much as I wanted to catch the beginning of “Magical Mystery Tour”, I must say that I did not put up much of a fight.
I found some old Weekend Movie Clocks on the Times' online archive and it seems that (a) this theater did play “Sympathy for the Devil” at some point in the late ‘70’s (though with a different co-feature) and (b) about the time I remember seeing these films, it appears as though the theater was beginnig a series of rock-and-roll related films (though I can not confirm that this particular triple bill ever played there) the week of January 6th or 7th, 1978. The theater I was in definitely had a balcony and seemed a lot larger than the seat counts discussed above. When this was a single screen, was there a balcony? If not, the search goes on.
I worked across the street from Cinema Village from 1980-84 when Fairchild Publications owned the 7E 12 St. building (it’s now owned by NYU). I remember going to see “Dr. Strangelove” there. These kinds of theaters are now so rare and so important to maintain. If New York can’t support indie houses, which city will?
Marquee appears early on in the movie “Prime”. Not sure if the interior scenes were filmed here.
No, I’m with the guy who is complaining about the projection. I mean, the movie selection is great, but have you tried seeing a movie in the “attic”? Forget about sitting in the last row. You’ll strain your neck trying to watch.
Paul
As soon as I have a chance I can check my records. I have them up to 1995.
Cannot recall whether I was at CV once or twice in its pre-triplex days. I did see “Hard Boiled” there in ‘93, and remember feeling a little disoriented when I left the theatre, on account of 12th Street seeming so peaceful after the big hospital shootout that concludes the movie. I half expected that the mayhem onscreen would have somehow carried over outside the theatre! Few movies have had that kind of lingering aftereffect on me, and I give some credit to the theatre itself, an environment that lended itself to involvement. In a similar Hong Kong vein, I may have also seen a fairly obscure Jackie Chan sequel at CV (“Police Story 2”) that predated Chan’s mainstream Hollywood success. Can anybody corroborate that the Chan flick played there sometime in '93?
A nightshot photograph here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/10179k79/45301925/
Saw ‘Pink Flamingos’ here.
Christmas of 1970 the C.V. joined a neighborhood run of “Lovers & Other Strangers"
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The C.V. on a site from Taiwan
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