Off The Wall Cinema
15 Pearl Street,
Cambridge,
MA
02139
15 Pearl Street,
Cambridge,
MA
02139
8 people
favorited this theater
Showing 51 - 67 of 67 comments found
What a great find this is! My memories of Off the Wall as a kid are among the fondest I have, a place where imagination stretched in all directions. The animation festivals were the best precisely because they were not stupid “children’s” movies, but everything else, including silent movies with live musical accompaniment, is hard to imagine in the Googleplex era. Gone but never forgotten.
Thanks, Ron, for filling us in on the Brattle acquisition. I remember most of those films well, and wondered what had become of them. Now if we could only find out what ever happened to Albert Lamb! Hopefully he’s not in someone’s basement… :–)
Off The Wall’s last show, as a venue of its own, was on Saturday night, August 30, 1986. They showed “The Patchwork Girl of Oz,” a 1914 film made by L. Frank Baum, author of the Oz books. Albert Lamb provided piano accompaniment. [Source: Boston Globe article, August 23, 1986.]
From an invitation to a Brattle Theatre donor appreciation screening that I attended yesterday:
“The Brattle has recently acquired films from the famed Off-The-Wall
collection. Off-The-Wall Cinema screened rare footage from rock groups like
the Rolling Stones, silent films, short subjects and classic animated
shorts. From its inception in 1976 to finally closing ten years later,
Off-The-Wall Cinema primarily made its home in Central Square, Cambridge.
Many folks, including Brattle Creative Director Ned Hinkle, have fond
memories of these screenings.
The Brattle Film Foundation is thrilled to add these wonderful shorts and
rarities to our collection."
The entire collection is in 16mm, and had sat in various people’s basements for at least a decade before the Brattle acquired it.
At yesterday’s screening, the Brattle showed these films (and maybe a few others that I don’t remember):
At the back of the theatre, the Brattle displayed a few signs, advetisements, and newspaper articles from Off the Wall. I had forgotten that Off The Wall had one last run in 1994-95, showing films on Monday nights at the Middle East Upstairs in Central Square. A Boston Globe article from 1994, celebrating Off The Wall’s 20th anniversary, said that Off The Wall started on Friday, December 13, 1974.
As part of Harvard Square Oktoberfest, the Brattle will have a free screening of Off The Wall films on Sunday, October 8, from noon to 2:30 pm.
jquynn, thanks for sharing your memories!
The OTW boys certainly tried to maintain the atmosphere at Pearl Street — the tea and chocolate chip cookies were certainly the same, as was the spirit that drove the programming. The space was twice as large, and while that’s not saying much (it seated 84 as opposed to about 40), it did change the atmosphere a bit. But I still happily associate the smell of hot cider and baking oatmeal cookies with Off the Wall.
For the record — the ice cream parlor was actually next door to the original site. The original site became an extension of the Italian restaurant that held the lease.
My mother took me to the Off the Wall when it was in its original
location in the mid 70s. I still remember the vivid images I saw
there, “From Time to Timbuktu”, “Wizard of Speed and Time”, “The
Dove”, “The Slaughterhouse” and various animated shorts. There was
also the unique flavor of their tea and chocolate chip cookies. Very
fond memories. I returned to BU in 1984 and went to their Pearl St.
location to see some Wil Vinton shorts. It didn’t feel quite the
same, and the original site had become an ice cream parlor. (My
parents also took me to see “Jesus Christ Superstar” at the Orson
Welles, down the street…)
The Harvard Crimson ran a short article about this “new movie place” on February 13, 1975.
Yikes! Maybe it’s time to clean out that wallet, BJY! Anyway, remember that OTW started as film nights in someone’s home. If you want to recreate the atmosphere, that might be a good way to start.
Oh I would never part with it Mr LaFong.
Membership card #1763.
More nostalgia for me, the same old wallet also held my projectionist license, expired in 1984.
I was really pleased to see so much interesting information and affectionate words about Off the Wall. I thought I might be the only person left who remembered it! A few footnotes:
“Vincent” was an early short film by Tim Burton. It definitely set the stage for his career path!
The effort to move Off the Wall to the old Sears building in Porter Square was a cynical maneuver on the part of the developer to get some buy-in from the local residents. Even the owners of Off the Wall were divided about whether to pursue it or not. To be honest, it’s likely that the theatre’s unique atmosphere would have been lost as part of a multiplex.
The opening date of Off the Wall depends on what you consider the genesis. It developed out of casual film nights in someone’s living room (in the years before home video, this was a much bigger deal than it would be today). At what point it became a “theatre” is hard to pinpoint.
Deeberg, you were right; it WAS one of the coolest places in the world. BJY, hold onto that lifetime membership card! Because you never know… ;–)
Got to agree with you, Off The Wall was a really unique place and the short films shown there were almost impossible to see anywhere else. I remember being totally amazed by ‘The Wizard of Speed and Time’ short by Mike Jitlov and a collection of parody shorts that was hysterical. Seeing such hilarious shorts as Hardware Wars, Closet Cases of the Nerd Kind and Porklips Now all done with little cash and just a desire to have some fun. I actually just found my Off The Wall membership card that I bought the last year they existed.
Off the Wall and the Orson Welles Cinema were special places, I doubt you could recreate them again today, but I do wish someone would try.
1986- new to Boston from Arkansas, I saw my first ever animation festival at Off the Wall in its Cambridge location. The festival included a claymation of “Vincent” about a kid who wants to be Vincent Price, “Agatha Makes Soup” (or something like that) also a claymation, and a beautifully haunting story called something like “Skywhales”. Sitting on a car seat, drinking hot tea, thinking I was in the coolest place in all of the USA!
I fell in love with independent film that night, and over the past 18 years have been a regular at the West Newton, the Boston Library series, the Somerville, the Coolidge,(including 10 years straight at the SF Marathon’s at Somerville and Coolidge) the Brattle, and more recently the Embassy and Kendall Square theaters.
There are still great theaters out there, but not any quite as quirky as this one was…
Yes, Where’s Boston did show only during the day.
The theatre itself was a rather souless affair very unlike Off the Wall’s old home.
The biggest crowd they ever had at Faneuil Hall location was a Disney cartoon retrospective which also put them badly in debt.
At Cambridge they had a Betty Boop cartoon show that ran for months.
Also they had the infamous Heart Throbs adults only shorts show that was shut down at least twice by the local police.
Some newspaper articles say that Off the Wall started in 1974 rather than 1976. I’m not sure which is correct.
During their few months at Faneuil Hall Marketplace in 1979-80, they shared a theatre with the “Where’s Boston?” multimedia slide show, which introduced tourists to the city. I assume that the slide show ran during the day and Off the Wall programming at night, but I’m not sure.
It was the then-owners of the Harvard Sq. that wanted to build in the Porter Sq. Sears' building, pre-Sack/USA ownership. I am personally very glad they didn’t because it would surely have doomed my current workplace, the nearby Somerville Theatre. Still, it always grates my cheese when nit-wit NIMBY’S stop a reasonable development like a movie theater, especially when it would improve an otherwise empty space.
Either Sack or the Harvard Square Theatre owners wanted to open a multiplex in the Sears building, with one screen given over to Off The Wall. Unfortunately, the neighbors didn’t want a multiplex and the idea died. The Sears building subsequently became a small shopping mall, Porter Exchange, with many Japanese shops and restaurants. Lesley University now owns it.
There was talk of the Off-The-Wall Cinema re-emerging within the former Sears building in Porter Square, Cambridge shortly after it was renovated and re-opened in December of 1988 as the Porter Exchange indoor shopping gallery, talk that regrettably never became anything more.