I went to the afternoon screening of Amreeka at the Stuart Street. The theatre is a very clean and pleasant place; the movie was excellent. There was, sadly, only a handful of patrons at the showing. The cinema fulfills a need, since it is such a convenient place to see recent independent and foreign films in Boston’s downtown. I really do hope it succeeds in attracting more moviegoers as they discover the venue. Like a previous commenter, I believe the use of the other space in the theatre for another screen (or screens) would be a big plus.
Yes, I saw that ad. I was in town for an opera at the Emerson Majestic. I walked over to the Stuart just to check it out, and there was a sign on the door with the new info.
The Italian film Figaro e la sua gran giornata, by Mario Camerini, began a run here in late October 1933 when it was known as the Caruso Theatre. The New York Times found it entertaining; Variety magazine lamented the lack of subtitles.
A week ago Saturday the Newport Film Festival presented a showing of the 1927 silent film East Side, West Side, perfectly projected in a pristine archival 35mm print from the Museum of Modern Art in New York. There was live piano accompaniment, making it a tremendously exciting event.
Yesterday I watched Harry Hurwitz’s 1971 movie in a 35mm revival at the Newport Film Festival, The Projectionist. It is a fictional story about a projectionist at what appears to be the Midtown Theatre. We see the exterior and marquee in several shots, and a theatre interior (same place used????) several times. There are also some stunning scenes of an array of lighted marquees on then-glorious 42nd Street. The movie is available on DVD and I have not found any other comments here referring to that film.
Roland, in that photo the theatre marquee says C.Scope (CinemaScope), Interrupted Melody, Glenn Ford, and Run for Cover, James Cagney. Those films came out in the spring of 1955. So this may be a bit later in 1955, perhaps summer.
Contralto Marian Anderson gave a recital here on Sunday afternoon, December 3, 1937. She was billed in newspaper ads as “The World-Famous Negro Contralto.” Ticket prices ranged from $1.10 to $2.75. The Monte Carlo Ballet Russe had performed on November 25. There were special sprices for attending both avents, from $1.65 to $4.40 for the two performances. Impresario for the events was Aaron Richmond.
Woody Allen’s film Radio Days contains archival color footage of Broadway with the marquee of the Strand visible with the title of the film Devotion, starring Ida Lupino and Paul Henreid. The film played here in 1946. Trouble is, this is an anachronism for Radio Days, which at that point was supposed to be set in the year 1943.
(Stock comes to an end at the Albee. Ad in the Providence paper on August 30, 1926.)
ALBEE
Farewell
to the 26th Edward F. Albee Stock Company, oldest and best of all.
CLOSING WEEK STOCK SEASON
is the funniest farce yet
WE’VE GOT TO HAVE MONEY
A tornado of laughs.
Lots of closing week fun at every performance…
Starting Labor Day
VAUDEVILLE and PHOTOPLAYS
A pretentious array of Keith-Albee stars and a perfect feature picture will inaugurate our Fall-Winter season of continuous performances, Boxes, loges, stalls reserved, except Saturdays, Sundays and holidays.
An ad appearing in the Providence newspaper on August 30, 1926:
[i]Edward M. Fay announces the reopening next Monday at noon of the new Emery, a Fay Theatre, 79 Mathewson Street.
Completely refurnished, redecorated and re-established as a modern theatre, a marvel of the decorator’s art. Under new and efficient managerial supervision. A Playhouse providing entertainment in comfort for each member of the family. Its shows guaranteed to be consistently good —– vaudeville and pictures.[/i]
Here is a set of some recently found photos of the Olympia dating to 1926, around the time of its opening and during a presentation of a Valentino film following the death of the star. They are the first photos of the Olympia that I have ever seen. Thanks to theatre owner Jacob Conn’s great-granddaughter Laura Frommer. OLYMPIA SET
From The Providence Journal, June 20, 1999. Article on Fays by Jim Seavor:
“VAUDEVILLE STAYED ALIVE, if not exactly well, in Providence because of one man, Edward M. Fay.
“Fay took over, and gave his name to a theater at 60 Union St. in 1916. For a dime, you got six acts of vaudeville, a movie, comedy short and a newsreel. Over the years, the theater played host to the biggest names. That dime admission didn’t even go up when Sarah Bernhardt, considered to be one of the greatest actresses of all time, played a one-night stand.
“In 1925, Gertrude Ederle, who had swum the English Channel, appeared at Fay’s in what was billed as "The Most Expensive Vaudeville Act Ever Played in Providence.” Fay had shelled out $6,000. Her stay got off to a shaky start when it took firemen longer than expected to fill Ederle’s 4,000-gallon tank and she had to stand in front of the curtain and talk for a half hour.
“There were rough times over the years, and Fay’s would occasionally close for a while or revert to an all film policy. But Fay perservered. In 1934, you got a first-run movie and five acts of vaudeville. Vaudeville was still there in the early 1940s, although the movie was always an oldie, and not always a goodie.
“The final curtain came down in December of 1950, when Fay’s closed "temporarily.” The reasons given for the closing were the traditional slow business while people prepared for the holidays – and television. Fay had even installed a big-screen TV and shown pro football on Saturdays to fight the electronic intruder.
“The "temporary” closing became permanent the following year when what was then the Sheraton-Biltmore sought to lease the site, raze the building and turn the space into a parking lot.
Harold M. Morton was a former motion picture projectionist and was also the manager for 14 years of the Gilbert Stuart Theater, Riverside, until its closing in 1965.
Article in The Providence Journal on Joe Jarvis, and his naming and management of the Jane Pickens Theatre:
Copyright Providence Journal/Evening Bulletin Mar 25, 1986
“When Joe Jarvis was a kid growing up in East Providence, his one ambition was to get into the movie theater business. In 1936, when he was 16, he got his first job as an usher at the old Hollywood Theater on Taunton Avenue across from City Hall.
“At that time you had double features,” he recalls. “I worked six days a week for $7 and I thought that was wonderful.”
“Today, 50 years later, the 65-year-old Jarvis is still spending at least five days a week selling tickets at the Jane Pickens Theatre in Newport, only now he’s the owner as well. "To me this is not a job, because I enjoy it,” he said.
“For Jarvis, the last 10 years, since he bought the former Strand on Washington Square, restored it and renamed it after actress and Newport summer resident Jane Pickens, have been a return to simpler times when showing good movies to an appreciative audience was the most important thing.
“It wasn’t always so. After working his way up to head usher ($10 a week), he served in the Navy during World War II, then returned to the Hollywood as assistant manager. There, he learned the art of promotion as the owners sought to fill up the 1,100-seat theater, which was limited at that time by film studios to second-run films.
“On weekends, in addition to the double features, there were vaudeville acts and regular appearances by local favorites Marie and the Hollywood Orchestra. On slow Mondays and Tuesdays, there were dish nights "for the ladies” and on Wednesdays there was bank night, sort of an early version of Lot O Bucks.
“Then, after a second tour in the Navy during the Korean callback and two years managing a small theater in Vermont, where he met his wife, Jarvis returned to Rhode Island and got the opportunity to run his own moviehouse in his home town. It was 1955 and the theater, which he leased, was the old 400-seat Lyric in Riverside.
“"This was a time when television was really hurting us,” Jarvis said. Another problem was the theater’s location off Maple Avenue, on the wrong side of the tracks. “Riverside used to be a tough neighborhood and it was really something to get people to go down there.”
“Jarvis changed the theater’s name from Lyric to Gilbert Stuart and began a campaign to clean up its image. If the movie-going crowd was tough, so was Jarvis, remembers Providence native John E. Connors, now city manager in Newport. "He used to haul kids right out the front door.”
“He also immersed himself in community affairs and served a term on the East Providence School Committee. His most successful public relations effort was a series of ads he’d write about coming attractions, giving his own critiques of shows he’d seen at the first-run houses in Providence. The technique worked so well MGM asked him to travel around the country and speak to other theater owners.
“In many ways it was an idyllic time. Known and respected in the community, Jarvis was happy with his life and his business. "It was a family affair. My wife (Joanne) sold tickets for me,” he said.
“In 1965, the opening of the two-screen Four Season Cinema in Rumford by the Esquire group forced the closing of the Gilbert Stuart. Jarvis switched over to Esquire as manager of the Four Seasons and his career took on an accelerated pace.
“"When they built the Four Seasons, they were the first suburban theaters to become first-run in Rhode Island,” he said. As the downtown Providence area went into decline and emphasis shifted to outlying communities, Jarvis became district manager for Esquire, in charge of theaters in Pawtucket, Smithfield, Middletown and elsewhere. The life was fast, with a lot of traveling and no shortages of acquaintances happy to accept the free movie passes Jarvis handed out.
“But he still didn’t have a theater of his own, so in 1975 he bought the run-down Strand in Newport, once part of the Esquire chain. "When they found out that I bought it, they let me go,” he said.
“Jarvis tided himself over by working for B.A. Dario at Loew’s State in Providence for a year while renovating the Strand. "It was terrible. I wanted to give it a new image and with a new image, I wanted a new name. Jane Pickens, a singing and stage star of the 1940s, agreed to lend her name if he promised never to show X-rated films, a proviso he had no difficulty meeting. "I wouldn’t run a theater if I had to bring in X-rated movies to make a living,” he said.
“Nor would he attract much of a following in Newport. "The audience here in Newport, they know what they want to see. They enjoy the better film,” he said. Knowing this, Jarvis, who prefers a good comedy himself, tries “not to get the run-of-the-mill picture – more of a class picture.”
“As the owner of one of the last, certainly largest, single-screen cinemas in the state, Jarvis has little margin for error in selecting movies. After previewing a film in Boston, where the major studios maintain offices, he offers a bid price, which often requires a cash advance, along with a guarantee of playing time.
“If he books a flop, as he did several years ago with "Alien,” a science fiction movie, he loses money for the duration, with no extra screens to offset the loss. Sometimes he wins, outbidding the big chains for a sleeper like “E.T.” “I won that bid,” he said. “It ran for about 14 weeks.”
“Adding a screen or two would give him more flexibility, but his clientele, in a survey he conducted last year, let him know emphatically they wanted the theater kept whole. Aside from offering "a clean house and a big screen,” Jarvis, the promoter, provides his customers a little extra.
“On Wednesday and Saturday evenings, theater goers are treated to pipe organ music by members of the Southeastern New England Theater Society. The organ is a 1926 Marr-Colton symphonic registrator originally used to accompany silent films. It was rescued from a New London, Conn., theater by the society and given a home at the Pickens several years ago.
“Last year, Jarvis also provided a late-evening home to Flickers, the Newport Film Society, which has its own art film following. Last summer, he gave customers a taste of bygone days by opening up the balcony, a policy he will renew this summer.
“In his 50th year in the business, Jarvis and his family – his wife still works beside him – have found their own home at the Jane Pickens. "When I was starting out, I thought, ‘When I get older I’m going to get a theater of my own, or a chain of my own.’ I never got a chain, but I certainly have a theater of my own and I’m very happy.”"
I went to the afternoon screening of Amreeka at the Stuart Street. The theatre is a very clean and pleasant place; the movie was excellent. There was, sadly, only a handful of patrons at the showing. The cinema fulfills a need, since it is such a convenient place to see recent independent and foreign films in Boston’s downtown. I really do hope it succeeds in attracting more moviegoers as they discover the venue. Like a previous commenter, I believe the use of the other space in the theatre for another screen (or screens) would be a big plus.
Yes, I saw that ad. I was in town for an opera at the Emerson Majestic. I walked over to the Stuart just to check it out, and there was a sign on the door with the new info.
The opening date has been changed to Friday, October 30th.
The Casino Theatre is scheduled to re-open, after an extensive restoration. READ ARTICLE
The Strand Theatre is visible from the Amtrak Downeaster train (between Boston and Portland)when passing through Dover.
The Italian film Figaro e la sua gran giornata, by Mario Camerini, began a run here in late October 1933 when it was known as the Caruso Theatre. The New York Times found it entertaining; Variety magazine lamented the lack of subtitles.
A page for this theatre already exists. This one should be removed.
A week ago Saturday the Newport Film Festival presented a showing of the 1927 silent film East Side, West Side, perfectly projected in a pristine archival 35mm print from the Museum of Modern Art in New York. There was live piano accompaniment, making it a tremendously exciting event.
This drive-in appears twice on Cinema Treasures. One of them should be removed. The correct spelling is Hilltop (one word).
/theaters/11441/
Yesterday I watched Harry Hurwitz’s 1971 movie in a 35mm revival at the Newport Film Festival, The Projectionist. It is a fictional story about a projectionist at what appears to be the Midtown Theatre. We see the exterior and marquee in several shots, and a theatre interior (same place used????) several times. There are also some stunning scenes of an array of lighted marquees on then-glorious 42nd Street. The movie is available on DVD and I have not found any other comments here referring to that film.
1950s photo of the theatre as the Alouette.
Roland, in that photo the theatre marquee says C.Scope (CinemaScope), Interrupted Melody, Glenn Ford, and Run for Cover, James Cagney. Those films came out in the spring of 1955. So this may be a bit later in 1955, perhaps summer.
Chicago Tribune story about restoration April 24, 2009.
Contralto Marian Anderson gave a recital here on Sunday afternoon, December 3, 1937. She was billed in newspaper ads as “The World-Famous Negro Contralto.” Ticket prices ranged from $1.10 to $2.75. The Monte Carlo Ballet Russe had performed on November 25. There were special sprices for attending both avents, from $1.65 to $4.40 for the two performances. Impresario for the events was Aaron Richmond.
Woody Allen’s film Radio Days contains archival color footage of Broadway with the marquee of the Strand visible with the title of the film Devotion, starring Ida Lupino and Paul Henreid. The film played here in 1946. Trouble is, this is an anachronism for Radio Days, which at that point was supposed to be set in the year 1943.
Here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/vokoban/1243775432/
Thanks. That’s the theatre which became the R.K.O. Albee, next to Grace Church, and was torn down in the early 1970s.
There is a brief scene at the end of the 1954 release Crime Wave, with Sterling Hayden, in which the theatre exterior is clearly visible.
Conn’s Theatre:
View link
Star Theatre:
View link
(Stock comes to an end at the Albee. Ad in the Providence paper on August 30, 1926.)
ALBEE
Farewell
to the 26th Edward F. Albee Stock Company, oldest and best of all.
CLOSING WEEK STOCK SEASON
is the funniest farce yet
WE’VE GOT TO HAVE MONEY
A tornado of laughs.
Lots of closing week fun at every performance…
Starting Labor Day
VAUDEVILLE and PHOTOPLAYS
A pretentious array of Keith-Albee stars and a perfect feature picture will inaugurate our Fall-Winter season of continuous performances, Boxes, loges, stalls reserved, except Saturdays, Sundays and holidays.
An ad appearing in the Providence newspaper on August 30, 1926:
[i]Edward M. Fay announces the reopening next Monday at noon of the new Emery, a Fay Theatre, 79 Mathewson Street.
Completely refurnished, redecorated and re-established as a modern theatre, a marvel of the decorator’s art. Under new and efficient managerial supervision. A Playhouse providing entertainment in comfort for each member of the family. Its shows guaranteed to be consistently good —– vaudeville and pictures.[/i]
Here is a set of some recently found photos of the Olympia dating to 1926, around the time of its opening and during a presentation of a Valentino film following the death of the star. They are the first photos of the Olympia that I have ever seen. Thanks to theatre owner Jacob Conn’s great-granddaughter Laura Frommer.
OLYMPIA SET
From The Providence Journal, June 20, 1999. Article on Fays by Jim Seavor:
“VAUDEVILLE STAYED ALIVE, if not exactly well, in Providence because of one man, Edward M. Fay.
“Fay took over, and gave his name to a theater at 60 Union St. in 1916. For a dime, you got six acts of vaudeville, a movie, comedy short and a newsreel. Over the years, the theater played host to the biggest names. That dime admission didn’t even go up when Sarah Bernhardt, considered to be one of the greatest actresses of all time, played a one-night stand.
“In 1925, Gertrude Ederle, who had swum the English Channel, appeared at Fay’s in what was billed as "The Most Expensive Vaudeville Act Ever Played in Providence.” Fay had shelled out $6,000. Her stay got off to a shaky start when it took firemen longer than expected to fill Ederle’s 4,000-gallon tank and she had to stand in front of the curtain and talk for a half hour.
“There were rough times over the years, and Fay’s would occasionally close for a while or revert to an all film policy. But Fay perservered. In 1934, you got a first-run movie and five acts of vaudeville. Vaudeville was still there in the early 1940s, although the movie was always an oldie, and not always a goodie.
“The final curtain came down in December of 1950, when Fay’s closed "temporarily.” The reasons given for the closing were the traditional slow business while people prepared for the holidays – and television. Fay had even installed a big-screen TV and shown pro football on Saturdays to fight the electronic intruder.
“The "temporary” closing became permanent the following year when what was then the Sheraton-Biltmore sought to lease the site, raze the building and turn the space into a parking lot.
“It did – the Washington Street Garage”
Harold M. Morton was a former motion picture projectionist and was also the manager for 14 years of the Gilbert Stuart Theater, Riverside, until its closing in 1965.
Article in The Providence Journal on Joe Jarvis, and his naming and management of the Jane Pickens Theatre:
Copyright Providence Journal/Evening Bulletin Mar 25, 1986
“When Joe Jarvis was a kid growing up in East Providence, his one ambition was to get into the movie theater business. In 1936, when he was 16, he got his first job as an usher at the old Hollywood Theater on Taunton Avenue across from City Hall.
“At that time you had double features,” he recalls. “I worked six days a week for $7 and I thought that was wonderful.”
“Today, 50 years later, the 65-year-old Jarvis is still spending at least five days a week selling tickets at the Jane Pickens Theatre in Newport, only now he’s the owner as well. "To me this is not a job, because I enjoy it,” he said.
“For Jarvis, the last 10 years, since he bought the former Strand on Washington Square, restored it and renamed it after actress and Newport summer resident Jane Pickens, have been a return to simpler times when showing good movies to an appreciative audience was the most important thing.
“It wasn’t always so. After working his way up to head usher ($10 a week), he served in the Navy during World War II, then returned to the Hollywood as assistant manager. There, he learned the art of promotion as the owners sought to fill up the 1,100-seat theater, which was limited at that time by film studios to second-run films.
“On weekends, in addition to the double features, there were vaudeville acts and regular appearances by local favorites Marie and the Hollywood Orchestra. On slow Mondays and Tuesdays, there were dish nights "for the ladies” and on Wednesdays there was bank night, sort of an early version of Lot O Bucks.
“Then, after a second tour in the Navy during the Korean callback and two years managing a small theater in Vermont, where he met his wife, Jarvis returned to Rhode Island and got the opportunity to run his own moviehouse in his home town. It was 1955 and the theater, which he leased, was the old 400-seat Lyric in Riverside.
“"This was a time when television was really hurting us,” Jarvis said. Another problem was the theater’s location off Maple Avenue, on the wrong side of the tracks. “Riverside used to be a tough neighborhood and it was really something to get people to go down there.”
“Jarvis changed the theater’s name from Lyric to Gilbert Stuart and began a campaign to clean up its image. If the movie-going crowd was tough, so was Jarvis, remembers Providence native John E. Connors, now city manager in Newport. "He used to haul kids right out the front door.”
“He also immersed himself in community affairs and served a term on the East Providence School Committee. His most successful public relations effort was a series of ads he’d write about coming attractions, giving his own critiques of shows he’d seen at the first-run houses in Providence. The technique worked so well MGM asked him to travel around the country and speak to other theater owners.
“In many ways it was an idyllic time. Known and respected in the community, Jarvis was happy with his life and his business. "It was a family affair. My wife (Joanne) sold tickets for me,” he said.
“In 1965, the opening of the two-screen Four Season Cinema in Rumford by the Esquire group forced the closing of the Gilbert Stuart. Jarvis switched over to Esquire as manager of the Four Seasons and his career took on an accelerated pace.
“"When they built the Four Seasons, they were the first suburban theaters to become first-run in Rhode Island,” he said. As the downtown Providence area went into decline and emphasis shifted to outlying communities, Jarvis became district manager for Esquire, in charge of theaters in Pawtucket, Smithfield, Middletown and elsewhere. The life was fast, with a lot of traveling and no shortages of acquaintances happy to accept the free movie passes Jarvis handed out.
“But he still didn’t have a theater of his own, so in 1975 he bought the run-down Strand in Newport, once part of the Esquire chain. "When they found out that I bought it, they let me go,” he said.
“Jarvis tided himself over by working for B.A. Dario at Loew’s State in Providence for a year while renovating the Strand. "It was terrible. I wanted to give it a new image and with a new image, I wanted a new name. Jane Pickens, a singing and stage star of the 1940s, agreed to lend her name if he promised never to show X-rated films, a proviso he had no difficulty meeting. "I wouldn’t run a theater if I had to bring in X-rated movies to make a living,” he said.
“Nor would he attract much of a following in Newport. "The audience here in Newport, they know what they want to see. They enjoy the better film,” he said. Knowing this, Jarvis, who prefers a good comedy himself, tries “not to get the run-of-the-mill picture – more of a class picture.”
“As the owner of one of the last, certainly largest, single-screen cinemas in the state, Jarvis has little margin for error in selecting movies. After previewing a film in Boston, where the major studios maintain offices, he offers a bid price, which often requires a cash advance, along with a guarantee of playing time.
“If he books a flop, as he did several years ago with "Alien,” a science fiction movie, he loses money for the duration, with no extra screens to offset the loss. Sometimes he wins, outbidding the big chains for a sleeper like “E.T.” “I won that bid,” he said. “It ran for about 14 weeks.”
“Adding a screen or two would give him more flexibility, but his clientele, in a survey he conducted last year, let him know emphatically they wanted the theater kept whole. Aside from offering "a clean house and a big screen,” Jarvis, the promoter, provides his customers a little extra.
“On Wednesday and Saturday evenings, theater goers are treated to pipe organ music by members of the Southeastern New England Theater Society. The organ is a 1926 Marr-Colton symphonic registrator originally used to accompany silent films. It was rescued from a New London, Conn., theater by the society and given a home at the Pickens several years ago.
“Last year, Jarvis also provided a late-evening home to Flickers, the Newport Film Society, which has its own art film following. Last summer, he gave customers a taste of bygone days by opening up the balcony, a policy he will renew this summer.
“In his 50th year in the business, Jarvis and his family – his wife still works beside him – have found their own home at the Jane Pickens. "When I was starting out, I thought, ‘When I get older I’m going to get a theater of my own, or a chain of my own.’ I never got a chain, but I certainly have a theater of my own and I’m very happy.”"