Chatham Cinema

Below are the motion pictures which played the Chatham Cinema from its opening in 1966 through December 31, 1975. research is from microfilms of Variety and The Pittsburgh Press and The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. The dates listed are the Wednesday of the opening week of the new films, as in those days, new releases generally opened on that day, rather than on Fridays as they do now. Films from January 1, 1976 on will be provided in later posts.

10/26/66 Alfie
03/22/67 Funeral in Berlin
04/19/67 The Taming of the Shrew
07/12/67 Two for the Road
08/16/67 Barefoot in the Park
11/15/67 Reflections in a Golden Eye
12/20/67 Wait Until Dark
04/03/68 The Fox
06/26/68 The Odd Couple
10/30/68 The Bliss of Mrs. Blossom
11/13/68 The Subject Was Roses
11/27/68 Secret Ceremony
12/18/68 Bullitt
03/26/69 The Killing of Sister George
05/07/69 Midas Run
05/14/69 Romeo and Juliet
05/28/69 Goodbye, Columbus
08/27/69 Last Summer
10/08/69 The Rain People
10/22/69 The Sterile Cuckoo
11/26/69 Don't Drink the Water
12/10/69 Blow-Up/The Loved One
12/17/69 John and Mary
02/11/70 The Molly Maguires
03/11/70 Z
05/06/70 Airport
08/12/70 The Out-of-Towners
10/21/70 Sunflower
11/04/70 Little Fauss and Big Halsey
12/16/70 South Pacific
12/23/70 There's a Girl in My Soup
02/10/71 Husbands
03/10/71 Little Big Man
05/12/71 The Mephisto Waltz
05/26/71 When Eight Bells Toll
06/02/71 The Odd Couple/The Out-of-Towners
06/09/71 Joe/Lovers and Other Strangers
06/16/71 Summer of '42
08/25/71 Billy Jack
09/01/71 Doc
09/22/71 The Devils
10/13/71 A Criminal Affair
10/20/71 Play Misty for Me
11/17/71 The French Connection
03/22/72 A Clockwork Orange
05/24/72 Play It Again, Sam
07/12/72 Prime Cut
08/09/72 The Candidate
10/04/72 Deliverance
12/20/72 Jeremiah Johnson
01/31/73 The Heartbreak Kid
03/28/73 The Emigrants
04/11/73 Brother Sun, Sister Moon
05/02/73 Sleuth
05/23/73 The Day of the Jackal
07/11/73 Scarecrow
08/15/73 O Lucky Man
08/29/73 Happy Mother's Day...Love, George
09/19/73 Bang the Drum Slowly
10/03/73 I Could Never Have Sex With Any Man...
10/17/73 American Graffiti
12/19/73 The Sting
03/27/74 Mame
05/22/74 The Sugarland Express
06/26/74 Our Time
07/17/74 That's Entertainment
10/16/74 Airport 1975
12/18/74 The Front Page
02/05/75 Young Frankenstein
05/07/75 At Long Last Love
05/21/75 The Other Side of the Mountain
06/25/75 The French Connection II
08/13/75 The Fortune
09/10/75 The Hound of the Baskervilles
09/24/75 Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?
10/01/75 Hennessy
10/15/75 Dog Day Afternoon
12/24/75 The Black Bird

I found an old picture of the Chatham at the library. If I can get a hold of it, I'll try to post it.

This was a very nice example of a 1960's era theater. It was one of the theaters that had ladies day every Wednesday. Kids as well as women were charged 50 cents for matinees until 5 pm. and coffee and donuts were served free. I saw a lot of movies during the summer there and I remember the big marquee for A Clockwork Orange. I was attending college at the University of Pittsburgh and the bus to the Oakland section of town passed by the theater every trip. I also enjoyed seeing the Sting there. A nice classy theater and a joy to watch first run movies there.

My coworker who's hubby works at Chatham center now says the former space is totaly vacant.

The theater's address was 701 Fifth Avenue. Capacity: 647.

In my book, the Chatham was the premiere Pittsburgh moviehouse in which to see a movie - before, then or since.

If you examine Ron Miller's list of movies to play here, you can see that almost every one is first rate. The big theater circuit in town (Associated, which morphed into Cinemette) seemed to throw the Chatham a really choice bone every three or four months.

If the film did some business, as most did ("Alfie," "Wait Until Dark," "Bullitt," "The Odd Couple," "Airport," "The Sting," et al), the Chatham was set for months with deluxe fare that drew an upscale audience.

When something came up short ("Don't Drink the Water," "The Mephisto Waltz," "Bang the Drum Slowly"), the theater had to scramble until its next gift of an important new film.

Helped by comfortable seats and superb sight lines, something about the communal ambiance of the Chatham allowed all sorts of moods to wash over audiences, from the comedy of "Barefoot in the Park" and "The Odd Couple" to the excitement of the two greatest car chase thrillers, "Bullitt" and "The French Connection," to the shared shock of the climactic jolt in "Wait Until Dark," when gasps and shouts invariably erupted, to the sheer euphoria of "That's Entertainment," the Chatham was the most purely enjoyable theater to attend.

I always thought of it as the Radio City Music Hall of Pittsburgh in terms of bookings and the classiness of the experience.

For most of the years it was open and owned by Morris Finkel, the Chatham's manager was George Pappas, a mustached, dapper administrator who ran the theater like a tight ship.

He stood in his open-walled office, arms folded, surveying the audience in the lobby awaiting the next performance, admonishing sternly, and with a voice he projected effortlessly, anyone he caught sneaking a smoke or behaving a wee bit rambunctiously. (It was a different time and, frankly, a better time - sans cell phones and butterfly attention spans.)

At the Chatham there was a distinct sense that someone of military bearing was in charge and was determined to maintain standards. The audience itself was the primary beneficiary.

Given the outstanding bill of fare Pappas had the good fortune to exhibit over the years, I was astonished - no, incredulous - when Pappas admitted late in his career that he never sat down and watched a movie there. Not once, he insisted. He was, I always suspected, too restless, too determindly interactive.

The first hint that times were a-changing was in 1970 when the Chatham played "Airport" for 14 weeks to excellent attendance before Universal decided it wanted to move the blockbuster into the choicest suburban houses.

When "Airport's" first week at the larger(South Hills) Village Theatre (now redesigned as Carmike 10), which was the 15th week in Pittsburgh, outdrew the biggest of the 14 weeks at the Chatham, it became apparent that suburban sites now had greater value to distributors than even the nicest Downtown theaters.

This would be the best of all possible sites for major art/specialty/independent releases if someone had the cash and the imagination to reopen and run it well.

Here are the titles that played the Chatham in 1976:

01/16/76 Murder on the Orient Express
01/28/76 And Now My Love
02/11/76 The Story of Adele H.
03/03/76 I Will, I Will...For Now
03/31/76 The Duchess and the Dirtwater Fox
04/28/76 End of the Game
05/12/76 Tobacco Road/The Grapes of Wrath
05/26/76 The Blue Birds
06/09/76 The Adventure of Sherlock Holmes' Smarter Brother/Harry & Tonto
06/16/76 Blazing Saddles
06/25/76 The Omen
10/20/76 Alex & the Gypsy
11/17/76 Bittersweet Love
12/22/76 All This and World War II

Thanks, 71dude. I now have more years for Pittsburgh first-run theaters up through 1981, but haven't been able to find the time to type them in. You saved me a year!

We ahould compare research sometime.

I'm researching through the Post-Gazette archives on Google. I'm also working on the Bank and some of the suburban houses - I've already done the North Hills theater.

I was not aware the P-G had Archives back that far. I've already been through all of the microfilms at CLP and Hillman from 01/58 through 12/81.

But I am also doing the same thing for 33 other large cities, using Variety and the out-of-town newspapers as well. I lived in NYC for a number of years and had access to most of them at the NY Public Library. For that one I'm only doing 01/60 through 12/75.

The 1977 titles:

01/01/77 How Funny Can Sex Be?
02/04/77 Rocky
04/01/77 Demon Seed
04/22/77 Providence
05/04/77 Rocky
05/25/77 Cinderella (X-rated)
06/22/77 Silver Streak/Play It Again Sam
07/01/77 Harlan County USA
07/08/77 Slap Shot
07/15/77 Last Remake of Beau Geste
08/17/77 And Now My Love
08/24/77 Voyage of the Damned
08/31/77 Return of the Pink Panther/The Pink Panther Strikes Again
09/07/77 Live a Little, Love a Little/Trouble with Girls
09/14/77 The Deep/Obsession
09/23/77 3 Women
10/07/77 Oh, God!
12/21/77 The Turning Point

1978:

01/01 The Turning Point
04/26 F.I.S.T.
06/14 Youngblood
07/03 Youngblood/The Mack
07/14 Youngblood/Last House on the Left
07/19 Revenge of the Pink Panther
09/13 The Turning Point
09/20 An Unmarried Woman
09/27 Julia
10/05 The Boys From Brazil
12/11 DARK
12/22 Moment by Moment

1979:

01/26 Movie Movie
03/02 Agatha
03/14 Norma Rae
04/27 Love at First Bite
05/25 The Prisoner of Zenda
06/15 Rocky II
09/14 Old Boyfriends
09/21 Rust Never Sleeps
09/28 Time After Time
11/02 Running
11/30 DARK
12/14 The Jerk

1980 (missing July):

01/01 The Jerk
02/15 All That Jazz
03/28 Serial
04/18 The Human Factor
05/09 Heart Beat
05/23 The Gong Show Movie
06/06 La Cage Aux Folles
06/19 Rough Cut

08/01 Caligula
10/03 Oh, God! Book II
10/24 It's My Turn
10/31 Caligula
11/14 Gloria
12/01 - 12/18 DARK
12/19 Nine to Five

All the time I've gone past this building, I never knew it had a movie theatre.

It was on the end on Fifth Avenue, right across Washington Place where they are building the new arena. The old entrance appears to be cemented up now - I wonder if the auditorium, etc. is still in there?

I've gone past this place many times too--never knew there was a movie theater in here.

Also, I'm sad that they're going to be replacing the Civic, I mean Mellon Arena. To me, it's a landmark and I love its nickname, the Igloo.

I worked as an usher there from January to July 1969 during my senior year in high school. It was a great job for students, because you could study during the show. We made $1.00/hour at that time, as ushers weren't covered under minimum wage laws. Can't remember if the "candy girls" were covered. There was usually some serious dating going on between the ushers and candy girls.

The Chatham was unquestionably the classiest movie theater in Pittsburgh. They actually rented tuxedos for the ushers to wear.

George Pappas, the manager, was indeed an imposing figure. Always impeccably groomed with a commanding voice. I also well remember George Gatto (head usher) and Adail Bouvy (head cashier).

During the Bullitt chase scene, we used to go down to watch the people in the front rows laugh hysterically. When the cars were jumping down the hills you could really feel your stomach move as though you were there.

Sometimes we'd go to a restaurant around the corner near Duquesne U called Frank and Wally's. A big plate of french fries with gravy was 35 cents. Other times, we'd go across the street to Angie's Arena Lounge for a Coke.

What a great memories I have of that time!

Am I correct that the auditorium space has no seats not a screen but that it has never been used since its theater days for any other purpose? Has the floor been made level?

Grand opening ad on this page at http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=ZCwNAAAAIBAJ&sjid=wmwDAAAAIBAJ&pg=1680%2C4021505

Is there a way to magnify the Pittsburgh newspaper pages posted? They appear so small they're unreadable. The guys who post NY Times pages and stories for New York theaters somehow manage to fill the computer screen, and even the smallest type is readable. Pittsburgh Cinema Treasures contributors post small, inky black images. Have no idea what the difference is in the way they're posted. I've had no luck trying to enlarge the Pittsburgh ones. Would love to be able to read them line by line. Thank you for any help on this.

Ed....Above the article are some tools. There is a magnifying glass that allows you to zoom in. There is also a box with four arrows that will let you switch to full screen mode. You can also move the article around by holding down your mouse button and dragging the article.

Renewing link.

Jan. - Oct. 1981 will be provided at a later date.

Nov.-Dec. 1981:

11/01 Priest of Love
11/13 Private Lessons
12/02 DARK
12/18 Neighbors

Re the post by Dan Clementi...I am Adail Bouvy's cousin. She will be happy to know that she is remembered fondly. Thank You.

I had the honor of working this theatre for local 171 as a projectionist, I worked with Chuck Bouvy, I later worked with Jan Bouvy at the Warner, when she was the manager there. Jan & Chuck would know me as none other than Mungo. I really miss them and those wonderfull days.

Any idea where the Bouvys are?

No idea Ed, This was a nice booth, 2 Simplex X-L 35-70 projectors with Strong Futura II lamps. I can't remember a movie that did'nt do well here.mega lines all the time. More than once we had to hold the start of the movie to get everyone in. Damn shame they are all gone.

Well, the theater had its share of flops. But booking for booking, it had the district's best track record.
I'll never forget George Pappas, our own Gen. George Patton, with arms folded in his office, overlooking the crowds streaming in on weekend nights and barking the occasional order to a patron to extinguish a cigarette or whatever. That theater was exceptionally well managed and the biggest joy to visit.