Hmmm…You have a point there! I guess it must have been a general release film then. But I’ve no idea which one it was. Definitely not Barry Lyndon, though. But it obviously was good enough to be considered educational enough as far as facts went to hold screenings for school kids in a multitude of districts.
No, I don’t think it was a “general release” but one that was made as an educational history film aimed at teenagers. It was definitely about the Revolutionary War, but it’s not a film I remember has having come out to theatres.
No, I wish it had been – I remember being bored to tears by the movie. I am sure it was the spring of either 1976 or 1977, although I must have seen the poster at another time – I was still in junior high during the field trip to the movie, and it was shown in a special screening to hoards of junior high kids from the area.
They triplexed this cinema in 1983; I remember Purple Rain being one of the first shows in the new larger theatere that was built on the far left end. They halved what became the middle theater to make room for the larger one, and I always hated that middle one from then on, it was like watching a movie in a big hallway, as it no longer had a center aisle after that, just the two side aisles – very weird. Still, I spent a lot of time in 1984 and 1985 in this cinema – I lived just down the road at the Somerford Square apartment complex, and walked down to the theatre several times a week during the summer when I wasn’t working…
They ended up becoming a second run house sometime after Hoyts opened an 8 screen cinema at River Valley Mall in 1986; somehow though I always preferred Lancaster Cinema to Hoyts, though I saw plenty of shows at Hoyts as well…
I remember seeing “Smokey And The Bandit” here in 1977 – it was opening weekend, and I had to sit all the way in front – it took my neck a week to recover, but it was a lot of fun! We also came to the Fox one day on a field trip from school to see a film about the Revolutionary War – darned if I can remember what the film was, but I know that during regular hours, “I Wanna Hold Your Hand” was playing in one of the theatres, so that puts it at 1976 or so.
Incidentally, I’m doing some research on a series of articles i’m planning about my theatre experiences over the years – I grew up in the Spokane area in the 60s and 70s, and there are ton of theatres I remember – both indoor and drive-ins – that are not listed here. Anyone know of another good site or sites about Spokane area theatre history? I’d greatly appreciate any and all info I could find out – thanks!
We’d never been here until the Boston Film Festival in September, and I have to say my wife and I fell in love with this place – the seating is perfect, the sound excellent, the quality equally excellent and everyone at the festival were super nice. We’ll definitely be returning in the future for other films!
I remember attending a screening of “The Ghost And Mr. Chicken” at this theater sometime in 1972. We lived in Utica at the time, and we had come to see “Batman” but the schedules had been reversed. They stopped the film halfway through for a 15 minute intermission, which I’d never seen before, but I was about 10 or so…never went back, but it was pretty nice little theater.
Ok, time to see if anyone’s memories are jogged by this one. According to my wife’s mother, there used to be a second drive-in in Revere, in the Beachmont section; she lived within walking distance of it, and could even see movies on the screen from her house on Washburn Ave. According to her, it was in the area now occupied by Charles Fredericks Park, on the parcel of land bordered by Everard Street and Bennington Street, between the Blue Line stops of Suffolk Downs and Beachmont on the opposite side of the road. The current entrance to the (rather smallish) park does indeed look similar to a drive-in entrance. She says she thinks it was still open for business as late as the early to mid 60s, when she moved to Washington state to get married. Anyone else out there remember this one? If it did exist (and mom-in-law has a great memory about these things), it needs a page…once we can find out more about it, that is…:–)
Justin, I just watched your excellent piece. Although i’ve never set foot inside the Wollaston theater, I always HATE to see community theaters fall from grace as this one did. Here’s hoping that the city of Quincy can figure out a way to restore this wonderful little theater to it’s former glory!
I saw SO MANY movies here when I was a teenager! I lived in Harrington and Ritzville was much easier to get to than Spokane. Yes, you had to wait 4-6 months for the big movies to come down, but I remember it would be jammed every weekend night – it was only open on the weekends then, as I recall. IT’s nice to know it’s still in business…
Interesting that none of Lancaster’s current or recent theaters – the one in River Valley mall, the Lancaster cinemas on Sheridan Drive, or the old Plaza Drive in, are mentioned here…someone should put pages in for them…
Interesting that the Midland is the only theater listed here – I could have sworn that at one time there were pages dedicated to some of Newark/Heath’s older theaters – The Auditorum, the Cinema One, the Cine One, and the two multiplexes from the 80s, one at the old Plaza shopping center, the other in Heath near where the new mall went in. A lot of my grade school childhood was spent at these older theaters, as well as the Valley and Heath drive ins…
I know this isn’t the right location, but once again i’m curious and hoping people and point me in the right direction….
My wife is from up here and she tells me there used to be a cinema at the end of Washington Street, near, above, or behind the parking garage that is across the street from the high rise condos next to the old state house where the State Street T entrance is. The parking garage entrance still has a poster box for movie posters at it’s entrance. Was this where the RKO was, or is this another theater entirely?
You can get the old GC Trailer and many others on YouTube – it’s been a goldmine of stuff i’ve saved and snipped into bumpers and ID’s for our podcast…look for “General Cinema Policy trailer” or something similar
You know, it’s a shame that this theater closed because from the look of it on the website above, it was pretty nice. I’ve always wanted to run my own theater…hmmmm…well, it’s a nice dream, maybe for down the road a ways…but this wouldn’t be a bad place. Showing a couple of mainstream films, a couple indie films, a “Classic” film, and such, all under the same roof, I think this place would have been ideal for such fare…
We consider Showcase Revere our “home theater” since it’s only a ¼ mile from our house. I have to say when they began renovating it in 2007 I was worried that it would get too “upscale” for this mostly blue-collar town, but those worries have been unfounded. The revamped food court is better than what they used to have, and Chatters is an absolutely FANTASTIC place to have a quick meal before a movie, most of the time…
Here’s an example- when we went to see Forbidden Kingdom this spring, we had 35 minutes to spare before the show, but wanted real food, so we went to Chatters. We had a very nice waitress and she made sure we had our food and drinks at our table with enough time to down them and still make it to the theater in time for the coming attractions.
Counter that with the following weekend: when we went to see Iron Man, we got there with an hour and 10 minutes to spare. The waitress came, got all huffy when she realized we weren’t ordering from the bar, took our food order, took almost 15 minutes to bring us our drinks, and then never returned to our table. We waited for almost an hour, unable to get the attention of the other waitresses, many of whom were serving customers who had arrived long after we did, before we finally got up and left. We all complained to the main offices and got freebies for a future meal. But that was the ONLY bad experience we had at Chatters, and we’ve been there a number of times.
The Directors Hall’s are nice, but the wait service in those halls leaves a lot to be desired. They clearly don’t want you to order from Chatters, only from the snack bars. And then they bring you just the food, no napkins, no condiments, no straws, unless you ask for them as part of your order, which is kind of silly – you’d think that would be common sense.
The new waiting lounges which opened this past summer where the old snackbars used to be at the end of each hall are nice, but they usually have a news channel on the tv, which isn’t hte best thing, particulary if you’re there with little kids early on a holiday or a weekend morning and the anchors are talking about things that little kids have no interest in. Perhaps they should devote these screens to coming attractions or (shudder) even ScreenVision, which is infinately better than being subjected to the likes of MSNBC at 10 am.
All in all, though, most of the employees are friendly, though they don’t always respond in the best manner (complaints about the Kung Fu Flix series went unanswered one evening when one of the movies was showing in Chinese with NO Subtitles)but they try. Many of the employees recognize us and our friends, and several of the ticket takers and snack bar personnel know we talk them up on our podcast and our site, and always go out of their way to give us good service. So for us, Showcase Revere is a great place to see a show, even if they stick you in one of the smaller theaters.
One practice they now have that gets on my nerves though is that they are leaving the doors to each cinema open during the show; it was quite disconcerting to be watching No Country For Old Men and hearing the music from Sweeney Todd next door wafting in every now and then…I did bring it up to someone, but the practice is still going on, particularly if as I said above you’re in one of the smaller theaters on each end of the far halls…
I just want to say that while we haven’t had a chance to visit CinemaSalem yet to review it for our site’s ongoing MetroBoston CinemaTour, their weekly newsletter is a scream! Paul Van Ness does a fantastic job of talking up each week’s fare, and he’s absolutely hilarious much of the time. I’ve had some e-mail contact with him as well, and he’s truly a cinema lover, so lets hope CS can continue on and on from this point on…
Well, if the IMAX screen at AMC-BC gets as much attention as the rest of that theater does, it should be thoroughly unbearable and unwatchable within, say, six months or so.
I’ll stick with the Jordan’s IMAX theaters, they know how to take care of those…
The truth is that this theater, once our favorite in the Boston area, has gone straight into the toilet since AMC took over. When Loews ran it, it was always clean, there were always people you could find to bring a concern to, the snack bar personnel were always polite and friendly, and the ticket kiosks always worked. Now virtually NONE of that is true.
One of the last times we were at this theater, about a year ago, we had to wait in a line to see X-Men:The Last Stand. The CARPET was so sticky my shoes stuck to it rather resolutely, and I had to grab my wife’s hand to hold while I wrested them free. Two weeks later we went back to see another movie, and the carpet was STILL sticky – it obviously had not been touched since two weeks prior. And the same ticket kiosks that were broken the two times before were STILL inoperable.
We haven’t been back since, and although we may hit the theater simply as a stop on our website’s summer tour of local Boston cinemas, even though we’ve been there before, we don’t have definate plans to do so. Pity, because we used to like going there quite a bit…
Hmmm…You have a point there! I guess it must have been a general release film then. But I’ve no idea which one it was. Definitely not Barry Lyndon, though. But it obviously was good enough to be considered educational enough as far as facts went to hold screenings for school kids in a multitude of districts.
No, I don’t think it was a “general release” but one that was made as an educational history film aimed at teenagers. It was definitely about the Revolutionary War, but it’s not a film I remember has having come out to theatres.
No, I wish it had been – I remember being bored to tears by the movie. I am sure it was the spring of either 1976 or 1977, although I must have seen the poster at another time – I was still in junior high during the field trip to the movie, and it was shown in a special screening to hoards of junior high kids from the area.
They triplexed this cinema in 1983; I remember Purple Rain being one of the first shows in the new larger theatere that was built on the far left end. They halved what became the middle theater to make room for the larger one, and I always hated that middle one from then on, it was like watching a movie in a big hallway, as it no longer had a center aisle after that, just the two side aisles – very weird. Still, I spent a lot of time in 1984 and 1985 in this cinema – I lived just down the road at the Somerford Square apartment complex, and walked down to the theatre several times a week during the summer when I wasn’t working…
They ended up becoming a second run house sometime after Hoyts opened an 8 screen cinema at River Valley Mall in 1986; somehow though I always preferred Lancaster Cinema to Hoyts, though I saw plenty of shows at Hoyts as well…
Nope, wasn’t a re-release, it was a ::shudder:: KIDDIE MATINEE!!!
I know, I can hear my wife now…“Honey, What’s a kiddie matinee?” Arrrggggghhh…
I remember seeing “Smokey And The Bandit” here in 1977 – it was opening weekend, and I had to sit all the way in front – it took my neck a week to recover, but it was a lot of fun! We also came to the Fox one day on a field trip from school to see a film about the Revolutionary War – darned if I can remember what the film was, but I know that during regular hours, “I Wanna Hold Your Hand” was playing in one of the theatres, so that puts it at 1976 or so.
Incidentally, I’m doing some research on a series of articles i’m planning about my theatre experiences over the years – I grew up in the Spokane area in the 60s and 70s, and there are ton of theatres I remember – both indoor and drive-ins – that are not listed here. Anyone know of another good site or sites about Spokane area theatre history? I’d greatly appreciate any and all info I could find out – thanks!
We’d never been here until the Boston Film Festival in September, and I have to say my wife and I fell in love with this place – the seating is perfect, the sound excellent, the quality equally excellent and everyone at the festival were super nice. We’ll definitely be returning in the future for other films!
I remember attending a screening of “The Ghost And Mr. Chicken” at this theater sometime in 1972. We lived in Utica at the time, and we had come to see “Batman” but the schedules had been reversed. They stopped the film halfway through for a 15 minute intermission, which I’d never seen before, but I was about 10 or so…never went back, but it was pretty nice little theater.
I lived in Wenatchee briefly in 1975, and they only had two or three theatres at the time…sounds like things will vastly improve things there…
Mike, thanks for checking it out for me – i ’ll have to keep looking!
Ok, time to see if anyone’s memories are jogged by this one. According to my wife’s mother, there used to be a second drive-in in Revere, in the Beachmont section; she lived within walking distance of it, and could even see movies on the screen from her house on Washburn Ave. According to her, it was in the area now occupied by Charles Fredericks Park, on the parcel of land bordered by Everard Street and Bennington Street, between the Blue Line stops of Suffolk Downs and Beachmont on the opposite side of the road. The current entrance to the (rather smallish) park does indeed look similar to a drive-in entrance. She says she thinks it was still open for business as late as the early to mid 60s, when she moved to Washington state to get married. Anyone else out there remember this one? If it did exist (and mom-in-law has a great memory about these things), it needs a page…once we can find out more about it, that is…:–)
Justin, I just watched your excellent piece. Although i’ve never set foot inside the Wollaston theater, I always HATE to see community theaters fall from grace as this one did. Here’s hoping that the city of Quincy can figure out a way to restore this wonderful little theater to it’s former glory!
Actually, I think I saw them at the OLD Ritz, since it’s the 70s we’re talking about here, but the idea is still the same…
I saw SO MANY movies here when I was a teenager! I lived in Harrington and Ritzville was much easier to get to than Spokane. Yes, you had to wait 4-6 months for the big movies to come down, but I remember it would be jammed every weekend night – it was only open on the weekends then, as I recall. IT’s nice to know it’s still in business…
Ron, thanks as always – you sure know your Boston theater stuff!
Interesting that none of Lancaster’s current or recent theaters – the one in River Valley mall, the Lancaster cinemas on Sheridan Drive, or the old Plaza Drive in, are mentioned here…someone should put pages in for them…
Interesting that the Midland is the only theater listed here – I could have sworn that at one time there were pages dedicated to some of Newark/Heath’s older theaters – The Auditorum, the Cinema One, the Cine One, and the two multiplexes from the 80s, one at the old Plaza shopping center, the other in Heath near where the new mall went in. A lot of my grade school childhood was spent at these older theaters, as well as the Valley and Heath drive ins…
I know this isn’t the right location, but once again i’m curious and hoping people and point me in the right direction….
My wife is from up here and she tells me there used to be a cinema at the end of Washington Street, near, above, or behind the parking garage that is across the street from the high rise condos next to the old state house where the State Street T entrance is. The parking garage entrance still has a poster box for movie posters at it’s entrance. Was this where the RKO was, or is this another theater entirely?
You can get the old GC Trailer and many others on YouTube – it’s been a goldmine of stuff i’ve saved and snipped into bumpers and ID’s for our podcast…look for “General Cinema Policy trailer” or something similar
Does anyone know what now occupies this space on the beach? I’m curious to know where it was…
You know, it’s a shame that this theater closed because from the look of it on the website above, it was pretty nice. I’ve always wanted to run my own theater…hmmmm…well, it’s a nice dream, maybe for down the road a ways…but this wouldn’t be a bad place. Showing a couple of mainstream films, a couple indie films, a “Classic” film, and such, all under the same roof, I think this place would have been ideal for such fare…
We consider Showcase Revere our “home theater” since it’s only a ¼ mile from our house. I have to say when they began renovating it in 2007 I was worried that it would get too “upscale” for this mostly blue-collar town, but those worries have been unfounded. The revamped food court is better than what they used to have, and Chatters is an absolutely FANTASTIC place to have a quick meal before a movie, most of the time…
Here’s an example- when we went to see Forbidden Kingdom this spring, we had 35 minutes to spare before the show, but wanted real food, so we went to Chatters. We had a very nice waitress and she made sure we had our food and drinks at our table with enough time to down them and still make it to the theater in time for the coming attractions.
Counter that with the following weekend: when we went to see Iron Man, we got there with an hour and 10 minutes to spare. The waitress came, got all huffy when she realized we weren’t ordering from the bar, took our food order, took almost 15 minutes to bring us our drinks, and then never returned to our table. We waited for almost an hour, unable to get the attention of the other waitresses, many of whom were serving customers who had arrived long after we did, before we finally got up and left. We all complained to the main offices and got freebies for a future meal. But that was the ONLY bad experience we had at Chatters, and we’ve been there a number of times.
The Directors Hall’s are nice, but the wait service in those halls leaves a lot to be desired. They clearly don’t want you to order from Chatters, only from the snack bars. And then they bring you just the food, no napkins, no condiments, no straws, unless you ask for them as part of your order, which is kind of silly – you’d think that would be common sense.
The new waiting lounges which opened this past summer where the old snackbars used to be at the end of each hall are nice, but they usually have a news channel on the tv, which isn’t hte best thing, particulary if you’re there with little kids early on a holiday or a weekend morning and the anchors are talking about things that little kids have no interest in. Perhaps they should devote these screens to coming attractions or (shudder) even ScreenVision, which is infinately better than being subjected to the likes of MSNBC at 10 am.
All in all, though, most of the employees are friendly, though they don’t always respond in the best manner (complaints about the Kung Fu Flix series went unanswered one evening when one of the movies was showing in Chinese with NO Subtitles)but they try. Many of the employees recognize us and our friends, and several of the ticket takers and snack bar personnel know we talk them up on our podcast and our site, and always go out of their way to give us good service. So for us, Showcase Revere is a great place to see a show, even if they stick you in one of the smaller theaters.
One practice they now have that gets on my nerves though is that they are leaving the doors to each cinema open during the show; it was quite disconcerting to be watching No Country For Old Men and hearing the music from Sweeney Todd next door wafting in every now and then…I did bring it up to someone, but the practice is still going on, particularly if as I said above you’re in one of the smaller theaters on each end of the far halls…
I just want to say that while we haven’t had a chance to visit CinemaSalem yet to review it for our site’s ongoing MetroBoston CinemaTour, their weekly newsletter is a scream! Paul Van Ness does a fantastic job of talking up each week’s fare, and he’s absolutely hilarious much of the time. I’ve had some e-mail contact with him as well, and he’s truly a cinema lover, so lets hope CS can continue on and on from this point on…
Well, if the IMAX screen at AMC-BC gets as much attention as the rest of that theater does, it should be thoroughly unbearable and unwatchable within, say, six months or so.
I’ll stick with the Jordan’s IMAX theaters, they know how to take care of those…
The truth is that this theater, once our favorite in the Boston area, has gone straight into the toilet since AMC took over. When Loews ran it, it was always clean, there were always people you could find to bring a concern to, the snack bar personnel were always polite and friendly, and the ticket kiosks always worked. Now virtually NONE of that is true.
One of the last times we were at this theater, about a year ago, we had to wait in a line to see X-Men:The Last Stand. The CARPET was so sticky my shoes stuck to it rather resolutely, and I had to grab my wife’s hand to hold while I wrested them free. Two weeks later we went back to see another movie, and the carpet was STILL sticky – it obviously had not been touched since two weeks prior. And the same ticket kiosks that were broken the two times before were STILL inoperable.
We haven’t been back since, and although we may hit the theater simply as a stop on our website’s summer tour of local Boston cinemas, even though we’ve been there before, we don’t have definate plans to do so. Pity, because we used to like going there quite a bit…