Cypress Village Theatre
11129 St. Charles Rock Road,
St. Ann,
MO
63074
11129 St. Charles Rock Road,
St. Ann,
MO
63074
1 person
favorited this theater
The Cypress Village Theatre opened in 1969 seating 1,102 as a single screen under the Fox Midwest Banner. The Cypress was the sister to the Mark Twain Theatre on South Lindbergh. A red brick building with the entrance hidden by one of the retail building in the shopping plaza. The theatre was located directly across the Rock Road from the North West Plaza Mall.
The interior was not nearly as plush as its sister the Mark Twain but a beautiful house just the same. The lobby had a large starburst chandelier against the ceiling wiht large crystals running along the starburst. The walls were done in a patterned damask material with a burnt orand and brown tone. The carpeting was in the same colors but had the Fox emblem in it. The concession area was a large center in the middle of the lobby. The box office was set up so that it could be utilized as either an outside or inside facility with the managers office directly behind it.
The large auditorium was set up on a sloped floor so that there was not bad site lines from any seat. The wall draperies werer the same color as the walls in the lobby and the seats matched. The seats were thick and had the rocker back style.
The Cypress Theatre was twinned in 1978 and when Fox Thetres pulled out of the St. Louis market it was operated a short time by GSS and then Wehrenberg. The theatre closed in 1986 when the entire plaza was torn down for a new strip mall and super-market.
Contributed by
Charles Van Bibber
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Recent comments (view all 10 comments)
Cypress Village opened April 2, 1969. This the 2nd Fox Midwest division of National General Theatres theatre to open in the St. Louis market.
Theatre design credited to Martin Bloom and Associates.
A single-screen operation at opening, seating capacity at the time listed as 922 seats.
At the time, Ben Littlefield was the manager.
Became a twin in 1978.
Charles:
I think you may be confusing this theatre with some others; you may have been in it, but I “lived” that theatre for 3 years. I managed there from 1975 thur Jan 1979. The theatre was built to be the sister to the Century 21 theatre in Springfield Missouri. It was meant to compliment the Mark Twain at the south end of town: The Mark Twain was meant to be the High End cinema for NGC in StL competing with the Sunset Hills and the Esquire in town.
The Cypress Village was built with 928 seats. They were American Stellars – not thick backed but the same thin plastic backs used at the Century21 with Gold velour cloth. There was 4 aisles with a cross-over at the 1st 3rd of the auditorium. The outer aisles were against the walls so no one was able to pick on the custom panels that were there and they maintained their beauty for a long period of time. There was also wood beams every 20 feet on the outer walls. The wrap around curtain went approximately 20 feet back, but there was never any draperies that covered the walls. (except after it was twinned in the small auditorium and then only ½ way back.). The exterior of the building was brown/tan bricks and the roof flashing and downspouts were a copperish-reddish color to compliment the bricks. All of the windows were brown tinted. The walls in the lobby looked like a collage of brown squares of wood. The box office was indeed built so we could (with effort) provide for outside ticket sales, but the best method we found was selling off both sides of the island box office – got the people in a lot faster. This was a functional / simple but beautiful theatre.
Eventually we twinned the Cypress but at that point, the competition was already “plexed” and booking was always an issue. Some of the bigger hits we played was THE GOODBYE GIRL and FOUL PLAY.
Forgot to put this in.
But JAlex –
If you know Ben Littlefield, tell him I said hello. Tell him I followed him in the Metcalf and then went to the Cypress. He’ll know who it is because Ben managed the Mark Twain when I managed the Cypress Village.
Theatre closed, under Wehrenberg management, in January 1987.
Went here a ton of times – most notably to see “Splash,” “Supergirl,” and “Breakin 2 – Electric Boogaloo.”
Cerjda, I think I know who you are (John?)? I was one of the projectionists at the Cypress in the late 70’s. One comment about the “twinning” of this theatre. It was not exactly a 50/50 twinning, more like a 67/33 split. Smart move actually. The larger theatre had the standard two projector setup and the small had a three tier platter. I remember that when attendance in the large theatre’s flick started to fall off, the film was transferred to the small side, which started to sell out then.
It was a very attractive theatre, clean, excellent projection and sound equipment, and good management. Overall one of the best houses I worked in St. Louis.
I took a job at Mann’s Cypress Village in May 1982, a week before Poltergeist and two weeks before E.T. opened. It was a crazy summer of constant sell-outs. E.T. played in the larger cinema which held 600+ while Poltergeist was playing in the smaller cinema (memory is that it held somewhere between 250 and 300).
I was there when the cinema transitioned from Mann to Wehrenberg (I’m pretty positive there was no GSS ownership in between). Once the massive success of the Spielberg movies died down there was a series of not-so-successful movies that I recall that screened at Cypress Village including Swamp Thing, Savannah Smiles, Murder by Phone, Diner, Zapped! and Blood-Sucking Freaks, before 48 Hours opened in the winter to good crowds (though nothing like the success of the previous summer).
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The strip mall that replaced the theatre includes a Wal-Mart, Aarons (a rent-to-own appliance store) and a bunch of other stores.