The Olympia is a true palace. As a kid I would just stare at the walls and the ceiling when the movie got boring. I often went in at 11:00am and came out after dark having seen the same film over and over again. A smuggled in hoagie from the nearby Woolworths provided a meal.
This was the downtown home of most Disney and Doris Day films, the only ones I could get into. I often asked strangers to accompany me to R rated films and they willingly obliged in that more innocent age. I saw WILD IN THE STREETS, THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY, and BONNIE AND CLYDE this way.
The floating clouds and cool air conditioning made me a cinema buff for life. In the early 70’s the Miami Police shut down the 3-D soft core porn flick THE STEWARDESSES and arrested manager Jimmy Barnett.
For more information on Downtown Miami cinemas and Jimmy Barnett check out a documentary by University of Miami professor Corky Irick called A FEW THINGS I KNOW ABOUT MIAMI. It can be found at the Coral Gables public library on VHS.
I saw NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD and several single projector Cinerama films here as a kid. As a black action house in the early 70’s the ABC Florida had a riot during a showing of THE BUS IS COMING that was quite sensationalized in the local news.
The interior was quite modern compared to the other downtown theatres. The Swedish cashier did not understand the M rating and kept chasing me away from the box office. Years later I became her manager at the Shores Theatre and we laughed about it.
Aside from almost being closed down by the city of Coral Gables for showing films such as WOODSTOCK and LAST TANGO IN PARIS, the Coral also hosted the exclusive premieres of Disney films such as THE LOVE BUG and BEDKNOBS AND BROOMSTICKS as well as foreign language classics such as DEATH IN VENICE, FELLINI SATYRICON and CRIES AND WHISPERS.
I snuck into the roadshow run of LAST TANGO IN PARIS while still under age by having my older brother buy my ticket a week in advance.
I can still remember the new car smell of the vinyl seat backs of the Bay Harbor when our school took us from Little Havana to the Bay Harbor to see OLIVER!. Years later I took a first date there to see the x-rated FLESH GORDON and she did not speak to me for days.
This was a deluxe Loews roadshow house for many years before Wometco quaded it and one of the nicest theatres in the Miami area. The Bay Harbor often played day and date with the ABC Coral in Coral Gables or the Wometco Dadeland Twins with long runs of THAT’S ENTERTAINMENT, BILLY JACK, and NICHOLAS AND ALEXANDRA.
I have seen some record books that showed the Metropolitan as a department store prior to becoming a cinema in the late teens. They were taken away from a “cinema historian” who visted my office in the late nineties and then disappeared with them.
Asshole!
The Stanley was advertised as showing films in the New York Times as early as 1916 but started it’s steady life as New York’s premiere Russian cinema in 1941, showing propaganda war films and musicals that hailed the Germans as the enemy even before that was a popular sentiment at the New York Times. Once the US entered the war, the Stanley, always politcal, added anti-Japanese films such as RAVAGED EARTH to its mix of Marxist musicals and war documentaries.
By 1956, at the height of the communist witch hunt, the Stanley disappeared from the movie pages of the New York Times, a likely casualty of the anti-Soviet climate.
The manager with the dog was industry veteran Edward Bernhardt. Ed was a German raised in Palestine (Israel). I worked with him in the nineties at the Meadows when he carried photos of his deceased pooch Charlie in his wallet and showed them regularly.
Ed started as a projectionist in Israel before immigrating to New York where he had a long career with MGM, RKO Century and innevitably, Cineplex Odeon. Months before passing away he famously stated: “I have lived long enough to have seen the fall of Communism, the Berlin Wall, and Pee Wee Herman. That is enough for one lifetime.”
This was the home of I AM CURIOUS (YELLOW) in the late sixties, a film the Miami Herald refused advertising for. It ran here for several months and then moved to the North Miami by which time the Herald agrred to allow a one inch by one column ad with the title and the X rating. It was operated by Brandt who also ran the Cinema, PLaza Art, Beach and Lincoln at the time.
Alex, I lived next to the an erly from 1990 to 1996 while working for Cineplex Odeon in an apartment owned by them. Larry would most definitely be the best source (if you can find him) as he worked there for years before and after was the site caretaker for Clearview the last time I saw him, but I can help if you have any questions. The Waverly is the CD cover of the 2001 FUN LOVING CRIMINALS CD and I often run into the marquee shots in London where it is often used in ads for some odd reason!!!
This theatre dates back to early 1900’s as a Vaudeville house and has an extensive back stage area with dressing rooms and floors for talent agent offices. As a Loews house it was first outside Manhattan run for major films and included a stage show until the mid-fifties. In the late eighties it was taken over by Cineplex Odeon after being closed for a few years and split into four screens. Plaster walls in the lobby cover water features and mirrors that were NOT destroyed during the remodel. Cost of heating and cooling the extensive building and neighborhood violence lead to closing in the nineties when it failed to draw from nearby Brooklyn Heights.
The Olympia is a true palace. As a kid I would just stare at the walls and the ceiling when the movie got boring. I often went in at 11:00am and came out after dark having seen the same film over and over again. A smuggled in hoagie from the nearby Woolworths provided a meal.
This was the downtown home of most Disney and Doris Day films, the only ones I could get into. I often asked strangers to accompany me to R rated films and they willingly obliged in that more innocent age. I saw WILD IN THE STREETS, THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY, and BONNIE AND CLYDE this way.
The floating clouds and cool air conditioning made me a cinema buff for life. In the early 70’s the Miami Police shut down the 3-D soft core porn flick THE STEWARDESSES and arrested manager Jimmy Barnett.
For more information on Downtown Miami cinemas and Jimmy Barnett check out a documentary by University of Miami professor Corky Irick called A FEW THINGS I KNOW ABOUT MIAMI. It can be found at the Coral Gables public library on VHS.
I saw NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD and several single projector Cinerama films here as a kid. As a black action house in the early 70’s the ABC Florida had a riot during a showing of THE BUS IS COMING that was quite sensationalized in the local news.
The interior was quite modern compared to the other downtown theatres. The Swedish cashier did not understand the M rating and kept chasing me away from the box office. Years later I became her manager at the Shores Theatre and we laughed about it.
Aside from almost being closed down by the city of Coral Gables for showing films such as WOODSTOCK and LAST TANGO IN PARIS, the Coral also hosted the exclusive premieres of Disney films such as THE LOVE BUG and BEDKNOBS AND BROOMSTICKS as well as foreign language classics such as DEATH IN VENICE, FELLINI SATYRICON and CRIES AND WHISPERS.
I snuck into the roadshow run of LAST TANGO IN PARIS while still under age by having my older brother buy my ticket a week in advance.
I can still remember the new car smell of the vinyl seat backs of the Bay Harbor when our school took us from Little Havana to the Bay Harbor to see OLIVER!. Years later I took a first date there to see the x-rated FLESH GORDON and she did not speak to me for days.
This was a deluxe Loews roadshow house for many years before Wometco quaded it and one of the nicest theatres in the Miami area. The Bay Harbor often played day and date with the ABC Coral in Coral Gables or the Wometco Dadeland Twins with long runs of THAT’S ENTERTAINMENT, BILLY JACK, and NICHOLAS AND ALEXANDRA.
I have seen some record books that showed the Metropolitan as a department store prior to becoming a cinema in the late teens. They were taken away from a “cinema historian” who visted my office in the late nineties and then disappeared with them.
Asshole!
The Stanley was advertised as showing films in the New York Times as early as 1916 but started it’s steady life as New York’s premiere Russian cinema in 1941, showing propaganda war films and musicals that hailed the Germans as the enemy even before that was a popular sentiment at the New York Times. Once the US entered the war, the Stanley, always politcal, added anti-Japanese films such as RAVAGED EARTH to its mix of Marxist musicals and war documentaries.
By 1956, at the height of the communist witch hunt, the Stanley disappeared from the movie pages of the New York Times, a likely casualty of the anti-Soviet climate.
The manager with the dog was industry veteran Edward Bernhardt. Ed was a German raised in Palestine (Israel). I worked with him in the nineties at the Meadows when he carried photos of his deceased pooch Charlie in his wallet and showed them regularly.
Ed started as a projectionist in Israel before immigrating to New York where he had a long career with MGM, RKO Century and innevitably, Cineplex Odeon. Months before passing away he famously stated: “I have lived long enough to have seen the fall of Communism, the Berlin Wall, and Pee Wee Herman. That is enough for one lifetime.”
For many of us, Ed IS the Meadows.
This was the home of I AM CURIOUS (YELLOW) in the late sixties, a film the Miami Herald refused advertising for. It ran here for several months and then moved to the North Miami by which time the Herald agrred to allow a one inch by one column ad with the title and the X rating. It was operated by Brandt who also ran the Cinema, PLaza Art, Beach and Lincoln at the time.
This theatre was open from 1933 to 1968. A previous theatre at this location dates back to 1919 with the same name.
Alex, I lived next to the an erly from 1990 to 1996 while working for Cineplex Odeon in an apartment owned by them. Larry would most definitely be the best source (if you can find him) as he worked there for years before and after was the site caretaker for Clearview the last time I saw him, but I can help if you have any questions. The Waverly is the CD cover of the 2001 FUN LOVING CRIMINALS CD and I often run into the marquee shots in London where it is often used in ads for some odd reason!!!
This theatre dates back to early 1900’s as a Vaudeville house and has an extensive back stage area with dressing rooms and floors for talent agent offices. As a Loews house it was first outside Manhattan run for major films and included a stage show until the mid-fifties. In the late eighties it was taken over by Cineplex Odeon after being closed for a few years and split into four screens. Plaster walls in the lobby cover water features and mirrors that were NOT destroyed during the remodel. Cost of heating and cooling the extensive building and neighborhood violence lead to closing in the nineties when it failed to draw from nearby Brooklyn Heights.