Denis Theatre

The Denis Theatre is located at 685 Washington Road, Mt. Lebanon, PA 15228. This theater has 4 screens, is listed as open and owned by Cinemagic. PHONE: (412) 344-4583

The Denis Theatre closed on September 9, 2004. It is being torn down to make room for more retail/office space.
A few corrections: The denis theatre built by the J P Harris circuit Then sold to Associated Theatres, Then in 1975 it was sold to Cinemette Theatres, Then in 1987 it was sold to Cinema World Inc.And finally it was operated by Cinemagic Theatres of Pittsburgh.
The Encore Theatre was never part ot the Dinis theatre. It was created from retai space in front of the Denis Theatre. Later, Cinemette Corp. did one of the worst splits of all time. The original Denis auditorium was split into 3 screens (one balcony auditorium that no one wanted to make the trek down the long lobby and then up the stairs to get to, and two small downstairs auditoriums with screens that so high, they were located above the exit doors). Along with the Encore, It became the Denis Quad. This closing was ot a great loss to anyone.

I guess I'm getting alzheimers - I was there and saw 'Summer of 42' back in the 20th century and I could have sworn it was a upper-lower split... thanks for the correction.

Wasn't the Denis always listed in the Post-Gazette and the Press in the same directory as the South Hills Village, McKnight Cinemas and that one out at Donaldsons Crossroads (i forget the name)?

The Denis was twinned by Associated Theaters in the late 60's.
The second theatre, the Encore, was built over the lobby of the original theatre (if you could get behind the Encore screen, you would find the previous entrance to the main auditorium's balcony - and a portion of the main stairway up into the old Encore was part of the stairs used to reach the old balcony). When the second theatre was added, Associated continued to utilize the balcony on the Denis side, accessed by a former emergency stairway at the end of the main lobby, but subsequently transformed it into the fourth theatre (anyone with a heart condition never went up there)when the conversion to a quad took place. Before Cinemette (who had earlier purchased the local Stanley-Warner properties) absorbed the Associated circuit in the eary 70's, the Denis appeared in a daily newspaper directory with the Gateway, Fulton, Kings Court, Forvm, Liberty (East Liberty), South Hills (Dormont), Roxian (McKees Rocks),
McKnight, Crest, Regent (East Liberty), Cinema World (Pleasant Hills) and Bellevue.

The Crest - that's the theatre out at Donaldsons Crossroads? It's been a long time since I lived in Pgh (how younze doin? LOL)...

My correction stands corrected. You're right, TomB. The Encore was built over the original theatre's lobby. Remember the stairs to nowhere that remained in the original upstairs projection booth?
The Monroe was also listed in the Associated Theatres directory.
Also it should be noted that the Encore and Forvm (both equipped with the some of the first American Seating rocking chairs in the city)usually ran the same film day & date.

As an update, the theatre is still closed, but has not yet been torn down. I tried researching it further; apparently, there are some investors who want to buy it but the owner is unwilling to sell.

Found this article about the Denis in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette...

http://post-gazette.com/pg/04255/376939.stm

Yes, the Denis and Encore were something else. Right at the end of the Dormot/Mt Lebanon trolly line it was easy to get too as long as the film was shown downstairs.

Cinemmette ruined everything it got it's hands on starting with the Fulton downtown, the Fiesta, and the Kings Court. How could such a greatness turn into such a nightmare.....answer....the bum management it had. Glad they all got run out of town.

Dude, GET A LIFE! Cinemette did not close the King's Court. It was closed by Cinema World Theatres Inc.. The lease was up and the landloard wanted to just about Double the rent. It was a single screen with low grosses and high overhead. The Oakland crowd was getting rough and it just became more trouble than it was worth.

Not quite sure who "got run out of town" Most of the surviving people that ran Cinemette and Cinema World still reside in the Pittsburgh area.


Did you, by any chance get fired by Cinemette or do you just not know any better than to blame the local theatre circuit for a nation wide trend in the theatre industry?

Got a picture of the Denis today.

http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2003-8/363331/KRHNK-Picture022.jpg

Denis Quad was excellent in "The Day After Tomorrow".

That's funny. Everytime I tried to Google "Dennis Quad" I would get Mr. Quaid, lol.

The Denis opened in 1940.

I lived in this area for a couple of years and I remember seeing HOME ALONE here. As I recall, this was one of the worst chop-jobs I'd ever seen on a sub-divided movie house.

The Denis Theater in Mt. Lebanon just went up for sale. Pittsburghers - here's your chance to revive a landmark!

Kelly,

Let's hope that someone buys it who has the resources in which to properly renovate it. I'd like to see it go back to being the way it was originally, although I'm much too young to remember that!

I remember riding the T out to this theatre.

Hey Susan! Your hopes have been answered. A local Mt. Lebanon man purchased the Denis in November. Remodeling efforts will begin this month. He's a great guy and has I'm confident that he'll restore the theater properly. Once I find out the opening date, I'll post it here.
Kelly

Plans unveiled to reopen Denis Theatre

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/08119/877294-100.stm

Photos of the current state of the Denis Theatre are here

congrats for all those involved in the remodeling and reopening!

it's nice to know that there are still investors who see value in keeping some of these great old movie houses going.

Excellent news!!!

Hopefully the trend continues! (Parkway, South Hills, New Granada, Roxian, The Garden and The Warner hopefully follow suit and reopen as well!!!!)

According to the post above of 11/22/04 by TomB, the Encore was built over the lobby. The last time I saw the Denis in person was in the mid-70s, and at that time from the street the building looked to be 2-stories tall. The wall above the marquee was that decorative grill-looking type of concrete block, and the theatre name was on there in big neon letters. The marquee only had the titles on it, no theatre name. In these recent photos that wall above the marquee is no longer there, the name is on the marquee, and the facade appears to be only 1-story. Has the Encore, previously stated as above the lobby, been removed?

Denis Quad was good in Great Balls Of Fire and The Rookie.

Postscript to TomB's note above:

The Denis opened as a Harris theater in 1937 in Mt. Lebanon Township, a suburb southwest of Pittsburgh.

It played third run (second neighborhood run) commercial films after they had played Downtown and after, in a 50-50 ratio, one of nearby Dormont's two theaters, the Hollywood and the South Hills. (The latter appears in Cinema Treasures as Cinema 4 in Dormont.)

The initial Denis capacity reportedly was, as Dave-Bronx notes, 1,152, part of which was in a balcony I never knew to be used.

Occasionally, thanks to the vagaries of booking, the Denis played a major second-run film before the Dormont theaters. Examples included "Porgy and Bess," "Sons and Lovers" and "Experiment in Terror."

Associated Theatres, which had taken over the Denis and many other Pittsburgh area theaters, had been having great success as the district's leading purveyor of art films.

In order to have a South Hills area outlet for art films that could "daydate" (play concurrently) with their popular 374-seat Forvm Theatre in Squirrel Hill, Associated Theatres reconstructed part of the Denis property to put its new Encore (or Denis Encore) auditorium on what had been an upstairs lobby - long unusued - that had led to the main theater's balcony.

The Denis charged regular neighborhood prices for the third-run commercial films in its larger main-floor theater and higher first-run prices for the art films shown upstairs in the 274-seat Encore.

The Encore opened in the summer of 1965 and joined the Forum in presenting a spy spoof called "Agent 8 3/4," which had been known in England as "Hot Enough for June."

The film did not do well, but "Casanova '70" quickly became the first joint Forvm/Encore hit, followed soon by "A Patch of Blue," which lasted 16 weeks, and "To Sir, With Love," which hung in for 19 rounds.

All records then were broken during the 25-week run of "The Graduate."

When the two theaters played the same film, the Forum consistently did better than the Encore by taking in 60-70 percent of the earnings.

But because the Denis had a second, larger auditorium on site, it could trump the Forvm's numbers occasionally by moving "The Graduate" down to the main Denis at art house prices and letting the other audience, for a third-run movie such as "Wait Until Dark," pay the lower price to watch it in the tonier Encore auditorium.

Eventually the original Denis Theatre was subdivided two ways. The main-floor auditorium was divided down the middle into a pair of 280-seat spaces.

The former balcony was piggybacked in a sense. The front of the balcony was sealed off and converted into a projection booth for the two main-floor auditoriums. The back half became an oddly wide, shallow space with few rows. No. 4 was difficult to access by a back stairwell that immediately made it an unpopular climb.

Denis 4, as the odd new 120-seater was called, drew complaints. Many folks, upon reaching the box office and learning their movie of choice was in No. 4, left the premises.

Dissatisfaction with the space was so pronounced that when Cinema World took over, it shut down auditorium No. 4 and used only the main three.

Under different managements, the main three auditoriums were numbered differently. Sometimes the former Encore was called Denis 1, and sometimes it was Denis 3 because it was third in size (by then listed as having 240 seats).

CineMagic took over, reopened the fourth auditorium and concentrated more and more on art films (generally moveovers from the Squirrel Hill and Manor in Squirrel Hill).

But the overall Denis continued to deteriorate, with some films shown out of frame and out of focus by employees who complained of poor equipment.

The upscale audience that supports art films became increasingly discontented with the condition of the Denis.

A few movies did do well, including the first run of "Fahrenheit 9/11" and the locally made sleeper "The Bread, My Sweet."

But attendance worsened steadily until the Denis closed Sept. 12, 2004, with "We Don't Live Here Any More," "The Door in the Floor," "I'll Sleep When I'm Dead" and "Maria Full of Grace."

We can be heartened by the purchase of the theater (see the link above to Barbara Vancheri's Post-Gazette story) and hope that the proposed $3 million renovation, including significant reconstruction, will turn the Denis into the art house jewel of the South Hills.

For the record, this theater was never identified as the Denis Quad.

Please visit www.denistheater.org It appears that the Denis may continue to operate as a movie theater

Considering that the nearby Hollywood was re-opened for only about a year, I sincerely wish the Denis all the luck in the world.

Susan,

I was in the Denis only once and that was to see "Home Alone". Seriously, it was about THE most cramped theatre I was ever in! A horrible chop-job if you ask me.

MT. LEBANON, PA -- Fundraising to renovate the Denis Theatre is going slower than expected. $238,000 has been raised, but its non-profit board had hoped to raise $1 million by the end of the year.

The Denis Theatre Foundation received its first six-figure gift of $100,000 last Oct. 29th, but it seems unlikely to make this year's goal.

An estimated $3 million will be needed for an extensive renovation to reopen the 1938 theater closed in 2004. The theater went non-profit earlier this year.

Read more in The Almanac.

Something odd. The historic photos of the Denis from opening day 1938, posted at the official site, show two distinctly different auditoriums.

The view toward the stage shows a center aisle. The view from the stage has no center aisle, but two side aisles.

Which is the real Denis?

The lower pic, the one looking into the auditorium from the stage, appears to have way more than the 500 seats that the caption states. It looks more like 1500-2000 seats, 500 in the balcony alone. The upper pic, looking twds the stage, with the center aisle, is more likely to be the Denis.

Renewing link.

Photo from March 1982:
http://www.americanclassicimages.com/DesktopModules/CATALooKStore/MakeThumbImage.aspx?ID=%2fPortals%2f0%2f1%2fP%2fPA419.jpg&PORTALID=0

Ah, yes! The famous "green box" marquee of the Denis. If you look where the square hole is down from the "S" in "DENIS", a smaller neon sign reading either "Denis Encore" or "Encore Theater" was monunted there.

I suggested to the organization that is restoring this classic theater that they should try to get a replica of the original marquee from its earlier days. It's probably a one-in-a-trillion shot, but you may never know.

In conjunction with efforts to raise money to renovate and resurrect the Denis, three movies are being shown this summer outdoors at the nearby Parse Way (covered) Pavilion on Washington Road.

"Bringing Up Baby" will run at 9 p.m. June 27, the locally made "The Bread, My Sweet" at 9 p.m. July 25 and "Mad Hot Ballroom" at 9 p.m. Aug. 29.

I truly hope that the renovating efforts for this theatre returns it to the orignal single screen concept. Present and past photos of the theatre and its art deco interior can be found at the site below:

http://www.denistheatre.org/History/Pictures

And many informative past news articles can be found here, by date:

http://www.denistheatre.org/News/Archive

A photo of the recently remodeled facade of the Denis Theatre appeared in this article in Boxoffice of October 15, 1938. The architect for the remodeling was Victor A. Rigaumont.

Joe: Always enjoy seeing the Boxoffice posts. Thanks for bringing them to Cinema Treasures! In the Spring I hope to see this theatre in the Pittsburgh area along with the site where the Granada recently stood and the Dattola in New Kensington which still stands and is being renovated.

This may have been discussed, but now that I see the theatre had or has 4 screens I wonder if the renovation will return this theatre to a single screen format?

According to the Foundation's website, the plan is (or at least was) to make it a triplex. I would guess that their business consultants would discourage a return to single-screen status as not being economically viable. Here;s a recent article on their fundraising efforts: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10021/1029815-55.stm

The plan will not be to return it to a single screen theater. The Denis originally had 1200 seats - 700 in the orchestra and 500 in the balcony.