Park Theater
3527 Park Avenue,
Memphis,
TN
38111
3527 Park Avenue,
Memphis,
TN
38111
1 person
favorited this theater
I remember going there as a kid.
Contributed by
Scott
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Recent comments (view all 18 comments)
I remember standing in long lines to see “Airport” at the Park. I also saw “Jaws”, “Altered States”, “Brainstorm”, and “The Empire Strikes Back” which kept breaking because of a mis-aligned 70mm gate. The management gladly invited me back to see the movie once the problem was repaired. I also seem to remember a censorship controversy for “Love Story” when it played there.
Count me in for “Altered States” and “Watership Down” during my Memphis State University days.
1982 night photo of the Park Theatre.
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Another 1983 photo of the Park Theatre.
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1982 Photo
1983 Photo
PLaying First run at THE PARK theatre CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND. Shows at 7:15 and 9:40 .I find this odd only two shows at a theatre in a city the size of Memphis.Usually cities that size play matinees and evening shows. Not here. two shows!
In 1964 I started working at the Park, the number one grossing theatre in the entire south. I was eleven when my father -John Gannon – was appointed general manager. Prior to that it was a neighborhood theatre showing second run movies like..The Blob. The first great movie to show at The Park was Cat Ballou and what followed was one great movie after another. Things looked alot different at the corner of Park and Highland than today. Needless to say working at the Park from 11 to 17 years of age was an adventure that included the greatest days of my life. To The Park theatre an independent theatre that was the number one grossing theatre in the entire south.
Michael Gannon
i recall standing in line for two hours to get tickets to see ‘jaws'in 1975….the park got the exclusive on movies back then.i recall people brought lawn chairs to wait in line…and less that ten yrs later it was gone.
I remember seeing Earthquake in “Sensaround!” and wondering if the building could survive repeated showings. I heard later that they had to close down for a short time because of the vibrations. I also remember my brother and his friend taking me with them to see Serpico – first time I remember hearing that many swear words in a movie, including some I’d never heard before.
This page of a web site called Elvis Presley Pedia list the opening of the Park Theatre as an event of 1940. No source is cited, but the site lists a few other theaters by opening year and it appears to be accurate in those cases.
I worked at The Park in 1980-1981. It was the a great place to work.The first movie I saw there was Walking Tall, starring Joe Don Baker,in 1973. The Park got many great movies because it was so large. If I remember correctly it had 849 seats, making it the largest theater in Tennessee. It also had a larger screen than any other theater in Tennessee, was the first Tennessee theater to get surround sound, and the first Tennessee theater to use the 70mm platter system.) Most theaters, at that time, sat around 250. Malco Quartet was the closest thing to a multiplex in Memphis at the time and they weren’t about to devote 3 or 4 screens to one movie in order to compete.
The cool thing about the platter system was that we would have to splice the reels together and then run the movie to make sure everything was correct. We would run it after we closed and all our friends would come to watch the movie and party. Little did the customers know that as soon as the final showing of the night was seated, we loaded up the ice machine with beer. When the movie let out, the party began.
There was an apartment upstairs which was used for storage. We organized the storage in one of the bedrooms, and with some hand-me down furniture, turned the rest of the apartment into our personal party pad. For a time, there were even some “plants” growing beneath the screen stage. Hot looking, unescorted girls rarely had to pay for snacks and we got a few phone numbers and dates out of it. We made it all work out in inventory.
This was during the “Empire Strikes Back” and “Altered States” era,(among other flicks.) Man, I remember laying down to go to sleep and hearing the theme from Empire in my head as I was drifting off. Five showings a day Sunday – Thursday, and six on Friday and Saturday for a six month exclusive and I worked just about every one of them.
Ah, to be young again…..Those were the days!