Theatre By The Sea

I saw several Disney movies there during the early-to-mid 1970s. I used to get car-sick in those days, so I won’t forget the long, long drive from Providence and back in the back of a Volkswagen squareback, usually with no seatbelt.

I have no documentation about its use as a movie theatre in the immediate postwar period. But I do know that in the month of September 1968, immediately after the live theatre season, there was a film festival of classic and foreign movies here. I myself was consulted on what format that might take, because at that time I ran a film society in Providence called Prestige Film. I wound up having no hand in the program in Matunuck. The promoters settled on a collecion of selected movies distributed by Janus Films. A screen was set up and temporary 16mm projectors were put in place. I attended two of the films shown that month: the von Sternberg/Marlene Dietrich The Blue Angel on Monday, September 2 and Hitchcock’s The Lady Vanishes on Tuesday, September 17. A printed calendar was distributed listing the offerings in the series, but I no longer have a copy of it, so I do not remember how many films were shown over how many nights. The series ran only selected nights during the month, as I recall. But I did see those two movies here in 1968.