Comments from Gerald A. DeLuca

Here’s a recent photo:
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Here are three recent photos of the former Strand.

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Here’s a photo of the Johnston Theatre when it was called Italy Cinema in the early 1970s. It was taken during a Saint Rocco’s Feast parade associated with Saint Rocco’s Church across the street from the former theatre. The theatre was located on the second floor of the building block, a wooden structure known as Ferri’s Block. The name “Johnston Theatre” can be seen behind the newer Italy Cinema sign.
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Bill,
Yes, and I presume others can’t find it either. I recently went to see “Amore in città” here during my trip to Rome, and I was the only person in the audience! At another film there were about twenty. The entrance never should have been put on that back street but rather on the main street where the Mondadori Bookstore is and where the entrance to the original Cinema Trevi was. A million people a day probably walk down that street! They do, however, publish a nice descriptive calendar and are listed in the papers. They must attract a good faithful little audience for many of their shows.

Here is a recent photo of the Cinema Farnese. It is currently shuttered, and a sign on the front tells of the conflicting interests of developers who wasnt to convert it to ther uses and those who want to maintain this now historic venue as an entertainment site. The Rome newspaper still lists the theatre daily with the phrase “prossima riapertura” or “soon to re-open.” But it doesn’t seem so.
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Here’s a photo of the interior in 1988.
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On May 9, 1967 the Beacon Theatre did a gala tribute to actress Gloria Swanson. Swanson addressed the fervent packed house. Two of her films were shown: Von Stroheim’s “Queen Kelly” (including unseen out-takes fron Swanson’s collection) and Edmund Goulding’s 1929 “The Trespasser.” For the silent “Queen Kelly,” organ accompaniment was provided by Lee Erwin. Here are two photos I took.
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Here is a photo of the former theatre as it appears today.
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Here’s a photo I took of the theatre in 1967. The pedestrian mall has gone back to being a street open to motor traffic.
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On July 31, 1959, according to my diary entry, I saw a revival of Chaplin’s “Modern Times” at the Capri (formerly Copley) Theatre. It was the only time I ever went there.

Just to the right of the word “Society” in that photo would have been the theatre that was or would become the Fine Arts. That is Norway Street, and the Fine Arts was in the same building as Loew’s.

Newspaper ads don’t refer to the theatre any more as the Sala Trevi Alberto Sordi, but simply as Sala Trevi, perhaps to avoid confusing folks who might think the place is located in the Galleria Alberto Sordi, the nearby 19th Century galleria/mall formerly called the Galleria Colonna. The former Cinema Trevi is actually occcupied by the Mondadori Trevi bookstore. The Sala Trevi Cinema is below ground, to the rear of the former Cinema Trevi, amid rediscovered ruins (you can see them from the cinema before the show begins, when a curtain closes on them.) The fact that the entrance to the cinema is from an obscure rear alley means that there are never any passers-by as with the bookstore which is practically adjacent to the busy Fountain of Trevi.

Ron, I got that piece of info from Warren’s posting on the Loew’s State Theatre (q.v.) I don’t know the history of Jewett Repertory. Perhaps the venues were not used simultaneously but during different periods. I don’t know.