<<< “This theater was opened [as] a single screen theater by Cinema Centers in the early-1970’s and was then expanded to four and later to seven screens.” >>>
The Southland’s screen-count history as described in the intro fails to account for the period of time when it was a twin.
Mike, I think you misunderstood what I wrote (or perhaps I wasn’t clear), so let’s try again: Yes, the theater expanded to four screens (sometime between 1977 and 1981), but the expansion to four screens was from three screens (not from two screens as implied in the intro write-up).
I was not disputing your claim that the theater, in the ‘80s, was a four-screener; I was simply pointing out that, during part of the 1970s, the place operated as a three-screener. (See my “Jaws” article for a reference to it being a three-screener.)
As such, I think “Royal Park Cinema 3” ought to be included as an alternate name at the top of the page.
Referencing archived issues of the Cape Girardeau newspaper, I can add/clarify the following:
1) The city name is misspelled twice in the header (which may explain why it won’t map properly).
2) The correct name of the theater, at the time of its opening, was “West Park 4 Cine” (West Park as two words and with accent symbol over the “e” in Cine).
3) The original operator was Wehrenberg Theatres.
4) The theater’s grand opening was May 13, 1983. (A Preview Grand Opening was held May 11-12, 1983.)
5) Debut bookings were “Blue Thunder,” “E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial,” “Breathless,” and “Something Wicked This Way Comes.”
I believe the official two-letter abbreviation for Nebraska is NE, rather than NB, so as to avoid confusion with the Canadian province of New Brunswick.
I wasn't aware that the Tower received a second print
it was most likely that you ran an oiriginal road show print. nothing was missing, and that the Tower did not receive a shorter print
Didn’t you guys read the introduction to the list where the running time issue was addressed? Anyway…the Tower in Houston (and the other theaters that opened “The Alamo” as a hard ticket attraction) did in fact screen a shorter print at a point during its run. The film started its exhibition life at 202 minutes but within a matter of weeks it was shortened by over thirty minutes.
If this is the same theater that I have listed in my JAWS anniversary retrospective, then I can confirm it was operated by ABC Interstate in the mid-1970s.
By the end of the ‘70s it would have become a Plitt, and, if it stayed open into the late-1980s, a Cineplex-Odeon. Whether it began life as a Jerry Lewis operation I couldn’t say.
And, not to be too picky, but the screen numbers according to newspaper promotion were “1 & 2” (not “I & II”) and “Wichita Falls” was not a part of the name.
Film Effects of Hollywood was Linwood Dunn’s company. Prints of the 70mm version still exist but are faded. However, the 65mm internegative is the source of a digital version of THIS IS CINERAMA that David Strohmaier is currently working on. Like WINDJAMMER, it will ultimately be released on DVD in Dave’s patented “Smilebox” format, which simulates the effect of seeing these films on a deep curved screen.
Well said? I’m not so sure. Walczak took five paragraphs to write what he could’ve stated in a single sentence. The single-sentence version of his opinion on this matter may as well have read something like, “Accuracy does not matter here at Cinema Treasures.”
Film historian Rick Mitchell sent me and some of his friends this write-up about the Dome’s recent screening of WINDJAMMER. Rick has given me permission to post it here for you to read.
WINDJAMMER: THE VOYAGE OF THE CHRISTIAN RADICH sailed across the screen of the Cinerama Dome Sunday morning, Sept. 5, 52 years and some months after it first sailed across the screen of the reasonably close by Chinese Theater, then from three synchronized panels of 35mm film, this time digitally from a 35mm anamorphic print combining all three panels. It had been filmed in CineMiracle, a rival process to Cinerama developed by National Theaters, the only film in the process, which was later bought out by Cinerama. The only real difference between the two processes was that the side CineMiracle cameras were aimed at mirrors, which minimized some of the problems with Cinerama. Projection was also done via mirrors and the projectors could be installed in one booth, as opposed to the three needed for Cinerama. (I won’t go further into technical details, which can best be found at widescreenmuseum.com.) Because of the similarities in the processes, most screenings of WINDJAMMER were held in Cinerama theaters.
WINDJAMMER was produced by Louis De Rochemont whom had been a producer for THE MARCH OF TIMES newsreels of the Thirties, which occasionally dramatized events or aspects of events that had not been recorded by motion picture cameras. In the mid-Forties he transformed this approach into a series of what came to be known as semi-documentaries, dramatizations of real life, usually crime stories, such as THE HOUSE ON 92ND STREET (1945), 13 RUE MADELEINE (1946), and WALK EAST ON BEACON (1951). This mixture of documentary and dramatization was apparently a key aspect of his approach to the second Cinerama film CINERAMA HOLIDAY (1955), which contrasted the adventures of an American couple in Europe and an English couple in the United States, and WINDJAMMER, dealing with a round trip voyage of a ship full of Norwegian cadets to the Caribbean and back, is clearly an expansion of that idea.
The film is in many ways a relic of its time and an interesting reminder of a peaceful calmer period, despite an interlude with the United States Navy, which does include a POV of a submarine diving and surfacing, which David Lean reportedly called the greatest shot he’d ever seen. THIS IS CINERAMA had of course set the pattern for these films and given the unavailability of others, it’s difficult to really put WINDJAMMER in perspective. TIC was essentially an experiment, to a large extent cobbled together. WINDJAMMER is more structured and many of the events depicted in the film are obviously preplanned, some clearly scripted, albeit likely the night before. The obviousness of these may be a problem for those who’ve grown up with the supposedly realistic “cinema verite” documentaries introduced in the Sixties, or worse, today’s reality tv. As in TIC, there are “human interest” bits that often seem a bit hokey today, such as when the ship’s mascot goes ashore on its own and has to be tracked down. And the cadet who is also a piano student who hopes to get a letter of commendation from Arthur Fiedler and ends up playing with him.
What really excites is the photography of the ship and the onboard activities of the cadets. Given the size and weight of the camera, it’s amazing the shots the crew, which included Gordon Willis, obtained, including shots from up in the rigging. And although they built sets for a few shots, it’s amazing the shots they did get not only inside the Christian Radich, but also inside the US submarine and a battleship. Interestingly, unlike with Cinerama as late as its last two films, composition and staging was not based around hiding the dividing lines but on the best composition for the shot. Like Cinerama, the exclusive use of 27mm lenses sometimes leads to awkward results when subjects get too close to the camera. But at other times, the images on a big wide screen have an impact almost never seen in contemporary films with their overuse of tight long lens closeups. And as the film is not sliced and diced, one is allowed time to really soak in the images. This is particularly noticeable in several songs, with the singers spread across the screen, all played out in a single shot and you don’t miss not having a cut within it. The only exception to this approach was a sequence celebrating New York City done by a famous cameraman of the time, Weegee. These were quick cuts done with an image in each panel as in a triptych in the manner that would become briefly popular after a version of the technique was later used in the World’s Fair film A PLACE TO STAND (1967).
WINDJAMMER may actually have been the most popular of the films shot in three panel processes, getting international bookings as late as 1968. And, aside from the dramatic Cinerama films, it was the one most likely to have a life beyond roadshow engagements. In response to requests for it, Pacific Theaters, which got the rights to the film when it bought Cinerama, Inc., considered a trial revival in the early Seventies, it might have been the first three panel film to play the Cinerama Dome, but there were technical complications. Instead, they booked a run using only the center panel at the Dome and the audience nearly rioted. However, there was interest in a 35mm anamorphic release in Europe and so Linwood Dunn, ASC generated an internegative for this by rear projecting a CineMiracle print using three Cinerama projectors. (Dunn had done the 65mm internegative of THIS IS CINERAMA; there is some debate about the chronology of this vs. WINDJAMMER, also the method he used. He told me personally that he had he had used rear projection for the TIC conversation but other sources claim he did that on an optical printer. However, prints were used in that instance as well.) A badly faded print from this internegative in the archives of the Swedish Film Institute became the source of this “reconstruction” supervised by David “Cinerama” Strohmaier.
The print was telecined and color corrected and cleaned up as much as possible by Dave and Greg Kimble. The seven track stereo master had been preserved in the late Nineties and had to be slowed down and pitch corrected to properly sync with the picture, which had been shot at Cinerama’s 26 fps but had been transferred at 24 fps. (This has been done for the tracks used for contemporary screenings of TIC.) They were able to get the 35mm prologue, which the Swedish Institute print didn’t have, from a collector, and the venerable Martin Hart of widescreenmuseum.com reconstructed credits that were missing. (This is a simplified condensation of a process that took an amazing six months!) The goal at this point is to ultimately release the film on Blu-Ray DVD in Dave and Greg’s patented “Smilebox” format, which recreates the effect of seeing these films on a deep curved screen, with a 5.1 stereo track, but…
The Dome presentation used an HD version which has also been successfully shown in Oslo and Copenhagen. A 2K projector was used, and given the source material, looked extremely good on the Dome’s huge screen. Jeanne and George Roper Performing Arts Center attended, including many from out-of-town and out-of-the US, quite a turnout for a screening advertised entirely by word-of-mouth! A digital cinema version is being made available for revival houses and other interested venues, meaning, after 52 years WINDJAMMER may finally sail across a screen in my hometown of Lexington, KY!
Why do some of you guys insist on referencing Rivest? It would appear you Rivest supporters have been hypnotized by the sheer quantity of information in his work and are oblivious to issues of quality. Haven’t enough people pointed out how flawed, plagiaristic and unreliable a resource it is? I mean, even Chuck, of all people, has pointed out on another page how unreliable Rivest’s work can be. How ironic is that??!!
I guess if you are going to continue to quote Rivest, or anyone for that matter, may I suggest at least showing readers the courtesy of citing the source in your comment instead of writing generic crap like “here’s what I found…” or “from what I’ve read….”
In my JAWS anniversary article posted a couple of months ago, I have a reference to an Alexandria Mall Cinema I & II. If this twin evolved into the sixplex being described above then it opened a lot sooner than the ‘80s as claimed in the intro.
CWalczak: Where did you get the GCC and mid-80s opening claim? Was that published somewhere, or was that guesswork? Or do you believe this is an entirely different theater than the one mentioned in my JAWS list?
Chief Jensen, I’m shocked you didn’t quote the Rivest material as you often do! :–)
It’s a good thing, Chief, you didn’t quote Rivest, in this case, as he has the theater name misspelled as Trylon and cites an erroneous 1975 closing date. It would appear the guy who wrote and submitted the intro write-up referenced Rivest, as so many CT contributors, unfortunately, have a habit of doing.
Now that the theater name has been corrected/updated, can we fix the closing date detail?
Chuck…I can understand how you were misled, but the fact is the drive-in you looked up on drive-ins.com is different than the one Rogers submitted. Rogers' submission opened in 1969 and was located on Reidville Circle off I-26, whereas the one you described was built in the 1940s, was located on U.S. 29 Greenville Highway and had previously operated as the Scenic Drive-In.
Opened in 1985??? That sounds like typically questionable Rivest data.
I don’t have an exact opening date, but I do have data from 1977 indicating it was operating then (as a three-screener). So, it opened at least eight years before the 1985 claim. (I wonder if Rivest’s 1985 claim is actually a typo for 1975?)
Photos and grand-opening newspaper ads can be found here.
<<< “This theater was opened [as] a single screen theater by Cinema Centers in the early-1970’s and was then expanded to four and later to seven screens.” >>>
The Southland’s screen-count history as described in the intro fails to account for the period of time when it was a twin.
This theater already has a page on Cinema Treasures.
/theaters/7509/
Irvin Kershner, 1923-2010
<<< “The name in the header should be Fox East Hill.” >>>
“Hill” needs to be plural (“Fox East Hills”).
Am I the only one who has noticed the frequency in which JAlex corrects St. Louis area theater information posted by Chuck?
Mike, I think you misunderstood what I wrote (or perhaps I wasn’t clear), so let’s try again: Yes, the theater expanded to four screens (sometime between 1977 and 1981), but the expansion to four screens was from three screens (not from two screens as implied in the intro write-up).
I was not disputing your claim that the theater, in the ‘80s, was a four-screener; I was simply pointing out that, during part of the 1970s, the place operated as a three-screener. (See my “Jaws” article for a reference to it being a three-screener.)
As such, I think “Royal Park Cinema 3” ought to be included as an alternate name at the top of the page.
<<< Opened in the early 1970’s as a twin cinema. It was expanded to four screens by 1980. >>>
In the mid-to-late 1970s this theater had three screens, so I do not see how it could have expanded from two to four screens as claimed.
Referencing archived issues of the Cape Girardeau newspaper, I can add/clarify the following:
1) The city name is misspelled twice in the header (which may explain why it won’t map properly).
2) The correct name of the theater, at the time of its opening, was “West Park 4 Cine” (West Park as two words and with accent symbol over the “e” in Cine).
3) The original operator was Wehrenberg Theatres.
4) The theater’s grand opening was May 13, 1983. (A Preview Grand Opening was held May 11-12, 1983.)
5) Debut bookings were “Blue Thunder,” “E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial,” “Breathless,” and “Something Wicked This Way Comes.”
I believe the official two-letter abbreviation for Nebraska is NE, rather than NB, so as to avoid confusion with the Canadian province of New Brunswick.
Didn’t you guys read the introduction to the list where the running time issue was addressed? Anyway…the Tower in Houston (and the other theaters that opened “The Alamo” as a hard ticket attraction) did in fact screen a shorter print at a point during its run. The film started its exhibition life at 202 minutes but within a matter of weeks it was shortened by over thirty minutes.
If this is the same theater that I have listed in my JAWS anniversary retrospective, then I can confirm it was operated by ABC Interstate in the mid-1970s.
By the end of the ‘70s it would have become a Plitt, and, if it stayed open into the late-1980s, a Cineplex-Odeon. Whether it began life as a Jerry Lewis operation I couldn’t say.
And, not to be too picky, but the screen numbers according to newspaper promotion were “1 & 2” (not “I & II”) and “Wichita Falls” was not a part of the name.
“Spartacus” had its world premiere here fifty years ago today.
Rick Mitchell’s reply:
Film Effects of Hollywood was Linwood Dunn’s company. Prints of the 70mm version still exist but are faded. However, the 65mm internegative is the source of a digital version of THIS IS CINERAMA that David Strohmaier is currently working on. Like WINDJAMMER, it will ultimately be released on DVD in Dave’s patented “Smilebox” format, which simulates the effect of seeing these films on a deep curved screen.
Well said? I’m not so sure. Walczak took five paragraphs to write what he could’ve stated in a single sentence. The single-sentence version of his opinion on this matter may as well have read something like, “Accuracy does not matter here at Cinema Treasures.”
Amateurs.
Film historian Rick Mitchell sent me and some of his friends this write-up about the Dome’s recent screening of WINDJAMMER. Rick has given me permission to post it here for you to read.
WINDJAMMER: THE VOYAGE OF THE CHRISTIAN RADICH sailed across the screen of the Cinerama Dome Sunday morning, Sept. 5, 52 years and some months after it first sailed across the screen of the reasonably close by Chinese Theater, then from three synchronized panels of 35mm film, this time digitally from a 35mm anamorphic print combining all three panels. It had been filmed in CineMiracle, a rival process to Cinerama developed by National Theaters, the only film in the process, which was later bought out by Cinerama. The only real difference between the two processes was that the side CineMiracle cameras were aimed at mirrors, which minimized some of the problems with Cinerama. Projection was also done via mirrors and the projectors could be installed in one booth, as opposed to the three needed for Cinerama. (I won’t go further into technical details, which can best be found at widescreenmuseum.com.) Because of the similarities in the processes, most screenings of WINDJAMMER were held in Cinerama theaters.
WINDJAMMER was produced by Louis De Rochemont whom had been a producer for THE MARCH OF TIMES newsreels of the Thirties, which occasionally dramatized events or aspects of events that had not been recorded by motion picture cameras. In the mid-Forties he transformed this approach into a series of what came to be known as semi-documentaries, dramatizations of real life, usually crime stories, such as THE HOUSE ON 92ND STREET (1945), 13 RUE MADELEINE (1946), and WALK EAST ON BEACON (1951). This mixture of documentary and dramatization was apparently a key aspect of his approach to the second Cinerama film CINERAMA HOLIDAY (1955), which contrasted the adventures of an American couple in Europe and an English couple in the United States, and WINDJAMMER, dealing with a round trip voyage of a ship full of Norwegian cadets to the Caribbean and back, is clearly an expansion of that idea.
The film is in many ways a relic of its time and an interesting reminder of a peaceful calmer period, despite an interlude with the United States Navy, which does include a POV of a submarine diving and surfacing, which David Lean reportedly called the greatest shot he’d ever seen. THIS IS CINERAMA had of course set the pattern for these films and given the unavailability of others, it’s difficult to really put WINDJAMMER in perspective. TIC was essentially an experiment, to a large extent cobbled together. WINDJAMMER is more structured and many of the events depicted in the film are obviously preplanned, some clearly scripted, albeit likely the night before. The obviousness of these may be a problem for those who’ve grown up with the supposedly realistic “cinema verite” documentaries introduced in the Sixties, or worse, today’s reality tv. As in TIC, there are “human interest” bits that often seem a bit hokey today, such as when the ship’s mascot goes ashore on its own and has to be tracked down. And the cadet who is also a piano student who hopes to get a letter of commendation from Arthur Fiedler and ends up playing with him.
What really excites is the photography of the ship and the onboard activities of the cadets. Given the size and weight of the camera, it’s amazing the shots the crew, which included Gordon Willis, obtained, including shots from up in the rigging. And although they built sets for a few shots, it’s amazing the shots they did get not only inside the Christian Radich, but also inside the US submarine and a battleship. Interestingly, unlike with Cinerama as late as its last two films, composition and staging was not based around hiding the dividing lines but on the best composition for the shot. Like Cinerama, the exclusive use of 27mm lenses sometimes leads to awkward results when subjects get too close to the camera. But at other times, the images on a big wide screen have an impact almost never seen in contemporary films with their overuse of tight long lens closeups. And as the film is not sliced and diced, one is allowed time to really soak in the images. This is particularly noticeable in several songs, with the singers spread across the screen, all played out in a single shot and you don’t miss not having a cut within it. The only exception to this approach was a sequence celebrating New York City done by a famous cameraman of the time, Weegee. These were quick cuts done with an image in each panel as in a triptych in the manner that would become briefly popular after a version of the technique was later used in the World’s Fair film A PLACE TO STAND (1967).
WINDJAMMER may actually have been the most popular of the films shot in three panel processes, getting international bookings as late as 1968. And, aside from the dramatic Cinerama films, it was the one most likely to have a life beyond roadshow engagements. In response to requests for it, Pacific Theaters, which got the rights to the film when it bought Cinerama, Inc., considered a trial revival in the early Seventies, it might have been the first three panel film to play the Cinerama Dome, but there were technical complications. Instead, they booked a run using only the center panel at the Dome and the audience nearly rioted. However, there was interest in a 35mm anamorphic release in Europe and so Linwood Dunn, ASC generated an internegative for this by rear projecting a CineMiracle print using three Cinerama projectors. (Dunn had done the 65mm internegative of THIS IS CINERAMA; there is some debate about the chronology of this vs. WINDJAMMER, also the method he used. He told me personally that he had he had used rear projection for the TIC conversation but other sources claim he did that on an optical printer. However, prints were used in that instance as well.) A badly faded print from this internegative in the archives of the Swedish Film Institute became the source of this “reconstruction” supervised by David “Cinerama” Strohmaier.
The print was telecined and color corrected and cleaned up as much as possible by Dave and Greg Kimble. The seven track stereo master had been preserved in the late Nineties and had to be slowed down and pitch corrected to properly sync with the picture, which had been shot at Cinerama’s 26 fps but had been transferred at 24 fps. (This has been done for the tracks used for contemporary screenings of TIC.) They were able to get the 35mm prologue, which the Swedish Institute print didn’t have, from a collector, and the venerable Martin Hart of widescreenmuseum.com reconstructed credits that were missing. (This is a simplified condensation of a process that took an amazing six months!) The goal at this point is to ultimately release the film on Blu-Ray DVD in Dave and Greg’s patented “Smilebox” format, which recreates the effect of seeing these films on a deep curved screen, with a 5.1 stereo track, but…
The Dome presentation used an HD version which has also been successfully shown in Oslo and Copenhagen. A 2K projector was used, and given the source material, looked extremely good on the Dome’s huge screen. Jeanne and George Roper Performing Arts Center attended, including many from out-of-town and out-of-the US, quite a turnout for a screening advertised entirely by word-of-mouth! A digital cinema version is being made available for revival houses and other interested venues, meaning, after 52 years WINDJAMMER may finally sail across a screen in my hometown of Lexington, KY!
Why do some of you guys insist on referencing Rivest? It would appear you Rivest supporters have been hypnotized by the sheer quantity of information in his work and are oblivious to issues of quality. Haven’t enough people pointed out how flawed, plagiaristic and unreliable a resource it is? I mean, even Chuck, of all people, has pointed out on another page how unreliable Rivest’s work can be. How ironic is that??!!
I guess if you are going to continue to quote Rivest, or anyone for that matter, may I suggest at least showing readers the courtesy of citing the source in your comment instead of writing generic crap like “here’s what I found…” or “from what I’ve read….”
In my JAWS anniversary article posted a couple of months ago, I have a reference to an Alexandria Mall Cinema I & II. If this twin evolved into the sixplex being described above then it opened a lot sooner than the ‘80s as claimed in the intro.
CWalczak: Where did you get the GCC and mid-80s opening claim? Was that published somewhere, or was that guesswork? Or do you believe this is an entirely different theater than the one mentioned in my JAWS list?
Chief Jensen, I’m shocked you didn’t quote the Rivest material as you often do! :–)
It’s a good thing, Chief, you didn’t quote Rivest, in this case, as he has the theater name misspelled as Trylon and cites an erroneous 1975 closing date. It would appear the guy who wrote and submitted the intro write-up referenced Rivest, as so many CT contributors, unfortunately, have a habit of doing.
Now that the theater name has been corrected/updated, can we fix the closing date detail?
<<< Trylon Theatre, Also known as Tryon Theatre>>>
Trylon? Any chance that’s a typo? I also suspect this theater closed later than 1975.
This was a triplex by the timeframe described in the intro write-up. Its location may have been in Gretna.
Chuck…I can understand how you were misled, but the fact is the drive-in you looked up on drive-ins.com is different than the one Rogers submitted. Rogers' submission opened in 1969 and was located on Reidville Circle off I-26, whereas the one you described was built in the 1940s, was located on U.S. 29 Greenville Highway and had previously operated as the Scenic Drive-In.
Didn’t “The Other Side Of Midnight” get released in 1977? Perhaps you meant “The Other Side Of The Mountain”?
Opened in 1985??? That sounds like typically questionable Rivest data.
I don’t have an exact opening date, but I do have data from 1977 indicating it was operating then (as a three-screener). So, it opened at least eight years before the 1985 claim. (I wonder if Rivest’s 1985 claim is actually a typo for 1975?)