Exeter Street Theatre
26 Exeter Street,
Boston,
MA
02116
26 Exeter Street,
Boston,
MA
02116
12 people
favorited this theater
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Today’s Boston Herald has an article about Dave Waller, who collects large signs that belonged to now-defunct Boston businesses.
The story includes a picture of him standing in front of the Exeter Street Theatre’s sign, and holding another sign from the Old Howard Athenaeum.
On this 1928 map, the same building is labelled “EXETER STREET THEATRE” in large letters, and “1ST SPIRITUAL TEMPLE” in smaller letters underneath. It’s near the bottom right corner of the map.
The theatre is visible on this 1895 map of Back Bay.
It is labelled “FIRST SPIRITUAL TEMPLE” at the corner of Newbury and Exeter streets, near the bottom left corner of the map.
It was an “upstairs” house, reached by broad wood staircases from the lobby on Exeter St. I went there a few times, starting in the late-1950s. It was definitely Up-scale and was an art-house specializing in British and other foreign films, or any type of film for a discerning audience. Clarence Blackall was the architect and he adapted it within the 1884 First Spiritual Temple. The Temple members continued to meet in the theatre for years afterward. It opened on May 4, 1914 with 1376 seats and was a nabe film & vaude house at first. I recall as a kid circa 1948 that its newspaper ads featured a huge “E” at the left side of the ad, and that they presented many of the post-war British film hits. The MGM Theatre Photograph and Report form for this house has a photo dated May 1941. The Report states that the house has been a MGM customer for over 10 years, that it is in Good condition; and that it has 830 seats in the orchestra; and 436 seats in the balcony, total: 1266.
It was a single-screen house to the end, in July 1984.
Some important Italian neo-realist films opened here, including Rossellini’s Paisan and Germany Year Zero as well as Outcry (Il sole sorge ancora) by Aldo Vergano in 1949-1950.
The Kingsley Montessori School has begun advertising this new location in neighborhood newspapers. So it’s time to change the Function to “School”.
According to Donald C. King’s new book The Theatres of Boston: A Stage and Screen History, the Exeter opened as a theatre on May 4, 1914. It originally played second-run films with three acts of vaudeville, but eventually became strictly a movie house. It had 830 seats on the main floor and 436 in the balcony.
I recall seeing Lina Wertmuller’s “Swept Away” in either autumn 1975 or early 1976 during my Freshman year at nearby Emerson College. A superb film at an equally fascinating theater: typically Boston Back Bay, in my view.
A crime that it became a Conran’s!
Interior photo:
http://www.esteyorgan.com/Opus1495.html
Another long run at the Exeter was the French film “Cousin, Cousine” that ran for months in the mid-70s.
The Exeter was a wonderfully unique space with great charm and atmosphere.
What a loss this theater is to those of us who appreciate movie treasures. Having lived in Boston from Sept. 1959 to Aug. 1960 I recall “The Mouse That Roared” played there for the whole time.
The Exeter did have a commercial side too. I caught The Muppet Movie there first run, a big surprise hit which is why it likely did not play Sack houses.
Also it hosted the original run of Monty Python and The Holy Grail. Again another BIG surprise hit.
It was a theatre you could become lost in, seemed to have many levels and many alcoves and balconies & boxes none of which were closed off.
Elvira Madigan must’ve played here for at least a couple of years in the 60s. This place always had that mystrerious air about with the rumored seances held within. Anyone ever attend one of these spiritual events?
Conran’s Habitat store opened here in November, 1985. While it was open, it had a large lighted “CONRAN’S AT EXETER” sign outside, in the same style as the old lighted “EXETER STREET THEATRE” sign.
Waterstone’s replaced Conran’s in October 1991. At the time, it was called “New England’s first book superstore”, second in size only to the Boston University Bookstore (which, incidentally, had replaced the Kenmore Square Cinema). Sadly, Waterstone’s closed in June 1999. It is still missed.
idealab! moved into the building in 2000, but closed its office there in July 2003.
Here’s the Kingsley Montessori School web site. It doesn’t say much, but it does announce the school’s “expansion for Fall 2005” into the “former Exeter Street Theatre building”.
I hope they’ll have an open house, as I’d love to see how they reuse the space. Many Bostonians have fond memories of this building, not just as a theatre but also later as Waterstone’s bookstore.
A Kingsley Montessori banner now hangs in the street-level lobby, but the glass front doors still have For Lease signs on them. I don’t know why they haven’t been taken down.
From Boston Business Journal, February 11, 2005:
The Kinsgley Montessori School in Boston’s Back Bay is moving into the historic Exeter Street Theatre building on the corner of Exeter and Newbury streets.
The school, which operates in the former Saltonstall Mansion at 30 Fairfield St., will expand into 23,000 square feet of space on the first three floors of the former theater. Previously the space has housed Conran’s furniture store and Waterstone’s Booksellers.
In the Exeter Street building the school will teach grades one through six, while the preschool program will remain on Fairfield Street. The school will also add a toddler classroom for children 2 years old in September at the original location.
Kingsley expects to have the new space designed and completed by September, Head of School Renee DuChainey-Farkes said in a statement. The space will include classrooms, library facilities, a science lab, performing and visual arts studios, a language space, after-school program space and meeting space.
Hate to say it, but… condominiums, anyone? Seems like, within the context of the neighborhood, a logical fit.
The building is still vacant with ‘For Lease’ signs on the front doors.
I believe it has now been empty for four years!
Viola Berlin, longtime manager and booker, was a familiar face to all who patronized the Exeter Street Theatre. She frequently took over box office duties. And how many other theaters showed the annual newsreels of the Farnborough Air Shows in Great Britain as short subjects to accompany her frequently British features? And how many other managers regularly accompanied the stars of their films for guest appearances to local television stations? I recall her introducing Peter Sellers to us (at WGBH-TV). He was every bit as mysterious in personality as Geoffrey Rush portrayed him in the HBO movie… and as bland as Chauncey Gardener in “Being There.”
The Exeter Street Theatre showed its last movie on Sunday, July 15, 1984, according to a Boston Globe article published three days later. The Globe article did not give the name of that movie.
In the 1970s this was part of a small art-house chain called “Sonny & Eddy’s Theatres” which also ran the Allston Cinema, Central Square Cinemas, Galeria Cinema (which a later owner renamed to “Janus Cinema”), and Academy Twin Cinemas in Newton.
Sadly, the Sack Copley Place multiplex — a block away, and the antithesis of this place — put them out of business.
ROCKY HORROR played weekly here-certainly enough room for the
usual audience participation characters and flying “props"
to roam
A wonderful theatre with enormous character and unique ambience. You felt like you were in some kind of Tudor manor or English country church there, not surprising considering its origin as the First Spiritual Temple. It had similarities with New York’s Plaza Theatre on 58th Street. Even the newspaper ads were always submitted in a period lettering style and format. My first film seen here was Bergman’s WILD STRAWBERRIES in the summer of 1959. The last one was a revival of Visconti’s integral THE LEOPARD around 1984. The place was the complete opposite of so many nondescript and boringly interchangeable places we watch movies in today. A lost treasure for sure.
An article about the theatre, written in its “idealab!” days….
View link
There is currently a “Retail Space For Lease” sign on the front door.