Plaza Theater

The address for the Plaza Theater was:
3402 Poplar Avenue
Memphis, TN 38111

This may well have been the first movie theatre I ever attended. The movie was 101 Dalmatians, which came out in 1961, so I must have been 4 years old. I recall being taken to a "Cry Room" some time during or after the film, and possibly also visiting the projection booth.

The plaza was a superior movie theatre built in what a friend called Mamie Eisenhower Modern. The exterior was clad in travertine marble (along with the rest of the Poplar Plaza shopping center) with an eccentric stainless steel finial atop the marble clad vertical sign. The long lobby lead patrons past the adjacent storefronts to a broad orchestra foyer. The restrooms feature curving walls, curving leather settees and tinted mirrors. The audiorium opened up in a broad single floor with a cinemascope screen braced by backlit stainless steel spirals. Behind the screen was a tiny stage, really only big enough to hold the big Altec Lansing speakers. Room was provided behind the stage for expansion should live theatre ever come to the Plaza, but a real stage house was never built.

This is the theatre where the catch phrase "Elvis has left the building" comes from. The plaza's facilities included party rooms and private viewing rooms on an upper floor. Elvis could go see a movie here without anyone seeing him, at least that's what he hoped. Seems one night word got out that he was in the theatre and it started a panic. He slipped out a side door and the manager wound up shouting that memorable phrase in an effort to calm the crowd.

The Plaza got twinned in the late 1970's (?) to compete with the newer, and considerably plainer, Malco Quartet (an early 4-plex) directly across the street.

The Plaza finally closed in the late 1980's. The whole shopping center changed hands soon thereafter. In an in-explicable renovation, the entire shopping center was stripped of its travertine marble cladding and painted beige. Bookstar took the Plaza and did an exemplary renovation on the interior. The only major change being that they leveled the floor to create a sales area. The auditorium, lobby, orchestra foyer, restrooms, even the box office were all lovingly repaired, renovated and restored. The only loss was the funky finial atop the vertical sign which - after much public outcry - went to the a local museum.

The Plaza was an easy walk from Memphis State Univeristy, but not enough students made the 10-minute trip to keep this lovely hall operating.

Is the Bookstar still open? The Belle Meade Bookstar closed over a year ago & will soon be gutted. About how many would the Plaza seat?

Yes, the Bookstar is still open. Considering all the money I've given them the past few years, I can't see them going out of business any time soon.

:-)

Here is a photo of the former Plaza Theater in Memphis.

I went to the Plaza while a student at Southwestern in the early 1960s and again from 1973-1982. Saw Michael Caine (playing a cracker with a hilarious fake southern accent) and Hanoi Jane Fonda in "Hurry Sundown" there about 1966. Years later, saw Sigourney Weaver in "Aliens" first-run after it was twinned. Plus many others, of course. The theater was surrounded on three sides by storefronts, and the side exits led through long (40 or 50 feet), dark passages between adjacent stores to the outside. My friend Bill Kendall from the Guild worked there in later years. He said that sometimes when a Cybill Shepherd movie would play, Cybill and her entourage would come down to the "cry room" and see it without having to mix with the rifraff. And you're right about the curving walls--there was hardly a straight line in the entire place. Ah, memories.

The Plaza opened on April 25, 1952 as a 1200 seat single screen theatre. I don't know if the theatre was split down the middle or if the balcony was enclosed when it was converted into a "twin" cinema in 1972. It is still a treat to visit and am grateful to the Bookstar folks for the work they put into restoring it. You can view a couple of recent shots of the Plaza at http://www.flickr.com/photos/maincourse/

There was no balcony as such, just a couple of "cry" or "party" rooms upstairs flanking the projection booth. The auditorium was split right down the middle when they twinned it.

Me and my friends have a lot of fond memories of the Plaza. I remember seeing Peter Pan there in the '70s. Later in the 80s I started going to see The Rocky Horror Picture Show at Midnights on Saturday. I must have seen that movie a thousand times in that theatre! A friend of mine was the projectionist and I got to see every nook and cranny of the building at one time or another. The projectists booth was one of the old steel lined rooms they used to use back when fires were common in theatres. There was an old stage hidden behind the screens and the original carbon arc projectors were dumped back there after they were no longer used. The "cry" rooms were used for storage by the late 80s, but they were still there. I got to climb onto the marquee a few times and saw where they stored the letters. There were catwalks above the ceilings and on a few occasions we sneaked into the theatre after hours and watched movies. Very creepy in there at night. A rumor started to go around that there was a ghost of a guy that was murdered in the theatre years before. Being teenagers, we let this story go to our heads and actually started believing our own bullshit. One night we held a seance in the lobby and to this day my frieds swear that they heard something moving in the building! I think it's all hogwash, but go figure. On the theatre's final night, me and some friends held a vigil for the theatre in honor of all the memories we had. I have some photos from the vigil and will post them when I can. After the final showing got out, the manager let us in to have one last look around. It was cool. I managed to swipe one of the marquee letters and I still have it. The very last movies that were shown there were: Dirty Dancing and The Principal.

Here's a photo I took on the last night the Plaza was open.

http://www.allencreswell.com/plaza.html

This is an older photo from around 2000.

Here's a new link to my photo of the Plaza on it's last night of business.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/crackdog/2680869840/

IMDB lists 1987 as the release year for both The Principal and Dirty Dancing. Was this a first- or second-run theatre when it closed?

I don't remember the Plaza ever showing 2nd run, though they did do a few holiday themed special features. I saw a Halloween night showing of The Exorcist there in 1982 or 1983. But also saw the sneak preview of Blue Thunder (don't remember it? Nobody else does either.) at about the same time. And if I'm not mistaken, I saw Dirty Dancing there, first run.

This snippet is from an article in "Memphis" magazine for Aug. 1 2008. It mentions the whereabouts of the spire that used to stand atop the Plaza:

The 1952 construction of Poplar Plaza was a milestone in our city's history, for it was the first shopping center built away — and really far away at that — from downtown, which had always been Memphis' commercial center.

Lowenstein's was the "anchor" store, but one of the top attractions there was the Plaza Theatre, a stunning Art Deco structure, all yellow brick and stainless-steel trim, the façade topped with a massive steel spiral (technically called an "accroterion").

The Plaza, like so many single-screen theaters in America, faced tough times in the 1970s, added a second screen, and finally closed in 1989. Although there were fears the theater — and for that matter most of Poplar Plaza — would be demolished, new owners rescued the complex, and the theater was converted into the Bookstar that stands there today. The building exterior and interior are remarkably unchanged, but for one thing: That massive steel spire was removed

But it wasn't lost. It was hauled a few blocks away to the University of Memphis, where it now rests in a nook in an exterior wall of the Fogelman College of Business and Economics. With a little polish, it would look as good as new.

Does the article say why the spire was removed?

No, but it does have a picture of it in it's present location. Check the online version.

Where is the online version?

the image is here:
http://www.memphismagazine.com/gyrobase/Magazine/Content?oid=oid%3A47738
It's about halfway down the page.

The spire (acroterion - and I thought I was the only one who knew that word) was lifted off with a crane. A back-lit plastic star for Bookstar was mounted in its place. The stainless steel, back-lit letters on the vertical sign that spelled out PLAZA were also lifted off at the same time.

There are a pair of similarly-designed "finials" (acroteria) inside the auditorium (bookstore) - one on each side of the proscenium.

There was another acroterion on the department store. It was smaller and not as interesting. It too was removed at the same time.

1981 night photo of the Plaza Theatre.
http://americanclassicimages.com/Default.aspx?tabid=141&txtSearch=CATAdvancedSearch1%2c42%2c3%2c1808&catpageindex=11&ProductID=33705
1983 photo of the Plaza Theatre.
http://americanclassicimages.com/Default.aspx?tabid=141&txtSearch=CATAdvancedSearch1%2c42%2c3%2c1808&catpageindex=11&ProductID=33706

The article mentioning the acroterion (the spire form the top of the marquee.) has been moved here:

http://www.memphismagazine.com/gyrobase/Magazine/Content?oid=oid%3A1341731

The architect of the Plaza Theatre was Everett D. Woods, who also designed the Poplar-Highland Plaza shopping center in which the theater was located. An article about the theater in the November 7, 1953, issue of Boxoffice also attributed the decoration of the Plaza Theatre to Woods. The shopping center and theater were built by developer L. Hall Jones, and the theater was first operated under lease by Augustine Cianciolo, operator of the Rosemary and Luciann theaters in Memphis.

To expand on my comment above, I've found an item in Boxoffice of October 26, 1961, which said that Augustine Cianciolo had sold the lease on the Plaza Theatre to General Drive-In Corp. of Boston, the company which was later renamed General Cinema and became one of the leading builders of multiplex theaters.

Also, an interesting bit about Gus Cianciolo turns up in the March 19, 1955, issue of Boxoffice. When the Plaza Theatre received the print of "A Star is Born" missing 36 minutes the studio had cut because they thought the movie was too long, Gus asked the studio to provide his theater with the original, three hour and ten minute version, only to be told it was not going to be released. Most theater operators were happy to run truncated versions of movies as they could get in more showings and sell more tickets. Cianciolo must have been a real movie fan.

A rendering of the Plaza Theatre, along with a photo of Mr. and Mrs. Gus Cianciolo and their two sons appeared in Boxoffice, April 5, 1952.