Malverne Cinema
350 Hempstead Avenue,
Malverne,
NY
11565
350 Hempstead Avenue,
Malverne,
NY
11565
4 people
favorited this theater
The Malverne Theatre was opened in 1946. Built for the Kenney Amusement Corporation, it had a seating capacity for 688 on a single floor. There was a 12-seat cry room located on the left side of the projection booth. Interior decoration were carried out by the Rambusch Decorating Company.
It took over as one of Long Island’s premiere art theatres after Westbury was run into oblivion and closed. The theatre was one of Long Island’s oldest neighborhood discount houses. The previous owner (who also had the Roslyn and Levittown)twinned it and ran it into the ground. It was rarely heated or air conditioned.
The present owners came in and quaded it making four cute little theatres that showed art films, foreign releases and an occasional mainstream moveover. They later added two more tiny cinemas in a former retail space.
A wonderful place to see offbeat films, always clean and well managed. Plus they run cartoons and family films on Saturday and Sunday mornings.
Contributed by
RobertR
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Recent comments (view all 44 comments)
It’s the best place to catch up on the artier Oscar nominees.
The Malverne is a great local theater showing interesting films.
Too bad the Baskin Robbins next door closed a few years ago…
Chris
This has been my favorite LI movie theater for the past 8 years .
This appears to have been an innocent victim of America’s entry into World War Two. A report in Newsday of August 25, 1941, says that Charles Kenny had purchased land adjacent to his new Malverne Theatre to use as a parking lot for up to 500 cars. The theatre was expected to open in a few months, though construction was progressing slowly due to a steel shortage. The building project would include a 16-lane bowling alley to be managed by Nassau County bowling champion George Young. Just over three months later, America went to war with even stiffer rationing of building materials, so the Malverne apparently had to be left uncompleted until peacetime.
There’s an underground bowling alley (San-Dee Lanes)right around the corner — in the Malverne’s basement?
The Malverne was described in this 1947 trade article: boxofficemagazine
Due to the inclement weather today my wife wanted to see “The Intouchables” and we went here. This was my first visit to this theater. Does not give out free posters like the Kew Gardens theater nor independent film news like the one in Manhassett.
But they do give out photocopied reviews of every movie playing, and they have a weekly email newsletter one may subscribe to.
Speaking of which, please note this item in this week’s email:
“Please note the curtailed schedule while we transition to all digital from 35mm projection. We are proud to say that process is now complete at our Bellmore Cinema. We’ll always love film; however, digital is the wave of the future. Some people say it’s the tsunami of the future in the industry.”
Saps, I’m happy that this theater is doing well enough to afford the changeover to digital. I’m not enamoured with the screen sizes, but I do feel it is vital for movie lovers (can hardly say “film lovers” anymore) that suburban art houses like this, and the one in Kew Gardens, survive and continue to thrive.
I saw “The Artist” there.