Perimeter Mall Theatre

You’re right about Perimeter’s counts being “legendary”. I remember having to call our figures in to their office every night and just being amazed at how well they always seemed to do, especially compared to our little triple at Regency Mall in Augusta. Their weekend midnight movie takes always blew us out of the water. Took me a long time to realize I was comparing apples with oranges. Our demographics weren’t near the same, but even with that, Perimeter’s were still great. A few years later we sort of got out of touch with everyone’s numbers because we started utilizing Telxon!!! (GCC finally hit the computer age!!). Good stuff.

Closed in 2000.

My favorite memory of this theater is seeing “Rocky Horror Picture Show” there at midnight showings. I certainly saw plenty of other movies there too. Went movies would sell out at our usual theaters we would drive out to Perimeter.

I know Russ Bovin was a great showman and Loew’s operated some great theatres. We had two right in Toronto, AND that artwork would have been passed to the local Loew’s managers and then down to your home office. By the way The Loew’s Uptown Theatre in Toronto was pooled with Famous Players Canadian Corporation and booked by Famous Players. The profits were split in equal shares. The reason is because Loew’s had only two theatres in Toronto, and Famous Players had all the rest which isn’t exactly a strong position to be in. The Loew’s Yonge Street Theatre at 189 Yonge showed all the great MGM classics in Toronto, while Famous Players showed all the MGM product across the country. Maybe you can understand how Loew’s got ahold of some Famous Players advertising material.

Chuck Famous Players Publicity was respected throughout North America and they certainly would be decent enough to share some of their art work with other chains, both within the Paramount Theatre Associates group and other chains. Other chains include Loew’s, General Cinemas — associated chains include ABC , etc.

Les Mitchell ran the old Capitol in St Catharines and did not like Roy Miller. I can’t print what Mitchell said about him!!

When you look at the ad for Earthquake at the top of the page you see am awesome “STARTS TODAY” This came from the Famous Players Canadian Corporation art department in TORONTO, Ontario.

Russell: I first met Steve Crisp in 1972 when he was the manager of the Capri in Buckhead when it was a Weis theatre. In 1975 he followed me as manager of the Loews 12 Oaks. A couple of years later he joined GCC at Akers Mill. Within a few years I was working as a projectionist and worked for him there as his regular operator. He was a great guy, both as a friend and manager. He left Akers to open Merchants and a few years later, against his better judgement, moved to Parkside after a long series of managers failed to tame that place. He left in ‘97 after 20 years with GCC and retired to Ashville. I am sad to report that he died a couple of years ago of a heart attack, much like your friend Craig.

I knew Larry and Stu when we were all managers for Loews. Larry took Webb’s place at PM when Webb went to booking. Stu took PM when Larry went to Akers. I was not working in theatres in the late ‘70’s but would occasionally work for Stu at this location when he needed crowd control help. I always got along with Stu, but I know what you mean. He liked to do things his own way. The last time I saw him was in the late 80’s. He was working for NCN, the outfit that sold the slide projector ads, when he came by a booth I was working to check the presentation.

Larry left GCC as a DM to be COO of the Septum chain. I knew that would not last and sure enough he was back within a year, still as a DM. He later left and went to work for Storey shortly before they were sold to Regal. Last I heard he was in NC.

Aaron and Jim Williams both left Northlake to go to the new Gwinnett Place theatre and that is when I went to work at Northlake. The manager then was Lex Austin. In 1997 I took Aaron’s place at Gwinnett when he retired. Sad to say that he died a couple of years later. Jim is still alive and I see him when we have our retiree lunches.

I am afraid that most of this has nothing to do with the Perimeter Mall page, but there is not one for GCC itself. Hope this brought back some old memories.

Man, I hate to start down this road, but here it goes. I believe that Dune was a Christmas ‘84 release. At that time I was working the GCC Northlake and do not recall working Perimeter Mall at any time during the Dune run. I do not recall if Dune ran at Perimeter Mall or not but if it did is had to have been in 35 since PM never had 70MM equipment.

As I stated in my first long post on this page, I worked at PM more than any other single location during my projectionist years, at least up until the time it closed in 1999. I appreciate all of the work that came my way because of GCC, and not once did I ever have a paycheck bounce, unlike other companies I worked for. That said, I must be honest and also say that the GCC theatres of that era (Perimeter, Northlake, Southlake, and Akers Mill) had as bad a presentation as any I ever put on the screen. Shotgun theatres, shadowbox masking which left the sides of the flat picture raw, very slow installation of Dolby, and the atrocious two position seats made for a very poor movie going experience. Not that the public seemed to care since it obviously did not keep them from coming back.

My point is that none of these locations ever had 70MM projectors. PM got 4 track Dolby for Star Trek in 1979, and in 1995 Dolby Digital, but that was it as far as projection upgrades. The first GCC theatre in Atlanta to get 70MM capability was Gwinnett Place which opened in 1984. By then, GCC, in another downgrade in presentation, had quit equipping booths with Century projectors and had switched to Cinemeccanica’s. One house at Gwinnett was equipped with a Vic 8 35/70 as was one house of Merchants Walk and Parkside a few years later.

I wish I could tell you which if any theatres had a 70MM run of Dune. For a city of this size Atlanta played very little 70MM. The closest theatres to PM with 70MM were Phipps Plaza and Holcombe Woods. Next time that I am in the film room of the library I will try to find the Dune ads and see which theatres had a 70MM engagement.

Spent much time at the Perimeter Mall Cinema. It was the closest one to my home (although I was also close to North Springs). We made the cinema circuit in the 70s/80’s. The lobby was pretty to look at, but incredibly crowded when all three theaters were letting out/letting crowds in. I remember more than once being herded like cattle into a theater. One of my fondest memories was going to a sneak preview of a film called “Time Square” at Perimeter. The film starred Tim Curry and many of the Rocky Horror crowd came to see this film, some in costume. The crowd got a bit rowdy, but still kept it cool and it was a wonderful night. The acoustics were fine for the music, but I do remember we had a hard time hearing the dialogue. I believe we won the ticket in conjunction with one of the radio stations.

Stan- I was sure I saw Star Wars there, too, but my memory isn’t what it used to be.

Russell,More theatre stories.I am running out!Check out Citidal Mall in Charleston,S.C. I wrote some stories from Barry days there.He said he was promised that theatre but was back stabbed.

Wow….I never heard that story. A GCC scandal!

Yes, Mr. Brianerd’s first name was Webb. I don’t know what happened to him after I left, but I read somewhere on this site that he later worked at the corporate office in Texas, I think.

Mr. Edmondson, who was the assistant manager and about the same age as I was, was some piece of work. On the nights of “premieres” he would wear a really bad tuxedo to the theater. He told me he liked to dress up because he was on “one rung of the ladder of show business.”

He was about 6 ½ feet tall and the pants on his tux were always about 6 ½ inches too short.

I will now sing “Memories” from “The Way We Were”, one of the three movies that opened this theater in 1973. :)

Good story chris32.GCC was okay to work at.