MacArthur Theater

JodarMovieFan on July 3, 2010 at 7:31 pm

I attended many MacArthur showings (mostly 70mm) after 1982. The opening weekend of event films like your Star Trek II, Return of the Jedi were sell outs with lines going around the block or extending way way down MacArthur Blvd, itself, towards the Reservoir Rd. 70mm bookings of Dark Crystal (1982, upon its triplexing), Brainstorm (1983), Amadeus (1984), White Night (1985) were spartan but the presentations were memorable.

Even as late as Witness (1985) and Total Recall (1990) there were pretty full crowds. I suppose the film bookers at Circle and later Cineplex were inclined to book the event films at the Uptown and Wisconsin Ave venues then here. Hook (1991) played at the downtown Fine Arts, with even more difficult street parking. They could have booked it here to probably greater crowds.

With regard to the night the projectionist and manager closing the theater due to not wanting to be there…Steve, was this during your tenure? :)

Steve, with regard to Star Trek II in 70mm, someone on another site is correcting me stating that the soundtrack to the film was MONO and not stereo. When I described the 6-track sound fx i.e. hearing a screw drop to the floor from the right rear of the theater, this individual states it was sound panning.
I could’ve sworn the ads were 70mm 6 track Dolby STEREO in the paper, with the 70mm 6-track logo in the Post, back in the day.

sguttag on July 3, 2010 at 9:01 pm

No…I didn’t start working the Mac A until the end of 1980 and was there full-time for a good bit of 1982 (I was the chief projectionist there in 1982 from the beginning of the summer until the end and was then transferred to the K-B Cinema).

Phil is absolutely correct in his memory of the people so I would believe the rest. The projectionist at the Mac A was “Buddy” (real name Herman Bierly sp?) The “chap” named Tim was Tim Taylor who was the manager in 1980 when I started there…he moved from the Mac A to the Fine Arts before 1982 and died in a Moped accident (he was riding the Moped on a rainy night between the Fine Arts and his house).

As to theatres having “problems” if there were few people there to see the movie…I have witnessed such events so again, I can certainly believe it. Note, it was NOT K-B’s policy to EVERY cancel a show. If someone came out to see the movie…even if it was just one, we showed the movie. Now sometimes a manager would entice 1 or 2 people to leave by refunding their money, giving passes…etc.

As for the “clowns”…Buddy has long ago passed on but was regarded as one of the best projectionists in the Washington DC area, ever. I never knew or knew of a Herman Owens. The only manager for the Mac A prior to my tenure there that I knew was Hal Malone.

SG

moviegoer on August 14, 2011 at 7:35 pm

I was fortunate enough to get to a film here just before it closed while I was in college. Saw El Cid. It’s demise at the hands of CVS (not that it’s their fault) is a real shame.

SteveBehrens on September 10, 2011 at 9:17 pm

The MacArthur’s special role within the K-B chain when I was a kid in the late ’50s and early ’60s was to show British imports. My parents and I drove more than 10 miles round trip from Virginia to see low and high comedies that most often featured at least one of these players: Robert Morley, Alec Guinness, Margaret Rutherford, Alastair Sim and Peter Sellers.

Somehow, Sellers’ many male and female roles in “The Mouse That Roared” made it officially My Favorite Movie of all time — until I saw it as an adult, many years later. I guess I must have admired the early and deft satire of nuclear proliferation.

Even as a kid I knew the “Carry On” comedies were kinda cheesy, but they were British, so they existed on a higher plane than Abbott & Costello.

I don’t know if Agatha Christie enjoyed Ms. Rutherford’s interpretation of her amateur detective Miss Marple, but I came to believe that no one else had the spirit or the jowls for the role.

Guests of the MacArthur were directed to the second-floor lobby where tea and cookies were served until showtime, when the chimes of Big Ben struck and I’d brush the cookie crumbs off my clothes and we’d descend to the auditorium.

I don’t think my parents would have taken such a long drive to see French imports. Years later when friends could drive I was finally able to get to the Circle Theater downtown where I’d see the work of the great French directors Truffaut, Godard and Woody Allen.

JohnMessick on May 22, 2012 at 1:57 am

SWCphotography….cool photos..thanks for posting them.