Director's Chair

The malls forced closure of this one unit related to United Artists in Hightstown and in Princeton - they all looked the same. United Artists was Elton John's group and closed with his death in 1983. This one closed in 1986 for sure. Will be back one day.

Was the Hights Theater (listed on CT) a UA house? What is the Princeton UA house that you are referencing? Who is Elton John (the one that you are referencing)?

Was this ever known as the Hamilton Theatre? The Hamilton had a Neo-Colonial exterior, with no marquee and four white pillars across the mansion-like entrance. I would like to start a listing for the Hamilton Theatre, but have no address more specific than Hamilton Township, near Trenton, NJ. I fear it might already be listed here under a later name. It first opened in 1946 or 1947, and was operated by the RKO circuit.

No pillars in this one. Appeared to be a late 60s or early 70s construction.

Listed as part of Milgrim Theatres, Inc. in the 1985 International Motion Picture Almanac (listed under Trenton).

This was built as a Jerry Lewis Cinema around 1973. It is located on Highway 33 near Paxson Avenue. The building has been converted into stores. As indicated above, there was nothing remarkable about the theater. Drapes covered concrete block walls. But the 2nd-run movies were cheap and so was the popcorn.

This building is not to be confused with the RKO Hamilton on South Broad Street which opened in the 1940s and closed in the 1960s. That one had the pillars on the outside and was the sister theater to the RKO Brunswick on Brunswick Avenue in Trenton. The Hamilton is currently a church while the Brunswick was razed several years ago.

The Hights was in Hightstown NJ. It closed around 1978. It was located in the downtown area and the building was converted into offices/retail. There was talk of restoring it recently. It had a great marquee.

Found myself in the area the other day. This theater now houses Black Forest Acres, a good sized natural food market. They made their entrance in the side of the building, which actually faces Rt. 33. They reconfigured the entrance road so that you can enter from both sides of the strip mall that almost blocks it from the highway.
I went inside. It hardly resembles a theater. Looks like a decent store. The only remaining hint of its former use is the movie poster frames on the original front, which are now used to advertise sales.
Black Forest Acres
1100 Route 33
Hamilton Square, NJ 08690
609-586-6187

I only made it to this theatre once while attending college in the area; as I recall, the movie was Paul Mazursky's "Tempest." I remember a pretty decent-sized and comfortable auditorium, if nothing remarkable. Like most of the theatres in the Trenton/Princeton area of 25 years ago, it's long gone.

I visited this place so many, many times...so many memories! The one writer is correct in stating it closed by the mid-80's (sadly). It was indeed a second-run twin-auditorium theatre, but usually very clean, very well-kept. Unlike King's Fairground Cinema down the road a few miles, they rarely had double-features. In the late 70's, admission was $1; by the early 80's, this had risen to $2. Oddly, in later years I remember that while they permitted EATING in the auditoriums, they prohibited DRINKING, which was awfully inconvenient, as you can imagine. As someone else has written, they DID have really tasty popcorn (fresh-popped, until the last couple of years, when they went cheap and used bagged stuff). So sad when they closed their doors for good...