Did EW actually visit all these places and rate them in all their aspects? The Cable Car Cinema in Providence, for example, is appealingly funky but has projection that is infuriatingly inept.
When it was a porno house, the Paris Cinema was managed by William Ikenberry, who was later to manage the relatively short-lived VIP Luxury Cinema on Westminster Mall across from Grace Church.
PROVIDENCE – About 25 people gathered in Grace Church yesterday to discuss what the church’s rector called an issue of “downtown development and planning” – a sex-film theater just across Westminster Mall.
“The significant issue is to determine if this is a bellwether for the way this community is going to go,” the Rev. Daniel Warren of the Episcopal church said later. “We’re not going to shut down theaters of this type. We’re just saying it’s in the wrong place.”
REPRESENTED at the meeting were the Providence Chamber of Commerce, Women Against Violence Against Women, the Westminster Senior Center, Rhode Island Council of Churches, Johnson & Wales College and the Downtown Providence Improvement Association.
Mr. Warren said the VIP Luxury Cinema at 311 Westminster Mall poses a greater threat than the former Paris Cinema or other such businesses in the city, because it’s “10 or 12 steps across the mall from the church,” in the center of the business district and in the immediate vicinity if Johnson & Wales dormitories.
“It will inhibit our ability to carry on programs associated with the church,” he said.
He added that his “ire” is not with the patrons of the theater, but with “the managers and owners who manipulate that kind of exploitation for profit.”
He said, “I have nothing but compassion for the lonely clientele and I invite them here. One minute in Grace Church might be more inspirational.”
A spokesman for Johnson & Wales said the location of the theater next door to a dormitory, with only one wall separating them, was “beyond coincidence.” He said the site was picked to “pander to students.”
ALTHOUGH no concrete plans were made, Mr. Warren said it was “conceivable” that the group would consider picketing the theater.
For now, Mr. warren said, a committee headed by James Fairchild of the Chamber of Commerce will attempt to meeet with the theater’s owners.
The theater is owned by Elmgrove Associates, a limited partnership that is represented by Cranston lawyer George F. McDonald and managed by William Ikenberry, Mr. Warren said. Ikenberry also managed the former Paris Cinema on Weybosset Street, which showed erotic films.
Corporation papers filed with the secretary of satate list Pauline Streeter, 86 Fashion Drive, Warwick, as treasurer of VIP Cinema, Inc. and McDonald as the corporation’s attorney.
“I have no interest, no concern and no reaction,” McDonald said from his Cranston law office Tuesday.
Although the cinema had two screens, the place was always known as the Paris Cinema (not “Cinemas”) throughout its life. Here is an ad announcing the opening day of the Paris Cinema in 1969. It includes a representation of the cinema front.
By RICHARD C. DUJARDIN
Journal-Bulletin Staff Writer
BURRILLVILLE – Declaring that “we can’t take it any longer,” the operators of Burrillville’s only movie theater announced Friday night that starting immediately they will refuse to admit any youths into the theater for any film regardless of the rating unless they are accompanied by an adult.
The new policy began Friday when the operators turned away about 100 youngsters who had come to see the PG-rated ‘Towering Inferno.’
“I feel bad for all the good kids,” Mrs. Ann Votolato explained, “But we couldn’t take the hassle from the teenagers year after year. People were complaining they couldn’t see the movie because of the noise. Some kids were coming in drunk with bottles.”
Mrs. Votolato and her husband Mario, who have been operating the town-owned movie theater for 10 years, said the new policy will be in effect for both matinee and evening performances.
“The only exception may be Walt Disney movies,” Mrs. Votolato said, “but we may even pull out the Walt Disney films so we don’t have that problem.”
Until now the movie house has specialized in G and PG-rated films, while showing an R-rated film occasionaly.
“It’s a big step,” Votolato commented. “But it was either this or close the theater. We’ve lost just about all our adult business. Now maybe we can start building up our adult trade again. People didn’t want to come here any more because it was a zoo.”
The theater operator said youths have brought drugs into the theater, have vandalized bathrooms and have also on occasion stolen car batteries and thrown dirt into the gas tanks of cars while people have been patronizing the theater.
After the theater initiated its policy, a large number of youngsters congregated outside the steps of the town hall to complain to council members who were holding their regular monthly meeting.
Several councilmen voiced concern about the policy, saying they wonderered whether it was [fair to those youngsters] who weren’t causing trouble.
A delegation, led by council president Richard J. Hodson, visited the theater owner later in the night. But after the Votolatos explained the problem, they came aways more or less agreeing that the operators had to take some steps.
A September, 1975 newspaper ad shared with the Boro Drive-In in South Attleboro, Massachusetts, promotes Games Guys Play along with Games Girls Play and the third feature, Roommates. $4.00 a carload.
A September, 1975 newspaper ad shared with the Quonset Drive-In in North Kingstown, RI, promotes Games Guys Play along with Games Girls Play and the third feature, Roommates. $4.00 a carload.
An article in the Providence Journal of September 16, 1976 reported the projected opening of the Cable Car that was set for October 20. The piece quoted a description of the new cinema by owner/creator Raymond Bilodeau as being a place of “rugged architecture and elegance.” The place seems actually to have opened, quietly, around October 30, 1976 when the first feature shown was Luther, a film in the American Film Theatre series which had previously been shown in Rhode Island. The cinema, formerly a garage, was to have armchairs, love seats and sofas and a seating capacity of 130.
For the finale of the 9th R.I. International Film Festival this evening at the Columbus Theatre, the presentation was a 35mm copy of the two-strip Technicolor version of the 1926 The Black Pirate with Douglas Fairbanks. It was a wonder to behold. 1926 was the year the Columbus opened and this was the festival’s tribute to the place. The accompanying music was provided by the unique Alloy Orchestra.
Preceding the feature was a surviving fragment of the 1916 My Lady of the Lilacs, made by the Rhode Island company called Eastern Film Corporation and now preserved by the Rhode Island Historical Society.
Yes, it is tame…and I believe you are right about the belated importation and the timing of the release with Lamarr’s burgeoning popularity. I’ve seen it a couple of times over the years and I believe it has been shown on TCM. DVDs are available through Amazon.com and other outlets.
The Ken Loach film Poor Cow was playing its second week here at the beginning of May, 1968. This was an unusual art-house type booking for this former neighborhood theatre.
An editorial by David Brussat in the Providence Journal of March 17, 1994 suggested the site of the former Rialto Theatre as the place to put a movie theatre in the then cinema-less downtown. One suggestion was for a multiplex at the site; another was for a single-screen “blockbuster house.” At the time plans were already underway to bring movie theatres to the proposed new mall at Providence Place, and this Rialto-revived facility never materialized. Here is an artist’s conception of what the front might looked like on the Mathewson Street theatre, whose front portion is all that remains of the otherwise demolished place. When the Providence Place Cinemas 16 and the Feinstein IMAX opened at the mall about six years later, the hope for new movie theatres for downtown Providence finally materialized, but not here.
The Paris Cinema opened as a single screen theatre on Wednesday, November 26, 1969. I went to the movie on opening day, The Madwoman of Chaillot with Katherine Hepburn, billed as an exclusive engagement. Screenings were continuous from 12 noon. The cinema was advertised as “The First New Theatre in Downtown Providence in Over 25 Years!” The place subsequently had two screens, but it was not the case of a large auditorium being twinned, just that the second of the side-by-side auditoriums was not ready yet or had not been added yet at the time of opening.
Pawtucket Ecstasy ban:
From a July 29, 1939 Providence Journal article:
“Representative Hary F. Curvin, Public Safety Director in Pawtucket, yesterday banned the foreign-mde film ‘Ecstasy.’ because, he said, ‘it is sensuous—-would be detrimental to the morality of the youth of Pawtucket—-saturated with immorality.’
“The film stars Hedy Lamarr. Under the Curvin ban it cannot be shown in Pawtucket. It was billed for a run at the Capitol Theatre, opening Monday.
“Curvin notified Hyman Rodman, manager of the theatre, Thursday that he would not allow the film to be shown in Pawtucket. Curvin said that he had not seen the movie but had been prompted in his ruling by similar rulings in some other communities.
“Rodman asked Curvin to pre-view the movie. Curvin did so Thursday night. Early yesterday morning, after watching the film run off with Inspector Vincent Hourigan, Curvin told Rodman he was more convinced than ever that the film must not be shown in the city.”
The manager told me that singer Jerry Vale was in the audience for the Buddy premiere. He had sung in a concert at the theatre a good number of years before.
Ads for the theatre often said “next to Public Market.” The building that was Public Market had contained, on the second floor, the concert hall called Music Hall. Music Hall shut after a 1905 fire. The market survived, after some building modifications, until 1955 when it was demolished.
Last night the Columbus Theatre, playing host to the Rhode Island International Film Festival, premiered the documentary film Buddy, by Cherry Arnold. The movie is about former Providence Major Vincent A. “Buddy” Cianci, Jr., now serving time in prison on a criminal racketeering conviction. Ironically, when Cianci was mayor, he had tried to shut down the Columbus Theatre, which was then a porno house, and wanted to turn it into a high school for the performing arts. Here is a Providence Journal article reporting on the premiere.
March of the Penguins has been here for over three weeks now. Films play one, two, three weeks usually and there are generally two different films with separate admissions. No more repertory. Revivals are extremely rare, except sometimes for the weekend midnight shows. After movies leave here, they often play at the Cable Car Cinema on South Main Street. The Cable Car is pretty much a move-over house but with occasional exclusive first-runs, like the French Happily Ever After which is there now. Some of the Avon movies do play elsewhere in Rhode Island, usually at the Jane Pickens Theatre in Newport. It too is an art house, and some of their shows are simultaneous with the ones at the Avon.
Did EW actually visit all these places and rate them in all their aspects? The Cable Car Cinema in Providence, for example, is appealingly funky but has projection that is infuriatingly inept.
When it was a porno house, the Paris Cinema was managed by William Ikenberry, who was later to manage the relatively short-lived VIP Luxury Cinema on Westminster Mall across from Grace Church.
from the Providence Journal, July 13, 1984:
Providence group decries site of sex-film theater
By WENDY KILLEEN
Journal-Bulletin Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE – About 25 people gathered in Grace Church yesterday to discuss what the church’s rector called an issue of “downtown development and planning” – a sex-film theater just across Westminster Mall.
“The significant issue is to determine if this is a bellwether for the way this community is going to go,” the Rev. Daniel Warren of the Episcopal church said later. “We’re not going to shut down theaters of this type. We’re just saying it’s in the wrong place.”
REPRESENTED at the meeting were the Providence Chamber of Commerce, Women Against Violence Against Women, the Westminster Senior Center, Rhode Island Council of Churches, Johnson & Wales College and the Downtown Providence Improvement Association.
Mr. Warren said the VIP Luxury Cinema at 311 Westminster Mall poses a greater threat than the former Paris Cinema or other such businesses in the city, because it’s “10 or 12 steps across the mall from the church,” in the center of the business district and in the immediate vicinity if Johnson & Wales dormitories.
“It will inhibit our ability to carry on programs associated with the church,” he said.
He added that his “ire” is not with the patrons of the theater, but with “the managers and owners who manipulate that kind of exploitation for profit.”
He said, “I have nothing but compassion for the lonely clientele and I invite them here. One minute in Grace Church might be more inspirational.”
A spokesman for Johnson & Wales said the location of the theater next door to a dormitory, with only one wall separating them, was “beyond coincidence.” He said the site was picked to “pander to students.”
ALTHOUGH no concrete plans were made, Mr. Warren said it was “conceivable” that the group would consider picketing the theater.
For now, Mr. warren said, a committee headed by James Fairchild of the Chamber of Commerce will attempt to meeet with the theater’s owners.
The theater is owned by Elmgrove Associates, a limited partnership that is represented by Cranston lawyer George F. McDonald and managed by William Ikenberry, Mr. Warren said. Ikenberry also managed the former Paris Cinema on Weybosset Street, which showed erotic films.
Corporation papers filed with the secretary of satate list Pauline Streeter, 86 Fashion Drive, Warwick, as treasurer of VIP Cinema, Inc. and McDonald as the corporation’s attorney.
“I have no interest, no concern and no reaction,” McDonald said from his Cranston law office Tuesday.
Although the cinema had two screens, the place was always known as the Paris Cinema (not “Cinemas”) throughout its life. Here is an ad announcing the opening day of the Paris Cinema in 1969. It includes a representation of the cinema front.
from the Providence Journal, September 28, 1975:
Movie house hassle brings youth ban
By RICHARD C. DUJARDIN
Journal-Bulletin Staff Writer
BURRILLVILLE – Declaring that “we can’t take it any longer,” the operators of Burrillville’s only movie theater announced Friday night that starting immediately they will refuse to admit any youths into the theater for any film regardless of the rating unless they are accompanied by an adult.
The new policy began Friday when the operators turned away about 100 youngsters who had come to see the PG-rated ‘Towering Inferno.’
“I feel bad for all the good kids,” Mrs. Ann Votolato explained, “But we couldn’t take the hassle from the teenagers year after year. People were complaining they couldn’t see the movie because of the noise. Some kids were coming in drunk with bottles.”
Mrs. Votolato and her husband Mario, who have been operating the town-owned movie theater for 10 years, said the new policy will be in effect for both matinee and evening performances.
“The only exception may be Walt Disney movies,” Mrs. Votolato said, “but we may even pull out the Walt Disney films so we don’t have that problem.”
Until now the movie house has specialized in G and PG-rated films, while showing an R-rated film occasionaly.
“It’s a big step,” Votolato commented. “But it was either this or close the theater. We’ve lost just about all our adult business. Now maybe we can start building up our adult trade again. People didn’t want to come here any more because it was a zoo.”
The theater operator said youths have brought drugs into the theater, have vandalized bathrooms and have also on occasion stolen car batteries and thrown dirt into the gas tanks of cars while people have been patronizing the theater.
After the theater initiated its policy, a large number of youngsters congregated outside the steps of the town hall to complain to council members who were holding their regular monthly meeting.
Several councilmen voiced concern about the policy, saying they wonderered whether it was [fair to those youngsters] who weren’t causing trouble.
A delegation, led by council president Richard J. Hodson, visited the theater owner later in the night. But after the Votolatos explained the problem, they came aways more or less agreeing that the operators had to take some steps.
In September of 1975 the Darlton was a discount house showing Bite the Bullet for $1.00.
A September, 1975 newspaper ad shared with the Boro Drive-In in South Attleboro, Massachusetts, promotes Games Guys Play along with Games Girls Play and the third feature, Roommates. $4.00 a carload.
A September, 1975 newspaper ad shared with the Quonset Drive-In in North Kingstown, RI, promotes Games Guys Play along with Games Girls Play and the third feature, Roommates. $4.00 a carload.
Opening of the Cable Car Cinema
An article in the Providence Journal of September 16, 1976 reported the projected opening of the Cable Car that was set for October 20. The piece quoted a description of the new cinema by owner/creator Raymond Bilodeau as being a place of “rugged architecture and elegance.” The place seems actually to have opened, quietly, around October 30, 1976 when the first feature shown was Luther, a film in the American Film Theatre series which had previously been shown in Rhode Island. The cinema, formerly a garage, was to have armchairs, love seats and sofas and a seating capacity of 130.
In fact, the theatre had a seating capacity that was more like 175 initially and was reduced to about 130 about fifteen years later when the place was modified to accomodate café tables to the right of the open projection booth and a kitchen was carved out of one of the former two bathrooms and part of the rear of the auditorium.
The location where the theatre once existed is now the parking lot for Gasbarro’s Liquors.
For the finale of the 9th R.I. International Film Festival this evening at the Columbus Theatre, the presentation was a 35mm copy of the two-strip Technicolor version of the 1926 The Black Pirate with Douglas Fairbanks. It was a wonder to behold. 1926 was the year the Columbus opened and this was the festival’s tribute to the place. The accompanying music was provided by the unique Alloy Orchestra.
Preceding the feature was a surviving fragment of the 1916 My Lady of the Lilacs, made by the Rhode Island company called Eastern Film Corporation and now preserved by the Rhode Island Historical Society.
Yes, it is tame…and I believe you are right about the belated importation and the timing of the release with Lamarr’s burgeoning popularity. I’ve seen it a couple of times over the years and I believe it has been shown on TCM. DVDs are available through Amazon.com and other outlets.
Oddly, the film did not open in New York until Christmas of 1940, judging from the date of the New York Times review.
The Ken Loach film Poor Cow was playing its second week here at the beginning of May, 1968. This was an unusual art-house type booking for this former neighborhood theatre.
On May 1st, 1968 the film The Graduate was in its twelfth week here.
In May of 1968 the Route 44 Drive-In was showing the immortal double bill of Mondo Freudo & The Pleasure Girls.
In May of 1968 the Pike was showing the immortal Mondo Freudo & The Festival Girls.
An editorial by David Brussat in the Providence Journal of March 17, 1994 suggested the site of the former Rialto Theatre as the place to put a movie theatre in the then cinema-less downtown. One suggestion was for a multiplex at the site; another was for a single-screen “blockbuster house.” At the time plans were already underway to bring movie theatres to the proposed new mall at Providence Place, and this Rialto-revived facility never materialized. Here is an artist’s conception of what the front might looked like on the Mathewson Street theatre, whose front portion is all that remains of the otherwise demolished place. When the Providence Place Cinemas 16 and the Feinstein IMAX opened at the mall about six years later, the hope for new movie theatres for downtown Providence finally materialized, but not here.
The Paris Cinema opened as a single screen theatre on Wednesday, November 26, 1969. I went to the movie on opening day, The Madwoman of Chaillot with Katherine Hepburn, billed as an exclusive engagement. Screenings were continuous from 12 noon. The cinema was advertised as “The First New Theatre in Downtown Providence in Over 25 Years!” The place subsequently had two screens, but it was not the case of a large auditorium being twinned, just that the second of the side-by-side auditoriums was not ready yet or had not been added yet at the time of opening.
Pawtucket Ecstasy ban:
From a July 29, 1939 Providence Journal article:
“Representative Hary F. Curvin, Public Safety Director in Pawtucket, yesterday banned the foreign-mde film ‘Ecstasy.’ because, he said, ‘it is sensuous—-would be detrimental to the morality of the youth of Pawtucket—-saturated with immorality.’
“The film stars Hedy Lamarr. Under the Curvin ban it cannot be shown in Pawtucket. It was billed for a run at the Capitol Theatre, opening Monday.
“Curvin notified Hyman Rodman, manager of the theatre, Thursday that he would not allow the film to be shown in Pawtucket. Curvin said that he had not seen the movie but had been prompted in his ruling by similar rulings in some other communities.
“Rodman asked Curvin to pre-view the movie. Curvin did so Thursday night. Early yesterday morning, after watching the film run off with Inspector Vincent Hourigan, Curvin told Rodman he was more convinced than ever that the film must not be shown in the city.”
The manager told me that singer Jerry Vale was in the audience for the Buddy premiere. He had sung in a concert at the theatre a good number of years before.
When this was the Burrillville Theatre, a revival run of Gone With the Wind began here on Thanksgiving Day in 1969.
Ads for the theatre often said “next to Public Market.” The building that was Public Market had contained, on the second floor, the concert hall called Music Hall. Music Hall shut after a 1905 fire. The market survived, after some building modifications, until 1955 when it was demolished.
Last night the Columbus Theatre, playing host to the Rhode Island International Film Festival, premiered the documentary film Buddy, by Cherry Arnold. The movie is about former Providence Major Vincent A. “Buddy” Cianci, Jr., now serving time in prison on a criminal racketeering conviction. Ironically, when Cianci was mayor, he had tried to shut down the Columbus Theatre, which was then a porno house, and wanted to turn it into a high school for the performing arts. Here is a Providence Journal article reporting on the premiere.
March of the Penguins has been here for over three weeks now. Films play one, two, three weeks usually and there are generally two different films with separate admissions. No more repertory. Revivals are extremely rare, except sometimes for the weekend midnight shows. After movies leave here, they often play at the Cable Car Cinema on South Main Street. The Cable Car is pretty much a move-over house but with occasional exclusive first-runs, like the French Happily Ever After which is there now. Some of the Avon movies do play elsewhere in Rhode Island, usually at the Jane Pickens Theatre in Newport. It too is an art house, and some of their shows are simultaneous with the ones at the Avon.