From Hope Valley Revived – The Recorded Past: Photographs and Oral History (1997)
“Local groups enjoyed putting on plays and dances at Chase’s Hall (formerly called Barber Hall). They had the live wires of the church put on plays and they put on a different play each night that lasted maybe a hour—an hour and a half… And then they had masquerades. They dressed up and it was a dance and you wore masks.” (…) (Hazel Ritchie)
“I found the lease where Anson Clarke leased the whole hall upstairs for use of entertainment, for showing movies, about 1914. He had to have a special arrangement made to have this booth built for showing pictures and there were restrictions on it. That was about 1914 or so. I’ve got a copy of it with the date. but you see the movies didn’t begin until about that time and I remember Anson Clarke coming up to the house trying to induce my folks to go and take us children and my mother didn’t approve of it.” (Gladys Segar)
I visited the place today to see Wedding Crashers. The auditorium I was in seemed to have rather new seats and was very clean and fresh, as must be the case with the rest of the auditoriums. At the entrance to the theatre from inside Harbour Place Mall, there was no large display of titles and starting times, only a bulletin-board size listing. The entrance area is not quite a lobby so much as a disconcerting wide Chunnel into the theatre. The carpeting here has a pattern that is a mixture of film reels and popcorn boxes. I wonder if they want you to buy something to eat? The projection was OK except that about 18 inches of the left side of the Scope image was projected onto black masking not drawn far enough to the left to expose that part of the screen.
I found references to a “Victory Theatre” in Putnam in 1948. But it was suggested that this was probably a (temporary) renaming of the Bradley. Changing the name of a theatre to “Victory” was a common practice after World War II.
RobertR,
Regarding The Savage is Loose…I believe I read that George C. Scott four-walled the Eastside Cinema (or perhaps it was another place in move-over) for an extended period of time to show the film, and it kept playing to a near-empty house. It was a bit of a turkey.
Roger, those are nice photos and I had looked at them before posting the theatre. The rear loft doesn’t show a projection booth. I don’t remember what the projection booth looked like when I went there. Do you know about that? What kind of programming was there in the 1940s? Art-house type films?
I went here to see a film on August 5, 1984 when the Italian film The Basileus Quartet by Fabio Carpi was the program. Rows of moveable seats were on the flat floor. Dark curtains, I believe, covered the windows that are on the hall. The projection was 35mm. They were equipped with both 35mm and 16mm. I noted that the picture was not bright enough and that the sound was not the best. I think the programs were seasonal. I do not remember programs from other years, and this was the only time I went. Perhaps some locals with good memories can give other details on the use of this place as a cinema.
I remember going there three days in a row in July of 1992 to see Cabeza de Vaca, Night on Earth, and The Hairdresser’s Husband. This web page has additional information on the Lumiere and a small photo.
The exact address where the Bijou used to be located is now occupied by a restaurant called Chan’s Fine Oriental Dining, a rather sizable establishment. It has been there for many decades. It looks entirely like a post-Bijou building and none of the original theatre appears to have survived. The location is right next to the railroad overpass on Main Street, behind the historic Woonsocket Depot. Further up Main Street, at Monument Square, is the Stadium Theatre, Woonsocket’s only preserved movie palace. Just beyond the Stadium on the same side but across the square, would have been the Park Theatre/Woonsocket Opera House, destroyed in a 1975 fire.
Among the few films I remember seeing here, one was Imamura’s Black Rain around 1990. It dealt with the aftermath of the Hiroshima bombing and was a very grim film starkly shot in black and white. Another was The Butcher Boy in 1997 with the incredible Eamonn Owens in the title role.
I spoke to a very old gentleman at the hardware store in Pascoag today. He pointed out exactly where the Music Hall used to be, a spot that is now a vacant lot since the theatre’s destruction by fire. He remembered going there to see movies as a youth in the 1940s and enjoying the westerns that were often shown there. He recalled a barber shop and ice cream store in the building. The auditorium was on the second floor.
I spoke to an old gentleman in Pascoag today at the hardware store and he said that the Star was located at or very near the spot where the current Subway sandwich shop is located at 130 Main Street.
This is now a Douglas Wine and Spirits superstore. The interior is, of course, gutted. The exterior of the building is pretty much intact, including the marquee, which is used to promote liquor specials, and the external ticket booth protuberance is still evident. The place could be called Cumberland Alcohol Cinemas.
From the Historical Society of Cheshire Contry website:
“Charles C. Baldwin opened his Colonial Theatre on January 29, 1924, and celebrated the event by entertaining 6,000 people free in the new facility. The new theater caught on as a popular meeting place, as the Woman’s Club held their Washington’s Birthday celebration there in February.”
The Empire had served for a time as a rollerskating rink. In 2003 when I saw Freaky Friday here to a packed house of all ages, this place gave me the feeling, lost for so long, of what it had been like going to a local single-screen movie theatre as part of a community. With the almost Draconian restrictions against “development” rightfully promulgated by conservationists, here’s the last place in the world you will ever see a multiplex, and I say whoopee to that!
The “Images of America” volume The Lower Blackstone Valley says that, after the fire of November 10, 1919 had destroyed nearby St. James Church, this theatre and the Bijou were both used for services.
The “Images of America” volume The Lower Blackstone Valley says that, after the fire of November 10, 1919 had destroyed nearby St. James Church, this theatre and the Manville Opera House were both used for services.
The spoof of Ingmar Bergman movies called “The Dove” or “De Düva” in fake Swedish, is utterly hilarious, especially if you’ve seen Bergman films, particularly of the 1950s and 1960s. It is one of the legendary great shorts, and there are lots of comments on IMDb pertaining to it. There is the bit about a cigar referred to a “phällica symbolë” and one particular line I’ve never forgotten in forty years: “I häve a hërnia.”
Here is a photo of the lobby, stairs, ceiling, rear of the auditorium of the Leroy Theatre.
From Hope Valley Revived – The Recorded Past: Photographs and Oral History (1997)
“Local groups enjoyed putting on plays and dances at Chase’s Hall (formerly called Barber Hall). They had the live wires of the church put on plays and they put on a different play each night that lasted maybe a hour—an hour and a half… And then they had masquerades. They dressed up and it was a dance and you wore masks.” (…) (Hazel Ritchie)
“I found the lease where Anson Clarke leased the whole hall upstairs for use of entertainment, for showing movies, about 1914. He had to have a special arrangement made to have this booth built for showing pictures and there were restrictions on it. That was about 1914 or so. I’ve got a copy of it with the date. but you see the movies didn’t begin until about that time and I remember Anson Clarke coming up to the house trying to induce my folks to go and take us children and my mother didn’t approve of it.” (Gladys Segar)
I visited the place today to see Wedding Crashers. The auditorium I was in seemed to have rather new seats and was very clean and fresh, as must be the case with the rest of the auditoriums. At the entrance to the theatre from inside Harbour Place Mall, there was no large display of titles and starting times, only a bulletin-board size listing. The entrance area is not quite a lobby so much as a disconcerting wide Chunnel into the theatre. The carpeting here has a pattern that is a mixture of film reels and popcorn boxes. I wonder if they want you to buy something to eat? The projection was OK except that about 18 inches of the left side of the Scope image was projected onto black masking not drawn far enough to the left to expose that part of the screen.
I found references to a “Victory Theatre” in Putnam in 1948. But it was suggested that this was probably a (temporary) renaming of the Bradley. Changing the name of a theatre to “Victory” was a common practice after World War II.
RobertR,
Regarding The Savage is Loose…I believe I read that George C. Scott four-walled the Eastside Cinema (or perhaps it was another place in move-over) for an extended period of time to show the film, and it kept playing to a near-empty house. It was a bit of a turkey.
Roger, those are nice photos and I had looked at them before posting the theatre. The rear loft doesn’t show a projection booth. I don’t remember what the projection booth looked like when I went there. Do you know about that? What kind of programming was there in the 1940s? Art-house type films?
I went here to see a film on August 5, 1984 when the Italian film The Basileus Quartet by Fabio Carpi was the program. Rows of moveable seats were on the flat floor. Dark curtains, I believe, covered the windows that are on the hall. The projection was 35mm. They were equipped with both 35mm and 16mm. I noted that the picture was not bright enough and that the sound was not the best. I think the programs were seasonal. I do not remember programs from other years, and this was the only time I went. Perhaps some locals with good memories can give other details on the use of this place as a cinema.
I remember going there three days in a row in July of 1992 to see Cabeza de Vaca, Night on Earth, and The Hairdresser’s Husband. This web page has additional information on the Lumiere and a small photo.
There is a legend has that a ghost haunts the bathrooms in the rear of the theatre building.
Here is a link to a drawing of a proposed Music Hall Pavillion to be erected in the vacant lot where the original Music Hall once stood in Pascoag.
Here is a really not very good photo showing the Scenic in 1938 and taken in the time after a hurricane had rampaged through New England.
The exact address where the Bijou used to be located is now occupied by a restaurant called Chan’s Fine Oriental Dining, a rather sizable establishment. It has been there for many decades. It looks entirely like a post-Bijou building and none of the original theatre appears to have survived. The location is right next to the railroad overpass on Main Street, behind the historic Woonsocket Depot. Further up Main Street, at Monument Square, is the Stadium Theatre, Woonsocket’s only preserved movie palace. Just beyond the Stadium on the same side but across the square, would have been the Park Theatre/Woonsocket Opera House, destroyed in a 1975 fire.
Among the few films I remember seeing here, one was Imamura’s Black Rain around 1990. It dealt with the aftermath of the Hiroshima bombing and was a very grim film starkly shot in black and white. Another was The Butcher Boy in 1997 with the incredible Eamonn Owens in the title role.
I spoke to a very old gentleman at the hardware store in Pascoag today. He pointed out exactly where the Music Hall used to be, a spot that is now a vacant lot since the theatre’s destruction by fire. He remembered going there to see movies as a youth in the 1940s and enjoying the westerns that were often shown there. He recalled a barber shop and ice cream store in the building. The auditorium was on the second floor.
I spoke to an old gentleman in Pascoag today at the hardware store and he said that the Star was located at or very near the spot where the current Subway sandwich shop is located at 130 Main Street.
This web page has a small picture of the Majestic Theatre in the 1920s, I believe.
This is now a Douglas Wine and Spirits superstore. The interior is, of course, gutted. The exterior of the building is pretty much intact, including the marquee, which is used to promote liquor specials, and the external ticket booth protuberance is still evident. The place could be called Cumberland Alcohol Cinemas.
From the Historical Society of Cheshire Contry website:
“Charles C. Baldwin opened his Colonial Theatre on January 29, 1924, and celebrated the event by entertaining 6,000 people free in the new facility. The new theater caught on as a popular meeting place, as the Woman’s Club held their Washington’s Birthday celebration there in February.”
The Empire had served for a time as a rollerskating rink. In 2003 when I saw Freaky Friday here to a packed house of all ages, this place gave me the feeling, lost for so long, of what it had been like going to a local single-screen movie theatre as part of a community. With the almost Draconian restrictions against “development” rightfully promulgated by conservationists, here’s the last place in the world you will ever see a multiplex, and I say whoopee to that!
The “Images of America” volume The Lower Blackstone Valley says that, after the fire of November 10, 1919 had destroyed nearby St. James Church, this theatre and the Bijou were both used for services.
The “Images of America” volume The Lower Blackstone Valley says that, after the fire of November 10, 1919 had destroyed nearby St. James Church, this theatre and the Manville Opera House were both used for services.
The spoof of Ingmar Bergman movies called “The Dove” or “De Düva” in fake Swedish, is utterly hilarious, especially if you’ve seen Bergman films, particularly of the 1950s and 1960s. It is one of the legendary great shorts, and there are lots of comments on IMDb pertaining to it. There is the bit about a cigar referred to a “phällica symbolë” and one particular line I’ve never forgotten in forty years: “I häve a hërnia.”
In 1901 singer/actor Nelson Eddy was born in this neighborhood of Olneyville.
In 1901 singer/actor Nelson Eddy was born in this neighborhood of Olneyville.
In 1901 singer/actor Nelson Eddy was born in this neighborhood of Olneyville.