Franklin Zeotrope Theatre
34 East Central Street,
Franklin,
MA
34 East Central Street,
Franklin,
MA
1 person
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Formerly known as the Morse Theatre and the Franklin Cinema, this decades-old small town theatre was later subdivided into three screens. The theatre was closed in September 2005 and demolished in January of 2006.
Contributed by
Gerald A. DeLuca
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Recent comments (view all 25 comments)
Those articles are so sad, our whole movie past is disappearing.
O the name i know how it changed this cinema was taken over by well Theatre Development Enterprize how ever they replace the G.Manager and the new G.M changed the name cause he was now running several units and with fresh name and fresh blood ZEOTROPE became and the theaters were Attleboro,Dedham,Belmont,Norwood and then he took over Franklin Cinema and the name changed same with the Union it became know as Attleboro Movie House dba Zeotrobe i worked a short while under the new manament cause i opened a pizzaria and ended my days in the Cinema’s with Woonsocket Cinema Centra being my last ERA in Show Business
The status should be changed to “Closed/Demolished”, because I find this in a Google News search:
It’s curtains for the Zeotrope
MetroWest Daily News, MA – Jan 10, 2006
FRANKLIN — Small excavators yesterday whirred through what used to be a cinema, as demolition crews tore down the closed Zeotrope Theatre. …
A small photo of the demolition is on this page. You have to pay to read the full article.
I remember this theatre as having the most cheery and energetic of phone messages to get the times of the movies that played there.
Here is a 1980 photo:
http://tinyurl.com/cqmwut
Yes, in fact unfortunately the Cinema has been torn down, too bad, they should not have rushed to do that. Other new buildings have been constructed, but they ran out of money, and then the economy got poor.
What a shame.
You may enjoy this link though!
View link
Did General Cinema ever operate this theatre? In the linked photos, the neon “CINEMA” letters above the marquee are the same red serif-style letters that they used. In the photo of the lobby it shows the white Formica auditorium door with the off-center slit window, and white Formica candy stand with pendant lights which were also common in General Cinema houses of the 1960-70 era. In the mirror behind the stand you can see the blue vinyl wallpaper above the archways opposite. In those days it was not unheard of for them to go into a new market, buy or lease an older existing theatre, split it, do some limited renovations and change the signage.
Thats too bad its closed look like a nice little theatre.
I wouldn’t think the company that worked for GCC would have owned this theatre.
The 1927 Film Daily Yearbook lists one film venue for Franklin, the Opera House with 800 seats, open 5 days per week.