Warwick Cinema
780 Post Road,
Warwick,
RI
02886
780 Post Road,
Warwick,
RI
02886
1 person
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Opened on March 19, 1964, this was a plush first run single-screen theatre and the only movie theatre in Warwick at the time it opened. In 1965 it achieved a major coup (beating Providence’s Elmwood Theatre) when it became the Rhode Island theatre to show “The Sound of Music” in an exclusive 70mm run. It played here for over a year on a reserved-seat roadshow basis. Bus loads of people came here from everywhere, school children, senior citizens, the whole citizenry of Little Rhody.
After that, the theatre went into slow decline, with some occasional high spots. Competition from the newer Warwick Mall Cinemas (now gone also) and other multiplexes affected the theatre. The Warwick Cinema eventually shut down and the building was razed in the 1980’s or thereabouts. A shopping center is there now.
Contributed by
Gerald A. DeLuca
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Recent comments (view all 50 comments)
Glad you mentioned Bill Quarters as the Manager. I great guy who deserves his name to be remembered in association with running the theatre. What sort of things did the kids do to run him through the wringer? (probably sneaking in through an exit door, or horsing around in the lobby near the video games.)
The restaurant was for a time (circa ‘67) called Mel-Arts. I think the owner was Greek. My band, The Van Goghs did a scene for a never completed movie here. We ordered something from the menu, and he brought us the head of a gorilla on a platter. We became offended, and so we proceeded to have a fight with strawberry shortcake. Big mistake, real cream. Took days to get the smell out of my hair. I have a bit more info above re: my Warwick Cinema experiences.
To Gabby , yes exactly but nothing to bad most of us were on a first name basis with Bill and were good customers (when we weren’t sneaking in lol)he knew and it was a wink and a nod anyway because most of the time it would be nights with concert films or movies that attracted a younger crowd.
To Party monster , I don’t remeber mel arts was that when the slot car track was next door? Anyway that was a weird story! The VanGogh’s sounds familiar though?
To Gabby , yes exactly but nothing to bad most of us were on a first name basis with Bill and were good customers (when we weren’t sneaking in lol)he knew and it was a wink and a nod anyway because most of the time it would be nights with concert films or movies that attracted a younger crowd.
To Party monster , I don’t remeber mel arts was that when the slot car track was next door? Anyway that was a weird story! The VanGogh’s sounds familiar though?
By the way if the webmaster or anyone else is interested there was another independent theater in warwick. The meadowbrook cinema on warwick avenue in the southern end of warwick , it was best known for midnight rocky horror show showings!I was not really into that but it was there for maybe as many years as the warwick cinema.
ngtowl, The Meadowbrook is listed HERE on Cinema Treasures.
I too grew up in Warwick, about a mile south of this theater. I went to Aldrich Junior High across the street and went to many movies here. In particular I remember the summer of ‘77 because it was between jr. high and high school for me, and also because Star Wars played at the Warwick Cinema. I was too young to have a job, but I had a paper route and an allowance, so a friend and I went to see it five or six times over the course of the summer months.
It is nice to see people who grew up in my neck of the woods..just a great part of R.I.
owl
I remember Bill Quarters when I was managing theatres in RI. That name was a blast from the past. Most all the theatre people knew each other because we shared union projectionists from the same local.
Too many names to remember from both the management and union side of this business!
Article in Boxoffice magazine, April 20, 1964, reporting on the opening of the Warwick Cinema of Post Road on March 19, 1964:
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