Queen Anne Theatre
44 Queen Anne Road,
Bogota,
NJ
07603
44 Queen Anne Road,
Bogota,
NJ
07603
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Architect Hector Hamilton called this a Roman-styled theatre. It launched with a $30,000 Marr and Colton Three-Manual organ. The 1,400-seat theatre’s grand opening was April 29, 1928 with the film, “Their Hour.”
On Route 80 today drove by the theater and the large side doors were open. Keep meaning to stop and get a few pictures of the building before it is too late. I grew up in Bogota and one of my best friends actually would at one time live in one of the apartments above the theater.
The “New Theaters” column of the May 17, 1928, issue of The Film Daily ran a brief announcement saying that the Queen Anne Theatre in Bogota, New Jersey, had opened.
Here is the current occupant:
Company: Rainbow Cleaners
Address: 42-44 Queen Anne Rd. Bogota, NJ 07603 Map
Contact: Ara Toutounjian P: 201-488-1822 F: 201-457-1444
Gerald, I think you’re right. At least that’s the only film with that title I could find on the Internet Movie Database. As for “Birth of Triplets”, that didn’t show up on there at all!
The “Never on Sunday” ad in “61 also has an Adult tag (… "PLEASE! Don’t Bring Children!”)
I’m wondering if the co-feature No Greater Sin was the 1941 film about the ‘scourge of syphilis.’ If so, that would make it 28 years old at the time of this showing.
I’d say they were being exploitative. The Adults Only tag sure looks enticing and probably lured many people into the theater, especially back in 1961. I’m surprised the ad for “La Dolce Vita” at the Bellevue didn’t use it also.
Talking about exploitative: check out this one for “Birth of Triplets” in 1969:
View link
“You’ll Gasp – You’ll Wince – You’ll Shudder”. I can’t tell ya how much I miss movie ads like this.
I think so. This was before the ratings system came into effect in the later 1960’s and porn broke out into the mainstream.
“Adults Only fare”?
Were they being exploitative? Breathless was Godard’s legendary first film, for those who don’t know, and one of the classics of the French New Wave cinema.
Even back in 1961, the Queen Anne showed Adults Only fare:
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I finally saw the side wall of the Queen Anne today, after all these years.
When it was still an art house in 1969, two days before Apollo XI landed on the moon, the Queen Anne was showing this Oscar-winning class act. I don’t think I agree with what it says in the small print on the bottom, though:
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I recently paid a visit to the Queen Anne Theater and found that although the exterior lobby and entrance are being used as a dry cleaning facility, the auditorium is still magnificient even though it has been stripped down to it’s bare skeleton. It has a very large stage with a generous orchestra pit and even dressing rooms on a second floor. It has a 50-foot high ceiling which must have had beautiful plaster work. The steel structure is still in place and includes a catwalk which was used to change the light bulbs. 500 of the seats still remain in storage and are sometimes sold on EBay. The isle ends are beautiful. The property is not for sale since the owner generates enough income from it even though the theatre sits idle.
I hope that theater should become a playhouse since there’s quite a few around Bergen County, the closest is BergenPAC, fka the John Harms Center for the Arts.
that’s a great looking shot and very patriotic.
I must confess I did go to the Queen Anne when It was a triple X theatre, and the inside was still beautiful, with glass and wood partitions with heavy velvet curtins covering the glass. The seats, unfortunately, were probably still from 1929 and were as hard as milk crates to sit on. Ouch! Parking was a joke. If there was no parking on the street,you could park behind the Exxon station across the street. The lot was deeply rutted and you could have easily bottomed out your car in one of those potholes. The youths of Bogota would sometimes hang around the theatre and jeer as you came in or went out of the theatre.
Listed as a Lightstone Theatre in the 1985 International Motion Picture Almanac.
In this ad from 1963 posted elsewhere by Bill Huelbig, the Queen Anne appears to have been a very decent art house at one time.
The Queen Anne was one of Bergen County’s most notorious ‘adult’ houses in the late 70’s-early 80’s. It is my understanding that there are apartments on the second level, both in the front of the building and in the former projection booth. When driving on 80/95 at night you can see lights in a window in what was most likely the hallway leading to the booth and (2nd floor) front rooms of the building. There is a dry cleaner operating on the ground level, to the right of the lobby. They have racks and racks of clothes stored in the theatre’s lobby. I’ve asked about the possibility of seeing the auditorium, and was quickly denied. I’ve also read that there are plans to gut the remainder of the building and fill it in with apartments.
A Marr & Colton organ was installed in this theater in 1928. Most of the instrument was destroyed as the building lay vacant.
Built around 1930. In the 1950s operated under Brandt theaters.
Justin…yep…that’s the one. I’ve wondered why it was never put into this website. I would’ve but I know nothing about this theater.
From I-80, the auditorium looks very large. Must’ve been a nice movie theater back in the day.
Is it that theatre that’s located on top of the Route 80/95 intersection in the RIdgefield/Bogota area? I used to see that old run down theatre that said Queen Anne Theatre on its side in faded out print over the streets that lead to Route 80/95 on the way to the GWB.