Brentwood Theater
2529 Brentwood Boulevard,
St. Louis,
MO
63119
2529 Brentwood Boulevard,
St. Louis,
MO
63119
2 people
favorited this theater
The Brentwood opened on March 14, 1942. It was a well-run theater located in an affluent neighborhood on a commercial strip. The theater seated 700. It went through some problems during it’s tenure as a motion picture theater. There were bomb threats in 1965 and 1972 causing evacuation. There was a bungled burglary in 1968 (netting $11), whereby the bandits were caught when they dropped tire irons while hiding and the police apprehended then.
Billie Lasker (a smut-fighting grandma) led a march to the local prosecutors office in 1972, in protest to the theater’s showing of <em>Everything You Wanted To Know About Sex But Was Afraid To Ask</em>.
The theater had very limited parking and therefore patrons would park at neighboring areas and a problem was created again as the theater patrons returned to their cars to be greeted by a parking ticket.
The Brentwood was always a very well maintained and well-run theater while in the ownership of Mid America Theatres. It ran mostly first-run features and art films.
When AMC opened their four screen down the road, in the Galleria Mall, the Brentwood was closed.
Contributed by
Chuck Van Bibber
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Recent comments (view all 12 comments)
This is a small photo of the H&R Block building, however, the address is 2525.
http://tinyurl.com/6xgppa
Here are more 1985 photos:
Photo1
Photo2
Photo3
For its first 24 years of operation, the Brentwood was a typical neighborhood house. In 1965, when Mid-America Theatres was beginning its expansion, the Brentwood was remodeled (design by Martin Bloom and Associates) and reopened with the 2nd-run of “My Fair Lady” that December. The first exclusive first-run engagement at the Brentwood followed in April with “A Thousand Clowns.” Long runs were the norm at the Brentwood with “Midnight Cowboy” running 35 weeks; a hardticket engagement of “The Lion in Winter” running 34. Management changed to RKO Mid-America in 1984, then AMC in 1985. Not fitting AMC’s multi-screen pattern, they closed the theatre in July 1986 saying the Brentwood was “old and inefficient.” The theatre reopened as an indie (with $1.50 admission)briefly, from August to October that year. The final film shown was “Legal Eagles.”
Thanks, “JAlex.” It’s a pleasure to see someone reporting with historical accuracy about St. Louis theatres. Usually, all we get are links to watermarked photos, with little or no explanations of their contents. I doubt if the posters even knew of the theatres' existence until they stumbled on the photos while surfing the internet.
I guess that would include you “Warren”.
I find it ironic that he would post a comment like that since he also linked to a number of those American Classic photos that have watermarks. He must have liked some of the American Classic photos so much that he posted duplicates that were already posted by someone else. When you attack a person just for the sake of attacking them, you usually make yourself look foolish.
You would have to post the link to Cinematour. I doubt that he would be able to find it on his own.
“I doubt if the posters even knew of the theatres' existence until they stumbled on the photos while surfing the internet.”
This theater was listed here years before the photo links were posted. The comment makes no sense to me.
The comments from Jun 7, 2009 at 9:21am to Jun 24, 2009 at 8:04pm should be erased.
Never went to this theater…but it’s interesting how the black banner were used at this theater. Exaclty the same as the banners on the Fine Arts (Beverly) Theater. The picture of the Brentwood makes it clear this was still the case when RKO-MidAmerica, rather than just MidAmerica, ran the theater. Did other Mid-America theaters have the black banners? Like the Esquire or the Crestwood, for example? Don’t believe the Village Square ever had those…
Nice looking theatre.