Brattle Theatre
40 Brattle Street,
Cambridge,
MA
02138
40 Brattle Street,
Cambridge,
MA
02138
34 people
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Just a quick update on the plight of the Brattle and the fundraising drive. The Brattle was able to raise $200,000 by the end of 2005, and while that is only half of the goal, they were able to negotiate an extension of the lease until 2007.
The Brattle is not out of the woods yet, they desperately need to raise the additional $300,000 within this year. Please check out the Brattle webpage (listed above) to donate money to the cause and to check out the current fundraising events.
When I first became aware of the Brattle Theatre around 1950, it was a live playhouse. Then it went over to films and by the end of the 1950s it was a well-established feature in the Harvard Square area. It’s most unfortunate that it has come upon hard times.
The Haravd Film Archive has coordinated film series screenings with the Brattle. So, the University’s film group (not the business office, as far as I know) has worked with them. The theater is a non-profit, and it sits in the heart of Harvard University. Students are among the main patrons. But yes, I think you’re right. So far there has been no report that the University has offered any fianancial assistance.
The Brattle has given to Harvard – its students and faculty.
Harvard, it appears, can save the Brattle. But will they?
For a world-class institution that professess to be giving (at least, that’s what Hollywood would like us to believe, seeing as how they’re so in love with the place) they’re looking pretty darn stingy right now.
It is truly embarassing that nearby Harvard University has the largest endowment of any university in the world and has not yet stepped up to the plate to save something so valuable to the greater Cambridge community. If the Brattle closes, that will be the final nail in the coffin of Harvard Square. It is sickening.
The Brattle Theatre is in imminent danger of closing if it does not raise $400,000 by the end of this year.
In 1929, decades before the Brattle would become a cinema in 1953, there was a presentation of a locally-produced film on the History of Massachusetts. This Harvard Crimson piece notes that it would be shown here as well as at the Fine Arts Theatre in Boston.
In 1952 owner Bryant Haliday received a phone threat when he planned to convert the Brattle Theatre into a cinema, according to a pice in the Harvard Crimson.
Here is a Harvard Crimson review of the first film to play at the Brattle when it opened in 1953: the 1931 German film The Captain from Koepenick.
Here is a 1963 Brattle Theatre “Summer Film Festival” program flyer. Because it is tall, I had to reproduce it in two parts. Here they are:
TOP HALF
BOTTOM HALF
Some mouth-watering films. The only one I went to was Ashes and Diamonds, but I have seen almost all of these movies at one time or another in various places.
I think the change was made also because there is no direct way possible into the auditorium from street level because of the added shops, unless you go in from the exit to the right of the screen. So out of necessity they had to devise this circuitous down-from-under rat-route. I hate it. The entrance from the front right was much better. In those days, if I remember correctly, there was just the ticket booth in the entrance and they didn’t sell snacks at all. In the earlier years they had single features, usually one show at 7:30 and one at 9:30 plus earlier ones on weekends. I’m still curious about knowing clearly whether they opened with the 1931 version of The Captain from Köpenick, if they opened in 1953.
I think the entrance change was made to give the theatre at least some lobby and concession space (though both are still tiny).
Gerlad—
Thanks for the photos, old and new. I attended the Brattle only a few times (memorably for “Zero pout conduit” in the mid-‘70s), but whenever I found myself in the neighborhood, I’d drop into the Casablanca for a beer. Nearly always I’d bump into someone I knew from some other part of the world (a really small world), or else I’d find myself deep into conversation with a stanger who knew more about movies than me.
Also, the description says the theatre is located on the “second floor.” Actually, it is the first floor and just a few steps in or out originally. But now that the entrance is on the left, from the basement area, and you have to walk down some steps from the street, then up a full flight to get into the hall, it seems like the second floor. From the front exits used after films, it’s still only a couple of steps or so to get out. The level of the auditorium has not changed, but the rear end has been severed.
The 1990 Brattle Theatre booklet commemorating the centennial of Brattle Hall says that the theatre was opened in 1953 by Cy Harvey, Jr. and Bryant Holiday. It also says that the first film shown was the German The Captain from Köpenick. Now, a version of that film with Heinz Rühmann, made in 1956, opened in the U.S. in 1958. So either the listed year of opening is incorrect, or else they opened with the 1931 version (!) directed by Richard Oswald. Harvey and Holiday founded Janus Films in 1955 to distribute foreign films nationally. Here is an old photo of the Brattle before its opening.
Here is a photo of the Brattle as it appears now. The entrance to the cinema is down the staircase to the left. The former entrance was from that windowed area behind the right tree. There used to be a canopy leading to the street. The steps in the center of the building used to be an exit when they led directly to/from the auditorium. Afterward the auditorium size was reduced and the area carved up into more commercial establishments and leading to this present configuration. The “old Brattle” was much nicer, in my opinion.
This is one of very few movie theatres in the Boston area that still has a balcony (albeit a very small one).
I suggest changing the “Function:” field to indicate more clearly that movies are the primary use of this theatre. Foreign films, independent films, classic films, film festivals, and revival films all apply better than “Concerts” or “Special Events”.
Boris, the Brattle did indeed show CinemaScope anamorphic films in the 1960s and beyond. I can recall seeing “Jules and Jim,” “The 400 Blows,” “La Dolce Vita”…all Scope ratio films…and others here during that period. And they show them today, via rear projection and without distortion…e.g. “The Leopard” and the revival of “La Dolce Vita.”
Last year, the Brattle changed its scheduling policy; they no longer show a different double feature every night, nor do they still devote days of the week to particular genres or themes (e.g. Film Noir Mondays). They described their changed policy on this page.
I saw many films at the Brattle in the 60s, and marvelled at the rear projection screen. The theater at the time was owned by Bryant Halliday and Cyrus Harvey; they popularized the films of Ingmar Bergman thru' their company Janus Films. I also saw the Peter Cushing/Christopher Lee films there. The rear projection screen had one problem-they could only show older films and foreign stuff, since the curved cinemascope thing would be distorted. They bought the University in the early 60s, renamed it the Harvard Sq, and that gave them a place to show wide screen stuff. The coffee shop in the basement, ‘The Blue Parrot’ was named for the rival bar in Casablanca.
The Brattle still continues its tradition of holding Bogart retrospectives during Harvard exams. Their double feature programming during the rest of the year is diverse and enjoyable, and they sporadically have live acts on their stage, though usually as part of a fundraiser event. I attended a trailer screening in August 2003 that had a local band play in between segments, which was fun — though I kinda wished they’d had more trailers.
No it’s not common although there were a few NY houses that had it. Century’s Avalon in Brooklyn, Theatre 80 St Marks in the East Village and I think one or two of the Trans-Lux houses when they only ran newsreels.
My memory is that they showed nothing but Bogart movies, ever. It was right around the corner from IFIF (International Federation for Internal Freedom) where recently-retired professors Leary and Alpert set up shop.
Incidentally, the only other theater I ever heard of using rear-projection was the short-lived Old Post Office Cinema in East Hampton NY, owned by Ritchie Westley (who also had Mattituck, Hampton Arts and Suffolk Theater) in the early 1980s or so. Is this common?
For the record, a showing I attended last Sunday of the 1929 silent PICADILLY was shown in an incorrect 1:1.66 aspect ratio, causing heads and bottom of frame to be sliced off. When I protested at the end of the first showing, it was still not corrected by the second showing. The Brattle has proper lenses, aperture plates, and maskings to show films on this type in a 1:1.33 ratio(actually even that’s too wide for this silent). Very bad indeed!
According to their 1990 100-year souvenir program book (i.e. 100 years since Brattle Hall had opened) the first film shown when they became a cinema in 1953 was the German THE CAPTAIN FROM KOPENICK.
I’ve been going here sporadically since 1962. The first film I saw at the Brattle was Michelangelo Antonioni’s LE AMICHE…rarely if ever shown, or even known, any more. The theatre incorporates a rear-projection system with the projector behind the screen rather than behind the auditorium. They can show both 16mm and 35mm prints and are meticulous about respecting a film’s aspect ratio, particularly crucial when showing older classics so that part of the frame is not cut off in projection. Thus SINGIN'IN THE RAIN looked fabulous here. The hall was larger and roomier before the building was partitioned and given over to chic shops a couple of decades ago. It was also much nicer entering from Brattle Street through a direct front entrance covered by an awning.