Regency Theatre

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The Regency was located on Broadway at 68th Street.

The Regency was originally known as the Alden Theatre. The Alden closed in the early 1950s, and some years later was renovated and re-opened as the Regency.

I only went to the Regency once, in summer 1985, when it was still a revival cinema, to see "Planet Of The Apes" and "Fantastic Voyage". I understand that the Biograph opened on W 57th near Broadway as a replacement for the Regency, once the Regency had stopped being a revival cinema.

I don't recall this ever being called the high-toned Regency Cinema. It was always the Regency Theatre, and the Alden Theatre prior to that.

This theatre had a decent sized screen even though with a balcony it was still a small cinema. At the time that I visited this theatre it was near the end of it's life, it switched to a first run policy sometimes It featured art films. But I enjoyed seeing "Shoot to Kill" there I also viewed "the Good Son" there but at that time the balcony section rattled as people walked up and down the stairs.But I won't take that from it . It was a pretty good cinema.

A great West Side institution both as a repertory house but for some great first runs in the 70s with some Bergman, Claude Berri and Goretta showing here...You can still catch a glimpse of it in the Seinfeld episode where Elaine goes to the movies and buys jujubes instead of running off to see her boyfriend in the hospital

After the Regency switched to a first-run policy in 1987 - after much hue-and-cry from several classic film lovers including, if I recall correctly, Leonard Maltin and Tony Randall, among others - its first offering was 'Barfly', with Mickey Roarke and Faye Dunaway. The final film booked into what was my favorite theatre in Manhattan - even after just one visit, to see 'The Celebration', from a vantage point in the balcony on a snowy night in January of 1999 - was 'Elizabeth'. Some six weeks later, on February 28th, the run of 'Elizabeth' - and of the Alden/Regency - came to an end. By mid-April, the entire structure was sheathed in scaffolding and, within three months' time, it was completely demolished.

Those extraordinary revivals of 35mm prints (often studio vault copies unseen in decades) were really without parallel on the East Coast. They attracted large, passionate, rapt audiences. Alas, no more, no more!

This theatre was instrumental in my film education. I took it as seriously as any course I ever took in college. I used to buy the ticket books that gave you a discount on admissions. Does anyone remember the MGM festivals they used to play? They lasted for months and would often have a big well known feature with an unknown or forgotten second feature. I saw "Singing in the Rain" paired with "The Broadway Melody of 1929" and I remember pristine prints of things like "The Great Zeigfeld", "Lassie Come Home" and a Sunday double bill of "Gigi" and "American in Paris" with a line outside that would make a passerby think the latest action flick had just opened. I remember another rainy Sunday taking my friend to see her favorite film "Gone With the Wind" to a sold out house. We sat in the first row of the balcony thinking nothing gets better then this. Another festival featured the films of the great Jennifer Jones. I saw "Song of Bernadette" and another day "Ruby Gentry" and "Portrait of Jennie". It was also one of the only times I remember a revival of "A Farewell to Arms" which co-starred Rock Hudson. Where they found the beautiful unfaded CinemaScope print still amazes me. Sorry for the rambling I could go on and on about all the happy times I spent here.

I remember seeing a revival of Gone With The Wind in the 80's.

That was the one

I don't recall this ever being called Regency Cinema. It was just Regency or Regency Theatre.

I saw The Magnificent Ambersons in the 1980s on a very humid June evening--the theatre had no AC for a while. When it became a first-fun theatre, I saw "Career Girls" and "Ulee's Gold" there. You can catch a glimpse of The Regency and its marquee in the Tom Cruise movie "Cocktail." There's a scene where he's at some swanky opening at a place next to the theatre.

This was also in a number of Seinfeld episodes- Jerry making out at Schindler's List, where Elaine bought candy after her boyfriend was in a car accident, and where they planned to see 'Firestorm'

That wonderful MGM festival!! For a long time time there was a life size photo from ON THE TOWN with Ann Miller and Vera Ellen in full-flying skirts on the auditorium- entrance door in the inner lobby. Life sized Kelly, Sinatra, Miller, Ellen, could be seen from Broadway as one walked down the Street.
In the 70s didn't they do a big Warner Bros revival with a mint print of ROBIN HOOD? I even think Olivia deHavilland showed up for that showing.

The Regency was featured in the film "Cocktail" with Tom Cruise, as well as Seinfeld.

This was a nice little theater and back in the late 1970s I attended showings of older movies here. My mom and I saw "Scrooge" and "Come To The Stable" at the Regency as a double feature one Christmas back then. We also saw "A Night To Remember" paired with "Waterloo Bridge," a double feature during a film festival called "England at Home and Abroad." Of course every few years "Gone With The Wind" would be rerun at the Regency and we wouold always go back for it.

For many years I did not return to the Regency, and then I went one last time for a first-run which I think was "The Good Son." Long afterward I was sadly roaming the streets like a zombie for some reason when I came to West 68th and beheld an empty lot strewn with bricks where the Regency once stood. The memories flooded back, I remembered seeing "Scrooge" (Albert Finney) one Christmas past on that very same empty and deserted lot, and I actually went right up to the edge of the lot and traced out in my mind's eye where the lobby and the steps up to the balcony used to be. There was always the same general area where I would sit in the orchestra and I could look over and see the same spot, now open with no sign there had ever been a theater there. Oof I am getting misty-eyed just typing this! Oh well, all things must come to an end...perhaps in fifty or sixty years, or even longer, someone will sadly note the demolition of all these modern megaplexes that have sprung up everywhere, and which may eventually become classic spots in their own right.

This was probably the best revival house in Manhattan! I remeber seeing Keaton's last two silents ,"The Camerman" and "Spite Marriage" there as part of a Keaton/Chaplin?Woody Allen festival. They used to have passes for multiple admissions to festivals at a good discount. So sad to see it's gone.

Among the many memorable festivals was the Fox retrospective. New prints of many CinemaScope prints were shown. Since most were originally De Luxe color (and had completely faded by then), seeing new prints was a treat. Most had pretty good color with the exception of "The King and I" (greenish) and "The Robe" (very grainy and dupey). The print of "There's no Business Like Show Business"
looked sensational.

At one time, either Rowley or one of his staff went through various exchanges to piece together an excellent Technicolor print of "Around the World in 80 Days".

The only time I saw a really bad print there was "King Solomon's Mines". It wasn't a Technicolor copy but an old faded Eastmancolor print. They gave me a pass to see another show.

The scheduling was always innovative. There were retrospectives of Bette Davis, Comedies, Hitchcock and others. One of the great thrills of the seventies was opening the Village Voice and circling all the movies worth attending in the various repertory houses and devising a schedule so I could see as many as possible between classes at NYU. When I was short on cash, I would walk from 8th Street to Lincoln Center to see a screening at this theater.

I still have many of the Regency flyers (schedules) from the seventies and eighties framed on display in my screening room.

Richard
I remember those days when you had a choice of Cinema Village, Regency, Theatre 80 St Marks, Elgin, Thalia, Carnagie Hall Cinema, New Yorker, Bleecker and more to see classic film. What a pity they are all gone or showing conventional films.

Robert,

That's why I used to buy the "Village Voice" every week. It was the only NYC paper that listed every movie playing in town including Repertory and the museums. Andrew Sarris did a column about movies that were worth another viewing.


Other rep houses included The Art which was located by NYU. They eld a "Sam Goldwyn Festival". Down the street was "8th Street Playhouse" which had a film book store next to the cinema. The Film Forum was small but showed some interesting pictures at a different location than they are at today. The Joseph Papp Theater showed some revivals including a Roger Corman festival. They made brand new prints of all of his movies. It was the first time I saw the Poe films with good color in Panavision. Corman was present and introduced the films. MOMA also had some great retrospectives in this era. They showed the entire David O. Selznick collection of his personal prints. Many were original nitrates which sparkled on their screen. They also had a Michael Powell festival borrowing prints from the BFI which including nitrates of "Black Narcisus" (uncut version) and "The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp" (also uncut). Both were breathtaking Technicolor prints.

I even went to South Street Seaport to see a print of "The Sand Pebbles" in 16mm. Of course my dorm played prints in the basement.
They rented copies of "Singin' in the Rain" (in Technicolor) and "Jaws" in widescreen. At the Tisch building they also showed movies. I was on the committee to select the films. I persuaded them to book "Close Encounters" in scope and "Andy Warhol's Frankenstein" which the student crowd had a good time with.
The seventies was a great era to see movies all over NYC.

I remember a DJ on WNEW-102.7 FM in NYC in summer 1971 saying that there was this great old cinema in Manhattan where you could see "Lady In A Car" starring Samantha Eggar, for 75 cents. I wonder what cinema that might have been.

I grew up on West 65 Street and often went to the Regency (it was called the Alden then). It wasn't a first-run theater at that time (the 1940s and 1950s) and I learned to love the films of earlier eras on the screen of this wonderful neighborhood moviehouse.

Good to meet you, westsidegirl, and welcome to Cinema Treasures !

How early were the films you learned to love at the Alden / Regency ? Any silent films, perhaps with live piano accompaniment at certain screenings ? What was the West Side like then ? Anything like the film and stage musical "West Side Story" ?

The West Side of the mid-1940s was quite different from the West Side of the mid-1950s, when I became a teenager. In the earlier decade, life was less complicated, doors were unlocked, Central Park (two blocks from our apartment) was my playground. The neighborhood of my childhood was nothing like West Side Story. In the late-1950s, however, there were many changes. Many of our neighbors left the city neighborhoods for the suburbs. G.I.loans made it easier for low-income families to buy their own homes (many for the first time). With the coming of Lincoln Center, families were forced out, leaving the neighborhood with less of a family orientation. Crime became a way of life for too many West Siders and led to the demise of the neighorhood of my childhood. But the city is always evolving and each generation finds itself part of a love affair with the sounds and sights of this great city.

Thanks, westsidegirl. Well put !

What older movies did you learn to love at the Alden / Regency back then ?

I must confess . . . (remember, I was very young) I was a major Abbot and Costello fan. To redeem myself, it was at the Alden that I first saw Casablanca and fell in love with love and Bogie. Just about every movie that you see on Turner Classic Movie, I saw at the Alden. I became a lifelong fan of Nick and Nora Charles at the Alden, and, in fact, watch and rewatch their movies with as much enjoyment as the first time I watched Nick mix his morning martini.

Shaken, not stirred ?

Here's looking at you, kid !

Good one, Peter.

One of my favorite movies is "The Time of their Lives" starring Abbott and Costello. They were a great team. Why does liking them need redeeming? They are better than most of the junk that is produced nowadays.

You're absolutely right! That's a favorite of mine, as well. I like the innocent, sweetness of Lou Costello's character.

He played Horatio Prim and was marvelous. I was always fascinated by the part near the end when Horatio is trying to open the clock to get Washington's letter and the secret drawer opens and closes very quickly and Horatio says "in and out, in and out, in and out!" Perhaps it is only my jaded sence of humor that sees it as a sex joke but even when I was a kid I thought it was a sex joke.

And who could forget Marjorie Reynolds and Binnie Barnes? They stole the show along with Abbott and Costello and Gale Sondergaard.

Talk about movie memories, who can forget Gale Sondergaard as the one, the only, Spider Woman . . .

Old moviehouses like the Alden/Regency were major focal points of old neighborhoods. That's one of the reasons I'm so happy to have found this wonderful Web site.

DITTO!!!

MoMA screened Woody Allen's "Hannah and Her Sisters" last night and it was nice to see some early-to-mid 1980s location shots of NYC. There is a great shot of Woody walking down Broadway right by the Regency where you can clearly ogle the marquee. Also, later in the film, Woody goes into the art deco Metro Cinema. Early in the film you see Barbara Hershey in a cab driving through Times Square and can see some movie marquees in the background but they went by too quickly for me to recognize them.

While a repetory house, the Regency was always a class act. Of the many repetory theaters in Manhattan, this was always the best maintained and probably the largest one too.There always was a good crowd on the weekend, and "Large Screen" films looked pretty decent on the screen.There was also a balcony, but I never sat there because the smoking section was in the orchestra.Remember seeing "Who Afraid of Virginia Wolfe" with Taylor and Burton here in early 1981, among many others. This theater- along with the Thalia were the best revival houses in NYC.

This is a photo of the former Regency Theater from around 1998.

Deneuve in 1968
http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a13/ChmnofBrd/Movie%20Ads/BelledeJour.jpg

Thanks for the picture of the Regency. Of course, when I was growing up (before Lincoln Center) this moviehouse was called the Alden, and never showed first-run films, it always featured old movies, which I loved, still do!

Thanks for your post, westsidegirl. I got to know the Upper West Side very well in the 1980's.

Here is a view of the Regency from the 1960s.

Thanks, Lost Memory. It's a link I can actually open.

westsidegirl, when I hung out on the Upper West Side in the 1980's, I was going with a girl who liked the coffee from the A & P on Bway at 68th Street, near the Regency.

According to an item in yesterday's NY Post, the Victoria's Secret store which replaced the Regency Theatre is scheduled to be demolished in the near future to make room for an Apple Store.

Since we seem headed towards another Depression, perhaps the new store will end up selling real apples instead of computers.

I remember the A&P, I think it was on the far side (what would have been Columbus Avenue). My mother and I used to walk there to do our grocery shopping. And,PKoch, your girlfriend had good taste. That coffee is still sold in supermarkets.

Yes, westsidegirl, I vaguely remember that A & P at Bway and 68th being on the east, or Columbus Avenue, side. Thanks for complimenting my ex-girlfriend's taste in coffee : Eight O'Clock, Bokar, whatever A & P Coffee.

I believe that the A&P store on Broadway & 68th is now Food Emporium, though still owned by the same parent company. I don't think the A&P name is much used these days, at least in Manhattan.

Sounds likely about A & P = Food Emporium, Warren ... it happened one village south of where I live, in Hastings-On-Hudson NY ...

Hadn't realized that Lincoln Center, under the mantra of urban renewal, demolished what Westsidegirl describes as a cohesive and distinct community. Like other neighborhood theaters, the Regency served as a touchstone for the area. No coincidence that the early Rugoff houses completely identified with the surrounding neighborhoods: the Gramercy, the Murray Hill, the Sutton, the Beekman.

The Regency was several blocks north of the Lincoln Center cultural site, and survived for many years after Lincoln Center was built. I would not blame its demolition on Lincoln Center. It was simply a business transaction on the part of the owner. The site became too valuable to use for a theatre.

I recall seeing a revival of MGM's "The Wizard Of Oz" at the Regency. That was a few years before home videos came out.

Although not a part of the urban renewal that led to the construction of Lincoln Center (West 60 to West 66 Streets), it was a popular local theater when I was growing up on West 65 Street in the 1940s and 1950s. It was only a two-block walk to Broadway and 67 Street and always showed older films (never first-fun in those days). In the 1970s I recall being delighted when my daughter, then a student at Parsons School of Design, rediscovered the movie house of my childhood.

Reading these posts brings back a flood of memories. We were young and our kids were small in the early 70's and the Regency with its repertory format was where they learned to enjoy film. They were between 6 and 10 and soon stopped asking 'what's the movie going to be about?' before our frequent forays to the Regency and joined the cheering as Groucho popped onto the screen on the front page of the Fredonia newspaper in 'Duck Soup.' Now if I can only ween my granddaughter away from Hannah Montana....
A few blocks up, Fiorello's restaurant opened during the years we lived on the West Side and the first week featured a slightly looped hostess who poured wine for everyone as they walked through the door. Tomorrow I'll go there with an out of town friend and she'll surely comment on how pricey it is, but I remember it as a place where a waiter or chef always slipped my children free desserts.
Anyway, it's a different world now and I do live joyfully in it, but find much comfort in the flyer on my wall for one of the Regency's Fred Astaire retrospectives.

Best rep/classics house in New York ever, right? The hours I spent in here watching irresistible double bills programmed by Frank Rowley. Just receiving those schedules in the mail meant everything stopped while I read them, both sides, top to bottom. What great festivals!

The Regency as a revival house closed its doors on September 2, 1987, not a good year for patrons of revival houses on the Upper West Side because earlier that same year, on May 10, the Thalia also closed its doors.

I've been doing some research on these houses trying to figure out what films I've seen there (I'd love to get a look at some of the Regency's calendars from the 1980's).

As a home delivery subscriber to the New York Times I get access to the database and looked up the Regency and it was quite a scandal when this house closed. Cinemaplex Odeon caved and gave the keys to the Biograph on 57th Street to Frank Rowley and that venue began showing Regency-like repertory fare on February 19, 1988.

So there was about about a six-month gap between the Regency's switching from revival to first-run and the Biograph starting its revival policy.

Thanks for this information, hardbop. Do you know when the Thalia Soho closed ? I think I was last there, late January 1990.

Thanks for this information, hardbop. Do you know when the Thalia Soho closed ? I think I was last there, late January 1990.

Good question, but it was around then. I haven't found the date it closed. It opened on November 15, 1985. I remember HARVEY MILK played there for months and it was the first time I went there. HM was released in '84 so I don't know if it was another theater before it was Thalia Soho.

I remember going to the Thalia Soho in late '89 to see THE FRIENDS OF EDDIE COYLE. In '92 it was turned into The Cinemateque and run by the woman who ran the Bleecker Street Cinema. That was its last incarmation as a movie theater.

Thanks, hardbop.

Shoot To Kill was mentioned in the earlier comments. It ran in 70mm at the theatre. Total Recall also ran in 70mm at the theatre as a moveover.

I used to go to this theater on my lunch breaks when I worked at Tower Records, two blocks down the street. Someone would cover for me, since I only got an hour. Sounds like I just missed the repertory screenings by a few months, but I more than made up for it by frequenting the Biograph, which I loved even more. I remember going here and seeing The Dead Pool, Everybody's All American, Rocket Gibraltar, Gorillas in the Mist, Working Girl (or it might have been Talk Radio- one or the other). I stopped working at Tower in the Spring of 89 and I don't remember going back to the theater until almost 10 years later to see The Opposite of Sex. I did really dig it, though.

Thanks, Kieran. Glad to read you had such a good time there.

Renewing link.

Repertory days.

http://americanclassicimages.com/Default.aspx?tabid=141&txtSearch=new+york&catpageindex=29&catpagesize=25&ProductID=31128

The Alden's listings in Film Daily Year Books always gave an address of 1981 Broadway. I suppose the entrance could have been moved when the theatre later re-opened as the Regency...The ground site is again under re-development, following demolition of the building used by Victoria's Secret. The new construction is from the corner of 67th Street up to the building that includes Ollie's Restaurant.