I saw the enormously controversial Japanese slicing-of-the-penis film, In the Realm of the Senses, here in July of 1977. The “amour fou” tale was directed by Nagisa Oshima. Earlier, I believe its showing at the New York Film Festival had to be cancelled because the print was confiscated by U.S. Customs.
A newspaper article from March, 1970 reported that owner Sully Altieri gave up efforts to show X-rated movies, which entailed a $100 per performance licensing fee, and said that the theatre would “show the kind of movies that people in the area have indicated they like.” The theatre name was changed from Pussycat to Roxy and the policy became family fare. John and Mary, with Mia Farrow and Dustin Hoffman, was put in. Kiddie matinees of other films were added on weekends.
Ron, in answer to your question of July 30th, the last downtown Providence theatre still showing movies before this had to have been PPAC/Loew’s State/Ocean State/Palace, which was still showing movies in the 1980s with repertory and then a short period of first run. Although a performing arts center, it still has special movie events from time to time. The porno-video VIP Luxury Cinema, which closed in 1986, is not under consideration. The Majestic is now Trinity Rep and the Strand is now Diesel. Everything alse has been demolished. The Cable Car Cinema has been operating since 1975 but cannot be truly considered “downtown,” since it is located in the RISD area on South Main Street.
For a while this place became a dollar house and was known as “Movies Warwick.” A newspaper ad from 1982 indicates this. This had to have been its last gasp before demise.
The Narragansett was previously known as the Pier Cinema, and is not to be confused with the earlier single-screen Pier, formerly located in a nearby spot, directly across from the ocean, and demolished before this one was built. In 1982 this theatre had two screens and at one point was showing Annie and E.T.
Rarnold, The Paramount has a page and I would be interested in any additional recollections you may have about the place. As far as period photos of the Paramount go, there were a considerable number seen in the opening day article in the Newport Daily News for August 10, 1929. The paper is available on microfilm at the Newport Public Library. I have been trying to get good quality photos from the Newport Historical Society, so far without luck. I am posting now, on that page, low-quality photos of the theatre front and interior, made from the newspaper microfilm.
Teenage boy comic book blockbusters? Yes, I’m sick of seeing them, or being given scant choice besides them. I saw Stealth last week and almost threw up from the vapid, stupid emptiness. Artie indie? Well, “artie” can be a put-down. Artistic? I’d actually love to see more movies that are truly so. Yesterday I had the pleasure of seeing Ingmar Bergman’s Saraband with the great Liv Ullmann and Erland Josephson. It wasn’t exactly “pleasure” or “entertainment” in the conventional sense, but it was joy, enrichment, and a challenge. What a change after all the summer pap and pablum, a movie that presumes I may have an iota of sensibility, of intelligence. It’s an unusual feeling.
Teenage boy comic book blockbusters? Yes, I’m sick of seeing them, or being given scant choice besides them. I saw Stealth last week and almost threw up from the vapid, stupid emptiness. Artie indie? Well, “artie” can be a put-down. Artistic? I’d actually love to see more movies that are truly so. Yesterday I had the pleasure of seeing Ingmar Bergman’s Saraband with the great Liv Ullmann and Erland Josephson. It wasn’t exactly “pleasure” or “entertainment” in the conventional sense, but it was joy, enrichment, and a challenge. What a change after all the summer pap and pablum, a movie that presumes I may have an iota of sensibility, of intelligence. It’s an unusual feeling.
It should be clearly noted that this place is closed as a cinema. It is a porno shop with videos, magazines, paraphernalia, and booths. It could have been opened anywhere. Instead it was opened inside a former movie theatre.
Yeah, that ridiculous “leg ad” was the common one used for the film in America. Antonio’s wife Maria hardly appears for a moment on the bicycle, and you really don’t see much of her legs. It also carries the implication that she is being abducted by bicycle: bicycle thief = snatcher of women. This poignant tragedy is not about that at all, of course, but sex does sell tickets.
In response to Boxofficebill:
Yes, it refers to the the M.P.A.A.’s refusal to issue a production code seal. Joseph I. Breen, vice president and chief of its production code administration sent a letter to the distributors (Mayer-Burstyn) saying that the movie would receive a “Certificate of Approval” provided that (1) the scene of the little boy [peeing] against the wall, and (2) all the interior shots in the bordello, into which the man chases the thief, were cut out of the picture. I paraphrase from article I have from the New York Times dated March 2, 1950. Burstyn fought, won, and ultimately the seal was granted.
When I first found that picture (I think on the “Images of R.I.” website) I couldn’t make out was the name was…then I went through a list of known Pawtucket theatres and finally made the connection and posted it. Yes, I agree, I’d give all the ugliplexes away for one day at a characterful theatre like this Globe.
I believe I visited this legendary theatre only once, on July 1, 1973, when the James Bond film Live and Let Die was playing. I just realized this place is number 1 on Cinema Treasures, as it may be understandably number one in many people’s affections.
Love the “climactic” finale. Is the name a double-entendre? No matter. Those ads would certainly be nice to look at. I used to clip ads too, but lost a lot of them. I plan to pop into the Fall River Library one of these weeks to peruse microfilm. Some libraries have indexing to articles and I may be able to find additional info, although R.I. theatres occupy most of my scavenging time. If I find nothing else ever on Fall River, I would really like to see photos of the Durfee.
Yes, I always thought it was tragic what happened to downtown Fall River and know that I-195 going right through the belly of the city was responsible for a good deal of it. The place exudes tristesse, if not outright catatonic depression. Tragic too that not even one of its theatres could have been saved and opened as a venue for touring Broadway shows and other entertainments, as Loew’s State (PPAC) is in Providence and the Zeiterion is in New Bedford and even the itsy-bitsy Orpheum in Foxborough. The Durfee might have suited the bill perfectly, had there not been that Godzillian rampage of civic destruction.
I saw the enormously controversial Japanese slicing-of-the-penis film, In the Realm of the Senses, here in July of 1977. The “amour fou” tale was directed by Nagisa Oshima. Earlier, I believe its showing at the New York Film Festival had to be cancelled because the print was confiscated by U.S. Customs.
A newspaper article from March, 1970 reported that owner Sully Altieri gave up efforts to show X-rated movies, which entailed a $100 per performance licensing fee, and said that the theatre would “show the kind of movies that people in the area have indicated they like.” The theatre name was changed from Pussycat to Roxy and the policy became family fare. John and Mary, with Mia Farrow and Dustin Hoffman, was put in. Kiddie matinees of other films were added on weekends.
Ron, in answer to your question of July 30th, the last downtown Providence theatre still showing movies before this had to have been PPAC/Loew’s State/Ocean State/Palace, which was still showing movies in the 1980s with repertory and then a short period of first run. Although a performing arts center, it still has special movie events from time to time. The porno-video VIP Luxury Cinema, which closed in 1986, is not under consideration. The Majestic is now Trinity Rep and the Strand is now Diesel. Everything alse has been demolished. The Cable Car Cinema has been operating since 1975 but cannot be truly considered “downtown,” since it is located in the RISD area on South Main Street.
I thought you wrote “small rats” instead of “mall rats.” That would keep me from going too! On second thought, I’d prefer them to the teenagers.
For a while this place became a dollar house and was known as “Movies Warwick.” A newspaper ad from 1982 indicates this. This had to have been its last gasp before demise.
I agree that it was a pretty nice place, with less hysteria and madness than the biggerplex across the street had. Here is a photo of it now.
The Narragansett was previously known as the Pier Cinema, and is not to be confused with the earlier single-screen Pier, formerly located in a nearby spot, directly across from the ocean, and demolished before this one was built. In 1982 this theatre had two screens and at one point was showing Annie and E.T.
As the Pier Cinema in March, 1970, one of the double bills was the adultish Russ Meyer program of Good Morning…and Goodbye! & Vixen.
A 1929 city directory lists a theatre at this address under the name of Circle Theatre. That must have been the Broadway’s earlier name.
Here are two low-quality photos of the Paramount at the time of its opening in 1929:
EXTERIOR
INTERIOR
Rarnold,
The Paramount has a page and I would be interested in any additional recollections you may have about the place. As far as period photos of the Paramount go, there were a considerable number seen in the opening day article in the Newport Daily News for August 10, 1929. The paper is available on microfilm at the Newport Public Library. I have been trying to get good quality photos from the Newport Historical Society, so far without luck. I am posting now, on that page, low-quality photos of the theatre front and interior, made from the newspaper microfilm.
Teenage boy comic book blockbusters? Yes, I’m sick of seeing them, or being given scant choice besides them. I saw Stealth last week and almost threw up from the vapid, stupid emptiness. Artie indie? Well, “artie” can be a put-down. Artistic? I’d actually love to see more movies that are truly so. Yesterday I had the pleasure of seeing Ingmar Bergman’s Saraband with the great Liv Ullmann and Erland Josephson. It wasn’t exactly “pleasure” or “entertainment” in the conventional sense, but it was joy, enrichment, and a challenge. What a change after all the summer pap and pablum, a movie that presumes I may have an iota of sensibility, of intelligence. It’s an unusual feeling.
Teenage boy comic book blockbusters? Yes, I’m sick of seeing them, or being given scant choice besides them. I saw Stealth last week and almost threw up from the vapid, stupid emptiness. Artie indie? Well, “artie” can be a put-down. Artistic? I’d actually love to see more movies that are truly so. Yesterday I had the pleasure of seeing Ingmar Bergman’s Saraband with the great Liv Ullmann and Erland Josephson. It wasn’t exactly “pleasure” or “entertainment” in the conventional sense, but it was joy, enrichment, and a challenge. What a change after all the summer pap and pablum, a movie that presumes I may have an iota of sensibility, of intelligence. It’s an unusual feeling.
Shouldn’t someone add the Cinémathèque Française at the Palais de Chaillot to Cinema Treasures? I have a photo I took in 1970 of Henri Langlois walking up the steps and I would like to post it.
It should be clearly noted that this place is closed as a cinema. It is a porno shop with videos, magazines, paraphernalia, and booths. It could have been opened anywhere. Instead it was opened inside a former movie theatre.
Yeah, that ridiculous “leg ad” was the common one used for the film in America. Antonio’s wife Maria hardly appears for a moment on the bicycle, and you really don’t see much of her legs. It also carries the implication that she is being abducted by bicycle: bicycle thief = snatcher of women. This poignant tragedy is not about that at all, of course, but sex does sell tickets.
In response to Boxofficebill:
Yes, it refers to the the M.P.A.A.’s refusal to issue a production code seal. Joseph I. Breen, vice president and chief of its production code administration sent a letter to the distributors (Mayer-Burstyn) saying that the movie would receive a “Certificate of Approval” provided that (1) the scene of the little boy [peeing] against the wall, and (2) all the interior shots in the bordello, into which the man chases the thief, were cut out of the picture. I paraphrase from article I have from the New York Times dated March 2, 1950. Burstyn fought, won, and ultimately the seal was granted.
Idiocy that boggles the mind!
Ooops, the ads are right here.
Here are a couple of ads for The Bicycle Thief (Ladri di biciclette) at the World in 1950.
Here is an ad for Shoe Shine (Sciuscià ) from November 22, 1947.
Marialivia, I posted an old Main Street theatre called the Globe. Here it is and with a photo link.
When I first found that picture (I think on the “Images of R.I.” website) I couldn’t make out was the name was…then I went through a list of known Pawtucket theatres and finally made the connection and posted it. Yes, I agree, I’d give all the ugliplexes away for one day at a characterful theatre like this Globe.
At the Fox Hollywood on July 2, 1973, I saw Billy Jack. Only time I visited.
I believe I visited this legendary theatre only once, on July 1, 1973, when the James Bond film Live and Let Die was playing. I just realized this place is number 1 on Cinema Treasures, as it may be understandably number one in many people’s affections.
Love the “climactic” finale. Is the name a double-entendre? No matter. Those ads would certainly be nice to look at. I used to clip ads too, but lost a lot of them. I plan to pop into the Fall River Library one of these weeks to peruse microfilm. Some libraries have indexing to articles and I may be able to find additional info, although R.I. theatres occupy most of my scavenging time. If I find nothing else ever on Fall River, I would really like to see photos of the Durfee.
Yes, I always thought it was tragic what happened to downtown Fall River and know that I-195 going right through the belly of the city was responsible for a good deal of it. The place exudes tristesse, if not outright catatonic depression. Tragic too that not even one of its theatres could have been saved and opened as a venue for touring Broadway shows and other entertainments, as Loew’s State (PPAC) is in Providence and the Zeiterion is in New Bedford and even the itsy-bitsy Orpheum in Foxborough. The Durfee might have suited the bill perfectly, had there not been that Godzillian rampage of civic destruction.