Tara Cinemas

The Tara was originally part of the Loews Theater Group which also ran the Grand (Home of Gone With The Wind)and the Twelve Oaks Theater. When Loew's left, the Tara was taken over by George Lefont, who used it to screen a mix selection of standard and art fair films. Loew had already twinned the original auditorium when George took over the property. George spilt one of the auditoriums and added a new one on the right.

I REMEMBER GOING TO SEE THE WORLD PREMERE OF "SMOKEY AND THE BANDIT" AT THIS THEATRE. THEY HAD THE SEARCH LIGHTS ROAMING THE SKY. ON HAND WERE SOME OF THE STARS, BURT REYNOLDS AND HIS CREW WERE THERE. HE EVEN BROUGHT SOME STARS THAT WERE NOT IN THE MOVIE. ANYWAY THATS MY STORY AND I AM STICKING TO IT.

The Tara has undergone some recent improvements, including new seats, drapes, restrooms, concession stand, and a re-envisioned lobby space with an art-deco feel.

The Tara IS the perfect art theater in Atlanta. It's convenient to downtown but not in an expensive neighborhood which would drive the land price up. The state of the building is servicable but not pristine, much like the parking lot. In other words, this theater should go unnoticed by developers and larger chains alike for the forseeable future. This gives the Tara a little lee-way in their offerings. However, the recent upgrades may spell eventual doom for its more art-minded patrons, such as myself.

Why not revert the main auditorium back to a single screen and put in statium seating? Was the main auditorium originally configured for cinerama? I never had the fortune to visit the theatre during the very few years it was a single screen.

Oh my gosh yes...have you guys seen her recent books? Two prints of The Longest Yard. Sure that film is a Regal sponored movie but (A) Tara shouldn't be playing it, and (B) two prints??? Sounds like someone's already got exclusive advertisement right for the DVD.

Tara, thy days are numbered.

When the Loew's Tara originally opened as a single screen I thought the presentation was especially good. It rivalled that of the Phipps Plaza Theatre. The Tara appeared to have a wall to wall screen on 2:35 ratio pictures.

Does anyone know if the Loew's Tara was equipped for 70mm projection and stereophonic sound? The reason that I ask is that OLIVER (1968) and PAINT YOUR WAGON (1970) were both released in 70mm blow up prints with stereo soundtracks. Furthermore, they were both released in dye transfer Technicolor, as well. They both looked terrific at the Tara, as well as MAROONED (1969) that was also released in a 70mm blowup with a stereo soundtrack (but only in Eastmancolor).

The first picture that I remember seeing there was THE LION IN WINTER (1968). STRAW DOGS (1971) was another memorable experience. As a single screen theater, the Loew's Tara was a real contender.

The days of "twinning" and multiplexes have caused a lot of people to forget what it was like to see a film on a really big screen. That's the real pity!

The Tara is one of three new Loew's theatres mentioned in the company's 1968 annual report. The theatre opened in June 1968 "in an affluent area of Atlanta", seating 1200. The report also has a photo, but the scanned image quality online is terrible.

Great article! I vaguely recall a cinema on Dale Mabry that might be the one in the photo beneath the Tara. Although I cannot recall the name of the theatre, I distinctly remember that it had been acquired by General Cinema and converted into a twin. When I visited it Saturday Night Fever was playing in one auditorium and Looking for Mr. Goodbar was screening in the second.
Curious as to why the other Loews Atlanta theatre, the 12 Oaks, wasn't mentioned in this article.

What you are calling an "article" is actually part of the corporation's 1968 annual report. The 12 Oaks is mentioned in Loew's 1971 annual report, since that is when they opened it.

There is a theatre in Madison, TN that Loews opened about this same time. The lobby of the Madison is smaller than the Tara, but it appears to have about the same seating capacity. There is a 2005 photo of the Loew’s Madison at http://www.flickr.com/photos/maincourse/22960058/

I drove all the way from Birmingham to see Apocalypse Now-Redux in 3-strip Technicolor a few years back, and was blown away by this theatre. Darn near an epiphany, for both the venue AND the presentation itself. Definitely worth the drive!

This theater could either be called the Tara Theater or as UA refers to it, Tara Cinemas.

It is simply the "Tara" to those who inhabited the land at the time of its inception.

That might be true Jack, but "THE" is not part of this theaters name. I know that people often refer to a theater as The Fox or The Paramount or The Tara etc. I do that myself sometimes. But the theater shouldn't be listed on here as "THE" unless that was part of its true name.

Wow, this is truly a sad debate. Is "The" such a huge issue? Tara, The Tara either way it is the same theatre. For the locals yes, the theatre is Tara and for those outside of the area it is The Tara. Is there any use in getting your film in a wrap over such a trivial debate? Simma down a bit and use this time to go support your local art house.

Amazing . . .

A "sad" debate? I didn't know that this was a debate. I posted the correct name for this theater. I had no intention of starting a debate. If the address was wrong and I posted the correct one, would that turn into a debate also? To the best of my knowledge, this theater is not called "THE" Tara. UA lists this theater as Tara Cinemas. Even if this theater was once called "THE" Tara, theaters are listed on here under their most recent name. At best you would have an aka The Tara.

It doesn't matter how the "locals" refer to a theater or what the "outsiders" call it. There was a theater in Brooklyn, NY called the Fox Theater. Most "locals" refer to it as the Brooklyn Fox. I still call it by that name. But you won't find it listed on here as the Brooklyn Fox. Its just the plain Fox Theater. Either name would still be the same theater, right? If we are going to make exceptions, I would like to rename my local theaters too. We called all the neighborhood theaters "THE". The Madison, The Ridgewood, The Wagner, The Parthenon, etc. They aren't listed on here with the word "THE". Lets be fair and rename those theaters too.

No debate here either. I wholly agree with Lostmemory on the nomenclature of listing theatres. In my registry, what is contained in the theatre name field is the name the theatre is most identified with. During my tenure in Marthasville, there were more than a few who preface Tara with the name of whoever was its suitor at the time (e.g. Loew's Tara, Lefont Tara, etc.) Moving on...what is the Regal Tara's (my that seems awkward) current seating capacity? The fore mentioned 1200 was applicable when the theatre opened but does not include the adjacent auditorium built by Lefont or the seating lost in the tripling of the original auditorium.

Here is a 2003 photo of the Tara: http://www.flickr.com/photos/maincourse/
The only camera I had available at the time was one of those drug store drop offs with no means to adjust the shot for overcast skies. The low rectangular appendage on the left of the building is the entrance to the third auditorium from the lobby.

According to a 1968 ad for the theatre in the Atlanta Journal, the Tara theatre opened with a 70mm, stereophonic presentation of Gone With The Wind on its 60-foot screen.

All of this back and forth about the official name for the Tara got me to thinking about a comment I posted here which did not survive the transfer to the new Cinema Treasures format. I have copied it below.

In a (hopefully) humorous aside, I will add this: As for just how the Tara should be referenced, please allow me to educate those of you who were not growing up in Atlanta during the 1960's. In those days, it was not called "The Tara" or "Tara" but "Loews Tara." Although not an Atlanta institution like Coca Cola, the name Loews was synonymous with movie theatres because of the history involving the world premiere of Gone 'With The Wind at the Loews Grand. Indeed, during the 12 years that Loews owned the Tara, I do not recall ever hearing it referred to as anything other than "Loews Tara." It was almost as if it were one word; LOEWSTARA, just like LOEWSGRAND and later LOEWS12OAKS. I am sure that this would be a source great pride to the marketing majors of today who with their "rebranding" efforts try to make the name of their company a part of the product description in order to separate it from the competition.

Along the same line, the words cinema or theatre were never used at the end. That would be redundant since the word Loews on the front meant movie theatre. It would be like going to the Varsity Junior across the street and asking for a "Coke Drink" or a "hamburger sandwich," or a "PC Chocolate Milk," instead of just a PC. (As in Plain Chocolate for those of you who never had the pleasure of eating at the Varsity.) After George Lefont took over site in 1980, people still would refer to it as Loews Tara although the term "Lefont Tara" could also be heard. I am sure some people were wondering why he did not call it the Lefont Loews Tara. Once Lefont sold out to Hoyt who later sold out to United Artists who later sold out to Regal, I seldom heard it referred to as anything but "the Tara." Obviously, Hoyt, UA, and Regal did not stir the same emotion as Loews or even Lefont.

My original post:

Construction on the Loews Tara started in 1967 during the world premiere engagement of the criminally cropped 70MM version of Gone With The Wind at the Loews Grand downtown. When that engagement ended it was only natural that GWTW would move out to the burbs to open the new Loews Tara. The Tara was quite a showplace and one of the few free standing theatres around. The outside had a very impressive appearance with vertical running lights and a large marquee on the road. There were two boxoffices, one on each side of the entrance doors. The lobby was small, with an all glass wall on one side and restrooms on the other. The trademark Loews GWTW mural was over the concession stand which backed up to the rear wall of the auditorium.

The auditorium held slightly over 1000 seats with roughly 6-14-6 seating with two off center aisles and two along the walls. The screen was good sized for the dimensions of the auditorium, and was lit by floods that lined its curved track. One odd thing about the lighting was the use of fluorescent lighting which was hidden behind a decorative wooden track which ran the length of the side walls. These were dimmed all the way out during the show. When brought back up at the start of the credits, they behaved the way all such lights do. They flickered on at fractionally different intervals creating a strobe like effect in the dark auditorium. There were exit doors to the outside next to the screen and in the back corners. This allowed the staff to pack the lobby with waiting customers and route the exiting customers out these doors directly into the parking lot. Tough luck if it was raining or if some customer wanted to use the rest rooms. A flaw in this arrangement was that the left side wall faced west, and if a customer left through these doors during an afternoon show, the sunlight would either light up the back of the seating area or wash out the picture on the screen.

The booth was equipped with Century 35 / 70MM projectors and four and six track magnetic sound. It was here that I saw my first 70MM presentation, Hello Dolly, in May of 1970. The incredible size and focus of the picture as well as the 6 track sound awoke me to the fact that there were better movie going experiences to be had than the green streaked scratchy sound movies I had been attending at the second run theatres and drive ins. Even Cinemascope 4 track 35MM shows like 1776 were a real treat to see here. With their tux clad ushers, reserved seat shows and higher ticket and concession prices, the Tara did very well in its upscale area. Movies that appealed to older audiences such as Murder on the Orient Express did very well here. I recall attending a showing of "Murder..." on a Tuesday night in February of 1975 where every one of the 1000 seats was full.

Sadly, the large crowds attending the Tara did not make it immune to the twinning plague that swept Atlanta in the mid 70's. In May of 1975 the Tara was twinned in the same manner as I have described in my comment on the 12 Oaks page of this website. The only difference was that the Tara stayed open the entire time the twinning was underway. After a two day shutdown to allow for the installation of a small screen in the front right hand side of the auditorium, the very successful run of Funny Lady resumed at night while work on the new center wall continued during the day. Once the wall and all work was completed in the left side auditorium, Funny Lady moved there while the right side was finished. The booth had two Christie Autowind platters installed, but only the right side auditorium retained 70MM ability. As opposed to the 12 Oaks, the complete center section of the original theatre was reseated (albeit with smaller seats) so that at least these pointed toward the screens in their new locations. In the end, the Tara finished with two 505 seat houses, losing only 10 seats during the twinning.

As usual in this type of project, the employees were sweeping the trash out the back doors while the customers were being let in the front when the night for both sides to reopen came. Funny Lady continued on while The Drowning Pool opened the new side. Although not too bad looking, the twins were sad sights to those of us who had worked in the original place. This was indeed a dark time in Atlanta movie theatre history. From March through June of 1975, the Phipps Plaza, Loews Tara, and Loews 12 Oaks were all split. Since the movie going masses, in their ignorance and total lack of class continued to patronize these places in record numbers, these twinnings were followed in 1977 by both South Dekalb houses, and in 1978 by the Lenox, and in 1980 by the Perimeter Mall #1. Although the 12 Oaks was never anything special except in size, all of these others were very nice venues and a great loss to anyone who cared about seeing movies in the proper setting.

In 1977, the biggest Tara hit of all, Star Wars, played for 5 months. In mono of course. The Tara was not Dolby equipped then and since people were coming anyway why spend the money? They did, however, spend the money to install a second, temporary, concession stand in the SW corner of the lobby. By 1980 Loews had made the decision to leave Atlanta and the 12 Oaks was sold to Storey and the Tara to George Lefont. (The Grand had closed in 1977 and was demolished in 1978 following a fire that destroyed the entrance but not the auditorium, thus saving the city of another "Save the Fox" type of headache.) Lefont opened in September of 1980 with The Great Santini. He later added a third auditorium to the east side of the building before selling out to Hoyt, who later sold out to United Artists Theatres, who later sold out to Regal. Sometime after the Lefont days, one of the twins was split sideways to make a total of 4. I never had any connection to the Tara after Loews left so I will leave it to someone else to tell the rest of the story. The last movie I saw there was the 70MM presentation of Brainstorm in the early 80's.

With the closing of the Lenox Square Theatre, I believe that the Tara is the oldest theatre in Atlanta in terms of continuous operation as a movie theatre.

Tara theatre it is or so says the marquee.

I live in Cleveland and use to ready the Atlatic paper in the 70's. I remember when the Tara open. Loew's moved Gone with the Wind from the downtown Grand to this location. Loews had the world premeir for the rerelease around 1970. That is why loews named this theater TARA.

Ticket stubs.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/24391992@N00/602620490/

A night photo.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/24391992@N00/607116419/

Who knows how the Tara became a Hoyts (and later UA & Regal) property? I've never heard just how that came about. I remember when Hoyts and Lefont were operating as a single unit, but after they split, the Tara went to Hoyts. Did they buy it? Did they invest in Lefont and that was the price of the "divorce"? I always thought that the Tara was a perfect place for Lefont to have been; the location was great for alternative/specialty/art films and the layout and size of the theatres were great for that fare.

Just curious, anybody know what went on?

ant believe ua keeps this house....

Although I was long gone from Jawa before United Artist moved in, the only Hoyt operations I recall in Atlanta were a ten screen multiplex at the Roswell Mall and the Midtown Eight.

Yeah, Hoyts bought those from Interstate to make their way into Atlanta. After some time they were somehow joined with Lefont; the adds were for both chains, but when they split the Tara stayed with Hoyts and Lefont was left with the Graden Hills, Plaza and Screening Room. As best I can recall all his others had closed and it was prior to his brief stay at Toco Hills.

I never knew if Hoyts was managing Lefonts properties or (more likely I think) Lefont was handling things in Atlanta for Hoyts. At that point Atlanta was pretty far from most of Hoyts other locations and having only 2, it makes sense that they might want to sub out the day to day stuff. After the split Hoyts was bought out by UA who I always thought did a respectable job with the Tara (not so much with any of the other Atlanta properties...)

ua has done a decent job with tara ,better than they did most places ..

How was the auditorium originally configured for the Tara? It had a relatively short span as a single screen operation and by the time I got around to patronizing the theatre it had been split down the centre. Was it a modified Cinerama or a large rectangular screen akin to what was originally installed at the Twelve Oaks?

LOEWS THEATRE TICKET STUBS.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/24391992@N00/643364454/in/photostream/

I managed the Tara for a few years in the early 90's. Hoyts owned the circit then. I loved the theatre. During this time we showed a mixture of Art movies as well as main stream movies. In addition, we had a few foreign and 'off beat' features.
Theatre # 4 had it's own projection booth. One would walk down a down a long hallway which was an addition to get to the auditorum and booth. This screen was small and seating limited. I think only 125 to 150 seats.

Theatre #1 was to the left of the concession was refered to number 1 an had a very bad 'keystone' problem. Also, this theatre and number two (the theatre to the right of concessions) were refered to as 'shot gun' theatres. They are long and narrow. Theatre #4 was an addition and made for a great movie viewing experience.

George Lefont had a plate glass window in his office and I assume he watched movies from his own office. The offices next door and connected to the theatre were vacant when I was there.

During my time managing the Tara, Hoyts re-did the lobby. These changes are what you see today.

I had managed the Toco Hill, which is a short distance down LaVista Road, therefore, I knew a lot of the customers which made my experience all the more enjoyable.

I found the home office personnel very professional but the home team that oversaw the Atlanta Hoyts operations a bit unprofessional. ( I am trying to be nice here)

Famous people would visit the theatre some were: The Governor, Ted Turner, Jane Fonda various music and film stars.

Lots of stories......to much to tell in too little space

When they made the modifications to the first auditorium it seemed like it only took a day or two. The screen in cinema one was moved forward a couple of yards and about ten or twelve rows were moved into this back stage cinema. I would love to see a photo of the original Tara auditorium when it was a single screen operation.

OLIVER! played here in 1969 and it was an EVENT! The marque sported the font for OLIVER! in big red musical letters and it was a reserved seat roadshow attraction. Programs were sold in the lobby during intermission. It was called LOEWS TARA then. The entire building was white with white blinking lights trailing down ALL the columns, not just the top. There were plenty of beautiful and unusal displays for the movie. The film was in 70mm with 6 track STEREO. My mom took my sister and me to see and I feel in love with the movie and the theatre. That was a magical night I will never forget and one of the greatest nights of my life.

I used to go this complex in the 90s for movies not shown elsewhere. I don't care about the tradition. The image quality was mediocre even in the main auditorium which was one very very long shoebox.The sound was just OK. Two of the screens are tinier than my TV screen. I was glad when HD came around so I could just wait until a foreign movie just showed up on cable. I loved it when Madstone took over the Sandy Springs General Cinemas because the GC Sandy Springs 8 was a much superior location to watch movies.

The three greatest movie going experiences I had at the LOEW'S TARA were:
OLIVER!
HELLO DOLLY!
SCROOGE,

All roadshow films. They were events.

Here is a December 1979 ad for "Star Trek: The Motion Picture".

eeeww, it's an ad for the LOEWS TARA TWIN. Just kidding, thank you for providing this ad, but WHY OH WHY did they twin this WONDERFUL theatre. If you could have only been in it when it was NEW and ONE GREAT BIG THEATRE with 6 TRACK STEREO SOUND.

OLIVER! was spectacular there and so was HELLO DOLLY and SCROOGE.

BEAUTIFUL EVENTS and once in a life time.

another memory . . http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWXjFHqc7gc

I saw "Star Wars" there in 1977 when I was eight. We were running a bit late and it was a suprise. I remember the preview for "Saturday Night Fever" playing as we arrived. I can't believe SW really wasn't in Dolby Stereo there? Anyway, saw Dune in 70MM there Christmas '84. Last visit when I lived there was in 1999 and saw Hurlyburly. Hopefully it is still maintaining it's art-house image, I checked moviefone and they ARE playing the Cohen Bros. "A Serious Man" on 2 screens!