Hunt's Cinestage Theatre
217 N. High Street,
Columbus,
OH
43215
217 N. High Street,
Columbus,
OH
43215
1 person
favorited this theater
Another big downtown theater that hosted the Road Show reserved seats blockbusters in the 1950’s and 1960’s. I think I can recall “My Fair Lady” and “Dr. Zhivago” both playing there well over a year. It was located on North High Street near Spring Street, and was demolished for either part of the Nationwide Insurance Complex or a State office tower. By the time I saw it, it had been modernized. Any info of its early years would be appreciated.
Contributed by
Dave
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Recent comments (view all 21 comments)
Ron;
I agree with you, I had a reference from a usually reliable source that it was named the ‘Towne’, but I have now found the 1978 photo of the building still known as the ‘Southern’. So please ignore the statement I made on my May 6th posting.
Now I have to correct myself. KenRoe is right — for at least some short time, the Southern Theatre was indeed renamed the Towne Cinema. I just looked at a Columbus Dispatch microfilm from the last week of December, 1972. It had an ad for the Towne with its “new first-run policy”, initially showing the blaxploitation film Trouble Man.
I did not have time to look through later microfilms to see how long the new name and policy lasted — but I don’t think it was very long.
Films which played at Hunt’s Cinestage from November 1963 through December 1966. Research is from microfilms of Variety and The Columbus Dispatch. The date listed is the Wednesday of the film’s opening week.
Cinestage
11/20/63 Fantasia
12/18/63 Kings of the Sun
02/05/64 Tom Jones
07/15/64 The Fall of the Roman Empire
09/02/64 Becket
12/23/64 My Fair Lady
12/08/65 DARK
12/22/65 The Cincinnati Kid
02/02/66 The Loved One
03/02/66 DARK
03/16/66 The Agony and the Ecstasy
05/18/66 DARK
05/25/66 Doctor Zhivago
“The Longest Day” and “Lawrence of Arabia” played at the Cinestage before “Fantasia” but I don’t yet have the opening dates. Following “Doctor Zhivago,” “Hawaii” played there – again, I haven’t yet gone through the microfilms for 1967’s opening dates yet.
Holiday films included:
1967 – Camelot
1968 – Finian’s Rainbow
1969 – Cactus Flower
1970 – Song of Norway
1971 – Sweet Charity
In the early 60’s, Moving Picture Machine Operators Union #306 ran regualar ads stating that “Hint’s Cinestage Theatre is Unfair to Organized Labor”.
A bomb was placed on the theatre roof during the run of EL CID which damaged 3 dozen windows and tore a 3' hole in the roof. Police were unable to find the bomber.
Thanks Mark for that bit of History.mike Local 629.
Sorry for the typos in that last post. Sure wish there was an editing tool here.
I hope to do a lot more research on this labor problem with Hunt’s. I’ll post any info I find. There were also labor problems with the Linden theatre at about the same time.
Thanks for these posts. Do you know when the bomb was placed?
The bomb exploded on the roof of the building on 4/8/1962. The Projectionist’s Local had struck the theatre on 3/3/62 over wages and working hours. The bomb exploded about 25 minutes after the last employee left the building. It was apparently thrown from an alley adjacent to the theatre. Had it been thrown 4 feet farther, it would have done severe damage to the projection booth.
Please do not imply from my post above that there is proof that the projectionist union was responsible for the bombing. To my knowledge, the persons responsible were never apprehended.
I still have the half-ticket stub from when I was 13 and my brother took me to see “Lawrence of Arabia” at Hunt’s Cinestage on September 7th 1963. The wide screen and incredible sound system made me duck when the biplanes first “strafed the audience! I THINK I saw Patton there, too, but not sure.