UA Cinema 150

The UA Cinema may be best known as one of only two (the other being the Gateway) theaters to premiere "The Exorcist" in its original run on Christmas Day, 1973. The film played for 8 months as people from all over Illinois and Indiana attended. And, yes, there were reports that customers at the UA were fainting and getting sick while watching it. As is the case with most theaters there is absolutely no indication on the site that a theater was ever there.

A photo of the UA's auditorium at the time of its opening (1968) can be seen at this link:
http://home.earthlink.net/~filmteknik/ua150o1.jpg

I have posted the grand opening ad from June 10, 1968 at http://movie-theatre.org/grandopening/chicago150.jpg

a clone of this theatre called UA Cine' 150 opened in Dallas, Tx May 1, 1968 you can see it at http://movie-theatre.org/grandopening/dallas150.jpg

This was a wonderful/elegant theater. I never went there while it was a single auditorium...only after it had been twinned. I saw several "special presentation" movies here: Apocalypse Now in 70mm, All the President's Men, Black Hole, Fame, Barry Lyndon, and The Exorcist (my father mistakenly took me to see this a couple days after it opened when I was only 12...big mistake!). The theater had great sound and projection. Obviously, the property it sat on became very valuable and was removed to make way for an office building. I miss stand alone theaters like this (such as the OakBrook which was across the street, the Edens, Golf Mill, Woodfield, Arlington, Coral, etc.)

What a beautiful theater! Did "Patton" play here in Dimension 150? It must have looked great in a place like this. Ditto "Oliver".

I don't know if anyone remembers but I think that it burned down around 1982. I was going through the Oak Brook historical societys page and found this picture. http://www.obparks.org/obhs/display.asp?img=Cinema-150-Theatre-1968.jpg

Now I realize that there was a third theater located in Oak Brook besides the ones in the mall. I would like to see megaplexs built with one theater with over 1000 seats an the rest smaller with larger screens. The interior and the exterior of the theater are very nice.

To DON KINSTALLO, the photo no longer shows up on this site, but I remember when it did. I thought that the photo from the air was taken when the theatre was being built because if I remember right the photo shows the parking lot has not been paved. I don't remember anything about a fire.
To CHITOWNGUY, if you thought this theatre was "wonderful/elegant" when it was twined, you should have seen it before it was twined. This was a DIMENSION 150 (D-150) theatre (the only other D-150 theatre around Chicago was/is the River Oaks in Calumet City, it is now closed but I hope it will open again). I have always felt that these two theatres were the finest "modern" theatres around. Both theatres were built from the ground up as D-150 theatres. They had huge curved solid sheet screens (Does anyone know how they would compare to a CINERAMA screen), they could show non-scope, scope, 70mm and D-150 movies, the sound was great and the projectionist could control the maskings for all four types of movies with a push of some buttons. Only two D-150 films were made THE BIBLE: IN THE BEGINNING... and PATTON. Does anyone know if either of these movies played in D-150 at either of these theatres. At the Oak Brook thatre they had an open house before movies started playing. I went and got a book on D-150 (I hope I have it in my vast archives but I think it got destroyed by accident). They showed a demo film on D-150, I dont remember much about it, but I guess it started with a roller coaster ride. Anyone fill me in on more of the demo movie? I have often wondered if any D-150 theatre ever showed a non D-150 movie useing the full screen and the D-150 Super Curvulon Projection Lens. It is my understanding that the full screen and the D-150 lens was only to be used for D-150 films and not other 70mm. Anyone know anything about this? Of course it was never the same after it was twined, but alas it was torn down and I think of it often and it's sad to drive by!

Bob, I don't know for sure if either THE BIBLE or PATTON played the UA Cinema but I know for a fact (I have the bookings for River Oaks 1 from the day it opened in 1969-1981) that neither played at River Oaks. I also have the bookings for the UA Cinema from 71-79 so there is a chance that PATTON could have played there but I would guess THE BIBLE probably didn't. Also just to correct something in the top description, the theater was twinned in 1972. The second screen opened December 22 with the premiere attraction of "Sleuth" (FYI - The Christmas movie in theater 1 that year was "Young Winston").

I used to go there a lot as a kid. My mom took us every Tuesday because it was the cheap day. I saw "The Spy Who Loved Me" and they had the Lotus "submarine" car on display. I remember when it was demolished and was sad to see it go.

You can see the property if you exit I-88 after the Oakbrook toolbooth. It's the parking garage on the right.

Here are some vintage photos of the UA Cinema 150. Seat count in the article is 1277.

I took pictures this weekend of the UA Cine in Dallas.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/69831549@N00/2102103897/in/set-72157603430612993/

As noted in the article to which Lost Memory linked above, the UA Cinema 150 in Oak Brook, like its counterparts in Dallas and in Santa Clara, California, was designed by San Francisco architect George Raad, George Raad & Associates. However, the Boxoffice article also lists the firm of Keys & Hestrupp alongside Raad for the Oakbrook project only. This was probably a local firm that supervised the construction for Raad's distant office.

Also, I have a suspicion that Boxoffice might have misspelled one of the names (Hestrupp might actually have been Hestrup) but I'm not positive. What I can find is a .pdf about architectural resources in the village of Glen Ellyn, Illinois, which mentions a firm called Keys & Hestrup, and an error in Boxoffice seems more likely than an error in a local architectural survey.

the UA Cinema 150 looked like a beautiful theatre. Too bad it was twinned, and then, ultimately closed down.