Lexington Venue
1794 Massachusetts Avenue,
Lexington,
MA
02420
1794 Massachusetts Avenue,
Lexington,
MA
02420
5 people
favorited this theater
A small, homey two-screen theater right in the center of Lexington, showing second runs with some preference for art films.
It’s nothing special architecturally, but it’s one of the very few suburban town center cinemas still operating in this part of the country, and a pleasant place to visit.
There used to be a small chain of other “Flick” theaters in nearby towns (Lowell, Littleton, Billerica), but this is the only one still open.
Before it was a “Flick”, it spent several years as part of the Sack Theatres – USACinemas – Loews chain, also as a ‘quality’ second-run house. Since January 2009, under new ownership, it has been renamed Lexington Venue screening first run movies.
Contributed by
Ron Newman
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Recent comments (view all 25 comments)
I agree with you- I think the traditional “first run/second run” model probably still stands for major motion pictures which open on thousands of screens, then taper off over a few months. JUNO and ATONEMENT’s nationwide screen counts have been going up every week since they opened.
When a film adds screens during its initial release, it’s referred to as an expanded first-run or something of the sort. At least in the Boston area (with the Arlington Capitol, Studio Cinema in Belmont, and Lexington Flick – and, to a degree, the Somerville Theatre, now that the majority of films they show are double-booked with the AMC Harvard Square 5), some distributors are most likely allowing former second-run-only theatres to book their films first-run in order to generate better box office grosses.
The Lexington Theatre was also a nice little theatre. Growing up in a town that abutted Lexington, this was yet another theatre that my sister and I would occasionally attend. However, it was small enough so that if people failed to arrive early enough, they’d end up getting shut out of the movie they’d wanted to see. I do remember seeing the movie “Saturday Night Fever” at that theatre, roughly 30 years ago when it first came out, and enjoying it.
What was this theatre called when it was a LOEWS house?
It was just listed as ‘Lexington’ in Loews (and before that, USACinemas and Sack) advertisements.
The Lexington Th. is listed in the 1927 Film Daily Yearbook as having 500 seats. It’s the only movie theater listed for Lexington MA.
There are some recent photos on this website: View link
Does anyone know if they have a website? If they don’t they’re the only theatre in the Metro Boston area that does NOT have one…
There’s a larger, even better photograph over at View link
Fairly recent, since GREENBURG was playing…
The Lexington Venue is mostly a FIRST RUN theatre. It runs day and date with Landmark in Cambridge,Lowes Harvard Square, Landmark Waltham, Hollywood, Danvers and some of the other Art/Independant theatres in the area. It does not book first run blockbusters like Avatar and the like. We have many independant single or twin theatres in the Boston area. Some new and some old 1930’s houses like the Cameo in S. Weymouth(1st run) The Loring in Hingham(Art/Independant) house, The West Newton in W. Newton. The Milkl Wharf cinema in Scituate, The Capitol in Arlington and the Somerville in Somerville plus many more in other areas. This may not be the case by the end of 2013 because of the demise of film and complete advent of Digital. This is a shame because not too many independant operators can afford the 50 -75 thouand dollars to convert each screen to digital. What a pity. The movie companies are forcing thousands of small operators to wave a white flag and abandon there operations. I don’t know what can be done to stop this. Any one have any solutions or ideas?
The Capitol and Somerville are both converting to digital (while retaining the ability to project 35mm), but I don’t know what’s happening with the Lexington Venue and the other theatres you listed here.