Fifty years ago today, June 20, 1958, I saw a Mario Lanza double bill at the Uptown Theatre, which was what the Columbus was called then. The films were The Great Caruso and Because You’re Mine. Besides this fact, I noted in my diary that the theatre had a new marquee.
Fifty years ago today on June 18, 1958 I took an early train up to Boston from Providence ($3.41 round trip fare) to spend the day in the city, with a good deal of book-shopping. But the first thing I did was to see a movie musical program of Oklahoma and Carousel at this theatre. The double bill ran from 10 A.M. to 2 P.M., and I paid 60¢ admission. For books I got The Bridge of San Luis Rey, Walden, Life on the Mississippi, A Streetcar Named Desire, Tobacco Road, The Catcher in the Rye. The six books cost a total of $2.30! I want 1958 again.
According to a publicity booklet put out by the Cinema Verdi for the 1944-45 season, this theatre, for a few months starting on January 14, 1944, was renamed the Cinema Verdi, with a policy of Italian films. With the selling of the theatre, “Cinema Verdi” moved to a new home on 8th Avenue at 41st Street in the Arena Theatre.
In June of 1990 this venue was used for a festival of new Italian cinema of the sort that plays the Walter Reade now from time to time. I remember coming down from the galactic hinterlands just to see Nanni Loy’s marvelous Neapolitan musical about street kids, Scugnizzi.
The wonderful new movie documentary, Young @ Heart, about a group of senior citizens from the Northampton area who give great performances of rock music, is worth going out of your way to see. The performance sequence at the end of the movie takes place on the stage of the Academy of Music and includes, in addition to the songs, many shots of the audience and the interior and exterior of this historic theatre.
There was a time in the 1960s or 1970s when the theatre began a policy of showing the work of independent experimental American filmmakers (perhaps Stan Brakhage, etc.) I don’t believe it lasted very long, but I was wondering if anyone could pinpoint that period and its duration.
Weinberg also wrote a Film Culture magazine column called “Coffee, Brandy & Cigars”. A collection of his writings was published under the title Saint Cinema and had a preface by Fritz Lang! I rememember him from some film society organization showings in New York at the U.N. around 1964 when he introduced a bunch of movies.
Actor Alberto Sordi said that after his 1942 film I 3 aquilotti opened at the Barberini, he would pass by every afternoon to watch the patrons going in and out. Someone asked him for an autograph. It was the first one of his life.
Fellini’s 8 ½ program booklet from its showings at the Park Square and Kenmore Square Cinemas. It was eight pages of blurbs and reviews and I saved it.
I just watched the 1945 movie Doll Face with Viviane Blaine and Perry Como. Blaine’s character is in a stage show she is to perform in at the Belmont Theatre in New York. In the last half hour of the movie we see the theatre exterior at night with lights and the theatre name “Belmont” as well as interior shots of stage and audience. I have no way of knowing whether the actual Belmont was used for exterior and interior shooting or whether other locations were employed for either or both. Perhaps it was all done in Hollywood, but it’s supposed to be the Belmont in New York. Perhaps someone can look at the DVD and come to a conclusion.
Nick,
Regarding “art house conversion” coming sometime after Love Story, the Avon had been an art house long before that, briefly after its 1938 opening, then throughout the postwar period up to the later 1960s, when it became more mainstream. The 1970s saw it as a repertory cinema (it was renamed “Avon Repertory Cinema”) and showed double bills of generally classy foreign and domestic films with two or three program changes per week, mostly revivals but with some new ones thrown in.
I remember the 1950s and 1960s when the theatre opened every day at 2:00 P.M. and had continuous showings. Admission back then ranged from 75 to 90 cents. There was no snack concession, probably because they considered themselves to be in the same league as a legit theatre, where people don’t buy candy, popcorn or drinks to eat at their seats. Their motto then was “Choice of the Discerning.” I used to go there as a high school student in the 1950s and would buy a couple of candy bars beforehand at the next door Rexall Drugstore to eat during the show.
There was a taint of the forbidden associated with the cinema at that time, because a number of the films that played there were “condemned” by the Catholic Legion of Decency, which were often films of international acclaim. When I was in the seminary, we were expresssly forbidden from attending the Avon during our breaks because of this reputation it had. But many of us went anyway, and so did priests! The quality of the films shown back then was very high. It still is now, pretty much, though sometimes there is daydating with the Showcase Seekonk Route 6. In its heyday, the Avon ran programs that were exclusive to the area and would play almost nowhere else in Rhode Island.
Times have changed. They have a hard time getting large audiences for anything at the Avon any more, though the size is decent on many shows. It may be heresy, but this is a theatre I think would benefit from multiplexing (or add-ons of small auditoriums up top) with three or four smaller cinemas. They could increase their boxoffice, provide a wider variety of films. Many films that we see trailers or posters for never show up. Others remain far too long. Still, it is an indispensable place for many.
In his satiric 1990 novel A Tenured Professor, John Kenneth Galbraith described a visit by one of his characters to what is clearly the Harvard Square Theatre:
“Walking across the Yard in front of the Widener Library and then along beside Massachusetts Hall, the oldest of Harvard buildings, which now houses the office of the president, he made his way through the traffic in the upper part of Harvard Square. Glancing around out of habit to see that he was unnoticed, he went into the recently refurbished movie theatre. Once one great hall for the display and breathless admiration of Pickford, Chaplin, Swanson, Grant, Cooper and Bacall, it was now divided into five anonymous cubicles, each with its equally anonymous offering. Professor McCrimmon chose one at random and settled down for the afternoon.”
Fifty years ago today, June 20, 1958, I saw a Mario Lanza double bill at the Uptown Theatre, which was what the Columbus was called then. The films were The Great Caruso and Because You’re Mine. Besides this fact, I noted in my diary that the theatre had a new marquee.
Fifty years ago today on June 18, 1958 I took an early train up to Boston from Providence ($3.41 round trip fare) to spend the day in the city, with a good deal of book-shopping. But the first thing I did was to see a movie musical program of Oklahoma and Carousel at this theatre. The double bill ran from 10 A.M. to 2 P.M., and I paid 60¢ admission. For books I got The Bridge of San Luis Rey, Walden, Life on the Mississippi, A Streetcar Named Desire, Tobacco Road, The Catcher in the Rye. The six books cost a total of $2.30! I want 1958 again.
The url doesn’t work for the above.
According to a publicity booklet put out by the Cinema Verdi for the 1944-45 season, this theatre, for a few months starting on January 14, 1944, was renamed the Cinema Verdi, with a policy of Italian films. With the selling of the theatre, “Cinema Verdi” moved to a new home on 8th Avenue at 41st Street in the Arena Theatre.
1966 ad for the Italian film La Visita, when the theatre was known as Cinema Rendezvous.
This film with Marcello Mastroianni opened at the 55th Street Playhouse at the end of May 1959.
The Puccini opera TOSCA at the Trans-Lux Normandie in 1958, reserved seats only.
In June of 1990 this venue was used for a festival of new Italian cinema of the sort that plays the Walter Reade now from time to time. I remember coming down from the galactic hinterlands just to see Nanni Loy’s marvelous Neapolitan musical about street kids, Scugnizzi.
This 1954 Italian film, featuring a young Sophia Loren in one episode, opened at the Paris in early 1957, shorn of two of its six episodes.
The Cable Car Cinema in Providence has featured couch-seating since 1975. This place, however, appears to be a tad more elegant.
The wonderful new movie documentary, Young @ Heart, about a group of senior citizens from the Northampton area who give great performances of rock music, is worth going out of your way to see. The performance sequence at the end of the movie takes place on the stage of the Academy of Music and includes, in addition to the songs, many shots of the audience and the interior and exterior of this historic theatre.
The Agee Screening Room, as it was called, was equipped for 16mm showings only.
There was a time in the 1960s or 1970s when the theatre began a policy of showing the work of independent experimental American filmmakers (perhaps Stan Brakhage, etc.) I don’t believe it lasted very long, but I was wondering if anyone could pinpoint that period and its duration.
Weinberg also wrote a Film Culture magazine column called “Coffee, Brandy & Cigars”. A collection of his writings was published under the title Saint Cinema and had a preface by Fritz Lang! I rememember him from some film society organization showings in New York at the U.N. around 1964 when he introduced a bunch of movies.
Wow! Truly great photo. I saw 2001 there in 1968 and was bowled over both by the film and the stunning presentation on the wide curved screen.
Actor Alberto Sordi said that after his 1942 film I 3 aquilotti opened at the Barberini, he would pass by every afternoon to watch the patrons going in and out. Someone asked him for an autograph. It was the first one of his life.
Here is a vintage postcard, circa 1917, of Emery’s Majestic Theatre as it appeared not long after it opened.
Fellini’s 8 ½ program booklet from its showings at the Park Square and Kenmore Square Cinemas. It was eight pages of blurbs and reviews and I saved it.
An exterior photo can be seen HERE.
I just watched the 1945 movie Doll Face with Viviane Blaine and Perry Como. Blaine’s character is in a stage show she is to perform in at the Belmont Theatre in New York. In the last half hour of the movie we see the theatre exterior at night with lights and the theatre name “Belmont” as well as interior shots of stage and audience. I have no way of knowing whether the actual Belmont was used for exterior and interior shooting or whether other locations were employed for either or both. Perhaps it was all done in Hollywood, but it’s supposed to be the Belmont in New York. Perhaps someone can look at the DVD and come to a conclusion.
Nick,
Regarding “art house conversion” coming sometime after Love Story, the Avon had been an art house long before that, briefly after its 1938 opening, then throughout the postwar period up to the later 1960s, when it became more mainstream. The 1970s saw it as a repertory cinema (it was renamed “Avon Repertory Cinema”) and showed double bills of generally classy foreign and domestic films with two or three program changes per week, mostly revivals but with some new ones thrown in.
I remember the 1950s and 1960s when the theatre opened every day at 2:00 P.M. and had continuous showings. Admission back then ranged from 75 to 90 cents. There was no snack concession, probably because they considered themselves to be in the same league as a legit theatre, where people don’t buy candy, popcorn or drinks to eat at their seats. Their motto then was “Choice of the Discerning.” I used to go there as a high school student in the 1950s and would buy a couple of candy bars beforehand at the next door Rexall Drugstore to eat during the show.
There was a taint of the forbidden associated with the cinema at that time, because a number of the films that played there were “condemned” by the Catholic Legion of Decency, which were often films of international acclaim. When I was in the seminary, we were expresssly forbidden from attending the Avon during our breaks because of this reputation it had. But many of us went anyway, and so did priests! The quality of the films shown back then was very high. It still is now, pretty much, though sometimes there is daydating with the Showcase Seekonk Route 6. In its heyday, the Avon ran programs that were exclusive to the area and would play almost nowhere else in Rhode Island.
Times have changed. They have a hard time getting large audiences for anything at the Avon any more, though the size is decent on many shows. It may be heresy, but this is a theatre I think would benefit from multiplexing (or add-ons of small auditoriums up top) with three or four smaller cinemas. They could increase their boxoffice, provide a wider variety of films. Many films that we see trailers or posters for never show up. Others remain far too long. Still, it is an indispensable place for many.
That exterior display shows a wonderful kind of showmanship that has long disappeared from film exhibition.
I saw Anthony Mann’s The Tin Star, with Henry Fonda and Anthony Perkins, at the Paramount on a trip up from Providence on November 16, 1957.
In his satiric 1990 novel A Tenured Professor, John Kenneth Galbraith described a visit by one of his characters to what is clearly the Harvard Square Theatre:
“Walking across the Yard in front of the Widener Library and then along beside Massachusetts Hall, the oldest of Harvard buildings, which now houses the office of the president, he made his way through the traffic in the upper part of Harvard Square. Glancing around out of habit to see that he was unnoticed, he went into the recently refurbished movie theatre. Once one great hall for the display and breathless admiration of Pickford, Chaplin, Swanson, Grant, Cooper and Bacall, it was now divided into five anonymous cubicles, each with its equally anonymous offering. Professor McCrimmon chose one at random and settled down for the afternoon.”
Review of opening night with Bernadette Peters.