Cinema 46
1 US Highway 46,
Totowa,
NJ
07512
1 US Highway 46,
Totowa,
NJ
07512
4 people
favorited this theater
I believe this theater opened in the 60s or 70s. It closed in April 1997 after Sony expanded a theater to 14 screens nearby on Route 46. It had 70mm projection capabilities.
Contributed by
tc
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Recent comments (view all 29 comments)
I only ever two films at this theater:
HARDLY WORKING – (yeeesh…remember that one?)
and
PINK FLOYD: THE WALL (in 70mm/6-Track if I recall correctly…)
Guess which experience I still cherish?
The latter. You can relive that moment since that movie’s out on DVD and in 5.1 surround sound, also shown sometimes on MOJO (formerly INHD) HD. Which theater profited well, this one or the GC where an Officemax used to be?
Some signs of life coming back to Totowa…a Sonic drive-in just opened on the same road.
I lived in New Jersey briefly back in the early ‘80s, and remember Cinema 46 with affection.
Saw “E.T.” there at a sneak preview (wow! remember those?) Memorial Day weekend 1982.
They actually passed out little metal badges that you could pin onto your shirt saying, “I saw 'E.T.’”
I still have mine, in fact.
The funny thing is, the theater was barely half-full, and I remember thinking that the movie was going to be a b.o. disappointment.
Also have fond memories of some other Jersey theaters I patronized back then on a regular basis: the Royal and Center in Bloomfield; the Bellevue, Claridge and Wellmont in Montclair; the Essex Green
triplex; the Verona and Nutley theaters; Cinema 23 (in Montclair??); the Paramus Mall single-screener and the larger Paramus ‘plex with 70 mm capabilities (saw “One from the Heart,” “Quest for Fire” and “Annie” in 70 mm there that same year).
I was working at Cinema 46 the day of the “E.T.” sneak preview – people started lining up at 11am for the show. I called up the house manager at little while after opening when it looked like we were going to have a huge crowd (we hadn’t anticipated a crowd as the trailer and poster were met with indifference in the preceding weeks) and said that he should come in to supervise the event. We called in all off-duty staff as well. The official sneak preview (7:15, IIRC, and tagged onto the 5:30 show of Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid) was a complete sellout by late afternoon. After the show went in at 5, the manager decided to run an “unofficial” second show of ET at 9:30 by itself, which had about ¾’s of a house.
I was there the very last week it was open. It became a second-run theater and the ticket prices were $1.99. I saw the re-release Special Edition of “The Empire Strikes Back”…and then it closed. The screen was huge!! We need more theaters like this.
If I remember correctly this theater had the exclusive showingin 1978 of the movie version of A Little Night Music with Elizabeth Taylor which never played Manhattan.
I agree unclejay73. I think I saw Hook on a very big screen. FYI, Hook was supposed to be the first movie with Sony’s SDDS sound system, but was pushed back nearly two years until “Last Action Hero” came out.
There was a story many years ago about this theatre, dont know how true it was, that when they played the first ever Sensurround movie, Earthquake, that some of the ceiling tiles actually fell out of the ceiling. I dont know if this happened, as I was only 15 at the time and heard people talking about it.
The officemax in totowa was closed earlier this year. Maybe they should put in the movie theater back again lol