AMC Rockaway Inner 6/Outer 6

@blacknoi – thanks for posting those photos! It’s so rare to see photos from the mall and movie theaters from even just back then even, never mind what the mall looked like back in the 80s, in the age before cellphones.

Believe me guys this theater wasn’t AMC modernization theater , this theater was an original AMC Theatres with the old seats with cup holders since my childhood

Regarding the busiest year, you could make an argument that 1993 with the release of Jurassic Park was the busiest. One of the long-time employees told me that the lines would be huge, wrapping around the stripmall complex all the way down to where the Acme used to be.

I also remember 1995 being very busy with the opening of Braveheart and Batman Forever being huge.

Trailers had digital sound tracks the same as the feature presentation itself so they sounded just as good.

Restricted or “red band” trailers as they were known (due to the intro “this preview has been approved for mature audiences only” introduction having a read background) would occasionally be played but of course only on R rated movies.

We did it, but 1) we didn’t get many red band trailers and 2) we didn’t always use them when we did.

Projectors were the original “Victoria” projectors since the opening in the early 80s. See my pic: http://tinyurl.com/mucgngv The sound systems originally were analog only. Then Sony SDDS (Sony Dynamic Digital Sound) was added at some point (SDDS was in all theaters when I got there in 1995 as far as I can remember).

Then when Saving Private Ryan came out, we had Dolby come in and officially tweak theater 12 for Dolby Digital. So theater 12 had both SDDS and Dolby Digital as digital sound options.

Side note: The inners ONLY ever had analog sound, up until their closing in August of 1998.

Food? The whole lobby was redone right before I got there. This included the concession stand getting completely redone and reconstructed. I was told that they had a temporary concession stand set up immediately to the right in the lobby, where the arcades were in later years….complete with soda lines going across the floor (with a cover over them of course). I never ever went to the outers with its original lobby configuration and color scheme. I’d love it if someone had pictures of that! When I was hired in 95, they had just completed the overhaul into the colors that are pictured in all my pics from near closing in 2002 (the aqua blue, purples, white etc).

The food itself saw changes over the years. I remember the introduction of bottled water (Coca Cola’s Dasani), the change from “Arctic Blast” to “ICEE” frozen drinks. Then I remember when we used to mix the nacho cheese from huge concentrated cheese bags (mixing it with water) and have to portion it into little single serve plastic cups/lids. At one point they then switched to pre-portioned nacho cheese cups. Soft baked pretzels were introduced but they were tough to keep in stock on busy nights cause they took so long to prep / heat. And if you put too much water on them (so the salt would stick) you could ruin a whole tray :/

Bags of candy were always there, but the sizes got slightly smaller over time (but prices stayed the same …grocery shrink ray!).

Popcorn remained a constant. Always free refills on a large.

Going back to your October question: Favorite presentation was for Twister, 1996. All the employees helped out spray paining huge bags of cotton, to make angry looking storm clouds. We got strobe lights for lightning etc. We then stuck the cotton to the opening of the theater (this was theater 12, first door all the way to the right when you came into the lobby). So all the movie goers had to walk through the little storm clouds with flashing lightning. Very cool stuff.

Now did the seats get renovated since the opening? To my knowledge, no. If you look at my pictures (example: http://tinyurl.com/k9k845k ) , the seat colors were kinda 70s' looking and kinda faded. I know there was maintenance done on them (the cup holders would always break off over time) so they were maintained. But in my tenure there from opening day of Braveheart May 1995- closing July 28th 2002, there was never a single large overhaul done to them.

what was your favorite presentation memory of this theater?

It also showed preshow ads which added the weight to the reels. When AMC opened the new theater in 2006, it used digital preshow and then the trailers and presentation. The theater used slides in the past as well as in theater music.

Not only that Peter, but even in the days of 20 min reels, the trailers would have been spliced together.

Has this theater ever shown films without splices?

I was only a staff supervisor when the inners closed in 98, but I remember staff being temporarily ‘borrowed’ from inner to outer or vice versa.

I remember the ‘hood’ movies and kids movies seemed to go to the inners, where what was thought to be a block buster would go to the outers.

Sometimes if a movie was doing well, it’d be transferred to the inners after a few weeks. I even remember walking movie prints (still fully assembled) across the parking lot from outers to inners.

We showed all the latest releases but the better sound quality went to the outer theaters. When they first opened. I was the only mgr to work both theaters. Staff was on separate payrolls.

Return of the Jedi played here in Dolby Stereo more than 30 years ago, one of a few Morris County theaters that showed this movie. The last Star Wars movie to play here was Attack of the Clones in May of 2012.