For many decades the amazing Thalia on 95th Street had daily changes of double bills: they showed virtually everything: foreign films, recent American movies, classic revivals, silents, educational film programs, cartoon programs, films from private collections, films forgotten, films dumped, films rarely or never programmed. I submit that, from the viewpoint of programming alone, this paradise for film lovers was the greatest commercial movie theatre in the history of the United States, if not the world.
The New York premiere run of Alain Resnais' LAST YEAR AT MARIENBAD, one of the great must-see works of the French new wave, was at the Carnegie Hall Cinema in early 1962 and constituted one of its finest hours. In the late 1980’s the new teeny-weeny adjunct Carnegie Hall Screening Room featured a continuing series of new Italian cinema, sponsored by RAI and SACIS under the heading “Cinema Italia Roberto Rossellini.” One of the highlights in that series was the N.Y. commercial premiere of the uncut four hour version of Luchino Visconti’s LUDWIG.
The Paris Theatre figures in one of the most significant events in cinematic exhibition history in the United States. It involved the Italian film of Roberto Rossellini, THE MIRACLE, a 40-minute piece that was part of a distributor-concocted 3-featurette package shown under the title WAYS OF LOVE. The other two parts of the program were Renoir’s A DAY IN THE COUNTRY and Pagnol’s JOFROI. When the program opened in New York at the Paris Theatre in December, 1950, Rossellini’s episode caused a storm of protest, similar to that which would greet Scorsese’s LAST TEMPTATION OF CHRIST. Religious groups considered the film “blasphemousâ€; it dealt with a poor peasant woman (Anna Magnani) who believes the child she is carrying is the baby Jesus. She had been seduced by a wandering shepherd, played by Federico Fellini, who also co-wrote the screenplay. The protests were organized mainly by Catholic organizations like the Legion of Decency, which ‘condemned’ it, the Knights of Columbus, which organized protests in New York and pressured the New York State Film Licensing Board into withdrawing a previously-granted exhibition license, preventing the film from being shown in theatres. Cardinal Spellman denounced the film (unviewed) from the pulpit of Saint Patricks’s Cathedral. The decision was appealed by Lillian Gerard, manager of the Paris Cinema. The case ultimately went to the U.S. Supreme Court where it was ruled that film is a form of free speech and that the banning of this movie had no legality. The whole story of this episode and the landmark case it led to can be read in “American Filmâ€, the issues of June and July-August, 1977. The long article was written by Lillian Gerard herself.
The Elmwood opened as a neighborhood theatre in the 40’s. In the 60’s 70mm projection equipment was installed, and in its golden era this theatre became a roadshow house for many films, including LAWRENCE OF ARABIA, SOUTH PACIFIC, AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 DAYS. A period of art house programming ensued, selected first run and second run. It was twinned, became a Spanish language theatre, and now is a Latino church.
A second-run art house with a funky atmosphere, couches in the auditorium. This unique theatre, carved out of a former garage, opened in the mid 70’s and is very popular with Rhode Island School of Design students, since it is practically surrounded by the RISD campus. First run films are sometimes presented. There are sporadic special events, such as Brown University’s annual French Film Festival. From 1981 to 1996 I ran the Italian Film Society of R.I. screenings in this theatre on weekend afternoons. The cafe' has some great food, coffee, and snack offerings. Sound is very good. The only complaint to offer, and I’ve offered it often, is that all films, regardless of how they have been made, are presented in a similar wide screen aspect ratio, about 1:1.85, including CinemaScope films which invariably have the sides cropped. Older Academy ratio films cannot be properly shown either with top or botton of frame sliced off.
The Festival was known only as the Festival after opening in the early 60’s. It was where Fellini’s 8 ½ premiered in New York. I remember seeing Vittorio Gassman in THE EASY LIFE (IL SORPASSO) there in 1962 at a matinee. $1.50!
The Plaza was one of New York’s most architecturally unique and magnificent art houses! Its demise will long be lamented by film buffs. I do not live in New York but would often go there to see films when in the city. The wood panels and moldings made it seem like you were in an English country church. Just walking into this place made you happy. It had true class. In the 1960s a revival series of Chaplin’s great feature films, many unseen in decades, played here and this is where I went to see CITY LIGHTS for the first time. De Sica’s GARDEN OF THE FINZI-CONTINIS is also a special memory from the Plaza. There was a delightful waiting area downstairs where you could relax before the film began. It hurts to know that this treasure is gone.
As a high school student in the 1950s, I took the train from Providence to Boston with a friend to see the Cinerama film SEVEN WONDERS OF THE WORLD at that theatre, which I believe was called the Essex at the time. Later, in 1968, I saw 2001 A SPACE ODYSSEY there in its Boston premiere showings on that super duper screen that pulled us into outer space.
I will forever associate this theatre with the American commercial premiere showing of Luchino Visconti’s masterful 1948 LA TERRA TREMA, not shown in the U.S. until 1965. On October 12th I went to the Vatican Pavilion at World’s Fair in the afternoon, the New Yorker that evening. So I saw Michelangelo’s Pieta' and Visconti’s LA TERRA TREMA for the first time in one day! I was overwhelmed by the film, the magnificent uncut print that was shown. I was a frequent visitor to the New Yorker and had a great deal of respect for Dan Talbot, who ran it. He should be canonized for the work he did with that theatre.
In June of 1977, when it was the D.W. Griffith, I saw the first commercial showing (to my knowledge) in the U.S. of Luchino Visconti’s legendary first film OSSESSIONE, made in Fascist Italy in 1942. It had previously been shown at the New York Film Festival in 1976 and in some non-theatrical settings. The film had been closeted here because it was based illegally on the James Cain novel THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE.
The Columbus, known for decades as the Uptown, is one of the two most beautiful Rhode Island theatres, the other being the former Loew’s State (now the Providence Performing Arts Center). As a lover of Italian films, I have a special interest in the history of the Columbus/Uptown for it was here that I saw Italian films for the first time in the early 50’s. I remember in particular going with my parents to see OUTCRY (IL SOLE SORGE ANCORA, Aldo Vergano) in 1951. Later I saw De Sica’s UMBERTO D and Visconti’s BELLISSIMA here for the first time. My researches show that from the early 30’s to the 50’s the theatre very often booked short runs of Italian-language films, often unsubtitled, for the Italian-speaking audience on Federal Hill, Providence’s “Little Italyâ€. They also had Italian-language stage shows. In the 30’s pro-Mussolini documentaries were occasionally featured: MUSSOLINI SPEAKS: STUDY OF THE DUCE AND ITALY IN RECENT YEARS in 1933, ITALO-ETHIOPIA WAR FILMS in 1936, THE STRENGTH OF THE NEW ITALY in 1937, THE PRIVATE LIFE OF MUSSOLINI in 1938. Generally, besides normal American second run double bills, they showed shorter runs of popular Italian films for the ethnic audiences, including in 1931 the first American-made Italian film (made in New Jersey): SEI TU L’AMORE, which proved so popular it was repeated in 1933. Other relatively significant Italian movies shown here in the 30’s-50’s were ZAPPATORE (silent), the grand Roman epic SCIPIO AFRICANUS, the Neapolitan/English New Jersey-made hybrid SANTA LUCIA LUNTANA, LA CANZONE DELL’AMORE (first Italian sound feature; the theatre still owns a poster!), Blasetti’s TERRA MADRE, ETTORE FIERAMOSCA, and TIMES GONE BY, Alessandrini’s FURIA (later remade by Cukor as WILD IS THE WIND, and dozens and dozens of films with the irrepressible Italian comic, Toto’. Sometimes they did move-overs of popular Italian films subtitled for general audiences, such as THE BICYCLE THIEF, BITTER RICE, SHOE SHINE, ANNA.
Footnote: In 1962 I had the pleasure of attending a recital here by legendary Italian Tenor Tito Schipa.
A scene from the 1996 film “American Buffalo”, directed by Rhode Islander Michael Corrente and starring Dustin Hoffman, was shot in front of the Leroy Theatre. I saw films in this beautiful theatre many times during the 1970s. It is a disgrace that the city of Pawtucket did not care enough to prevent the destruction of this wondrous place. Now Pawtucket has nothing, nothing at all. No more Capitol, Strand, Darlton, State, Broadway…and no more Leroy.
Was this theatre ever known as the Trans-Lux in the 1950s? If not, what else was the Trans-Lux? It was kind of a racy art house, judging from newspaper ads I remember from that time.
It was just a few hundred feet away from Symphony Hall. It also housed a small recital-hall sized little theatre called the “Fine Arts” and which was one of Boston’s best art/repertory houses in the 1960s, featuring many films by Fellini, Bergman, Antonioni, Truffaut, Visconti…generally in double-bill revivals.
For many decades the amazing Thalia on 95th Street had daily changes of double bills: they showed virtually everything: foreign films, recent American movies, classic revivals, silents, educational film programs, cartoon programs, films from private collections, films forgotten, films dumped, films rarely or never programmed. I submit that, from the viewpoint of programming alone, this paradise for film lovers was the greatest commercial movie theatre in the history of the United States, if not the world.
The New York premiere run of Alain Resnais' LAST YEAR AT MARIENBAD, one of the great must-see works of the French new wave, was at the Carnegie Hall Cinema in early 1962 and constituted one of its finest hours. In the late 1980’s the new teeny-weeny adjunct Carnegie Hall Screening Room featured a continuing series of new Italian cinema, sponsored by RAI and SACIS under the heading “Cinema Italia Roberto Rossellini.” One of the highlights in that series was the N.Y. commercial premiere of the uncut four hour version of Luchino Visconti’s LUDWIG.
The Paris Theatre figures in one of the most significant events in cinematic exhibition history in the United States. It involved the Italian film of Roberto Rossellini, THE MIRACLE, a 40-minute piece that was part of a distributor-concocted 3-featurette package shown under the title WAYS OF LOVE. The other two parts of the program were Renoir’s A DAY IN THE COUNTRY and Pagnol’s JOFROI. When the program opened in New York at the Paris Theatre in December, 1950, Rossellini’s episode caused a storm of protest, similar to that which would greet Scorsese’s LAST TEMPTATION OF CHRIST. Religious groups considered the film “blasphemousâ€; it dealt with a poor peasant woman (Anna Magnani) who believes the child she is carrying is the baby Jesus. She had been seduced by a wandering shepherd, played by Federico Fellini, who also co-wrote the screenplay. The protests were organized mainly by Catholic organizations like the Legion of Decency, which ‘condemned’ it, the Knights of Columbus, which organized protests in New York and pressured the New York State Film Licensing Board into withdrawing a previously-granted exhibition license, preventing the film from being shown in theatres. Cardinal Spellman denounced the film (unviewed) from the pulpit of Saint Patricks’s Cathedral. The decision was appealed by Lillian Gerard, manager of the Paris Cinema. The case ultimately went to the U.S. Supreme Court where it was ruled that film is a form of free speech and that the banning of this movie had no legality. The whole story of this episode and the landmark case it led to can be read in “American Filmâ€, the issues of June and July-August, 1977. The long article was written by Lillian Gerard herself.
The Elmwood opened as a neighborhood theatre in the 40’s. In the 60’s 70mm projection equipment was installed, and in its golden era this theatre became a roadshow house for many films, including LAWRENCE OF ARABIA, SOUTH PACIFIC, AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 DAYS. A period of art house programming ensued, selected first run and second run. It was twinned, became a Spanish language theatre, and now is a Latino church.
A second-run art house with a funky atmosphere, couches in the auditorium. This unique theatre, carved out of a former garage, opened in the mid 70’s and is very popular with Rhode Island School of Design students, since it is practically surrounded by the RISD campus. First run films are sometimes presented. There are sporadic special events, such as Brown University’s annual French Film Festival. From 1981 to 1996 I ran the Italian Film Society of R.I. screenings in this theatre on weekend afternoons. The cafe' has some great food, coffee, and snack offerings. Sound is very good. The only complaint to offer, and I’ve offered it often, is that all films, regardless of how they have been made, are presented in a similar wide screen aspect ratio, about 1:1.85, including CinemaScope films which invariably have the sides cropped. Older Academy ratio films cannot be properly shown either with top or botton of frame sliced off.
The Festival was known only as the Festival after opening in the early 60’s. It was where Fellini’s 8 ½ premiered in New York. I remember seeing Vittorio Gassman in THE EASY LIFE (IL SORPASSO) there in 1962 at a matinee. $1.50!
The Plaza was one of New York’s most architecturally unique and magnificent art houses! Its demise will long be lamented by film buffs. I do not live in New York but would often go there to see films when in the city. The wood panels and moldings made it seem like you were in an English country church. Just walking into this place made you happy. It had true class. In the 1960s a revival series of Chaplin’s great feature films, many unseen in decades, played here and this is where I went to see CITY LIGHTS for the first time. De Sica’s GARDEN OF THE FINZI-CONTINIS is also a special memory from the Plaza. There was a delightful waiting area downstairs where you could relax before the film began. It hurts to know that this treasure is gone.
Yes, I saw Kurosawa’s HIGH AND LOW here in the early 60’s when it was the Toho.
As a high school student in the 1950s, I took the train from Providence to Boston with a friend to see the Cinerama film SEVEN WONDERS OF THE WORLD at that theatre, which I believe was called the Essex at the time. Later, in 1968, I saw 2001 A SPACE ODYSSEY there in its Boston premiere showings on that super duper screen that pulled us into outer space.
I will forever associate this theatre with the American commercial premiere showing of Luchino Visconti’s masterful 1948 LA TERRA TREMA, not shown in the U.S. until 1965. On October 12th I went to the Vatican Pavilion at World’s Fair in the afternoon, the New Yorker that evening. So I saw Michelangelo’s Pieta' and Visconti’s LA TERRA TREMA for the first time in one day! I was overwhelmed by the film, the magnificent uncut print that was shown. I was a frequent visitor to the New Yorker and had a great deal of respect for Dan Talbot, who ran it. He should be canonized for the work he did with that theatre.
In June of 1977, when it was the D.W. Griffith, I saw the first commercial showing (to my knowledge) in the U.S. of Luchino Visconti’s legendary first film OSSESSIONE, made in Fascist Italy in 1942. It had previously been shown at the New York Film Festival in 1976 and in some non-theatrical settings. The film had been closeted here because it was based illegally on the James Cain novel THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE.
Incidentally, there is an error in the heading above. This is the Avon Cinema, not “Cinemas.” Singular. It is a single screen theatre.
I have been going to the programs at the Avon Cinema since around 1948 when I first accompanied my parents to see opera movies shown there like IL TROVATORE. With my parents I also saw THE BICYCLE THIEF, PAISAN, the 1954 ROMEO AND JULIET. Later I started going on my own in high school, to matinees of naughty-naughty Brigitte Bardot movies to risqué French films like MITSOU, to the now-classic DIABOLIQUE and THE WAGES OF FEAR. Here is where I first saw OPEN CITY, PAISAN, THE BICYCLE THIEF, NGHTS OF CABIRIA, LA STRADA, GENERAL DELLA ROVERE. I fell in love with Satyajit Ray’s PATHER PANCHALI in 1959 and saw it several times during its one-week run. In the 60’s I saw Bergman, Truffaut, Antonioni and Fellini movies, many British comedies. The theatre had especially nice repertory programming in the 70’s with about three changes a week of great double bills. The Avon is still Rhode Island’s premiere art house and shows first run pictures as such, and it is inconceivable how film buffs in the state could live without it. A little known fact is that the theatre was previously called “The Toy Theatre†when it opened in the teens. Later it was shuttered, became a garage, then re-opened as a theatre with the name Avon Cinema in 1938. Abel Gance’s LIFE AND LOVES OF BEETHOVEN was the first film shown under that incarnation. This popular single screen theatre, surrounded by Brown University on Providence’s East Side, has a clean but plain interior. The curtain over the screen, when it is used, is unidirectional, moving from left to right. I’m going there this afternoon to see Robert Altman’s THE COMPANY. Also playing is TOUCHING THE VOID and a midnight screening of Scorsese’s GOODFELLAS.
The Columbus, known for decades as the Uptown, is one of the two most beautiful Rhode Island theatres, the other being the former Loew’s State (now the Providence Performing Arts Center). As a lover of Italian films, I have a special interest in the history of the Columbus/Uptown for it was here that I saw Italian films for the first time in the early 50’s. I remember in particular going with my parents to see OUTCRY (IL SOLE SORGE ANCORA, Aldo Vergano) in 1951. Later I saw De Sica’s UMBERTO D and Visconti’s BELLISSIMA here for the first time. My researches show that from the early 30’s to the 50’s the theatre very often booked short runs of Italian-language films, often unsubtitled, for the Italian-speaking audience on Federal Hill, Providence’s “Little Italyâ€. They also had Italian-language stage shows. In the 30’s pro-Mussolini documentaries were occasionally featured: MUSSOLINI SPEAKS: STUDY OF THE DUCE AND ITALY IN RECENT YEARS in 1933, ITALO-ETHIOPIA WAR FILMS in 1936, THE STRENGTH OF THE NEW ITALY in 1937, THE PRIVATE LIFE OF MUSSOLINI in 1938. Generally, besides normal American second run double bills, they showed shorter runs of popular Italian films for the ethnic audiences, including in 1931 the first American-made Italian film (made in New Jersey): SEI TU L’AMORE, which proved so popular it was repeated in 1933. Other relatively significant Italian movies shown here in the 30’s-50’s were ZAPPATORE (silent), the grand Roman epic SCIPIO AFRICANUS, the Neapolitan/English New Jersey-made hybrid SANTA LUCIA LUNTANA, LA CANZONE DELL’AMORE (first Italian sound feature; the theatre still owns a poster!), Blasetti’s TERRA MADRE, ETTORE FIERAMOSCA, and TIMES GONE BY, Alessandrini’s FURIA (later remade by Cukor as WILD IS THE WIND, and dozens and dozens of films with the irrepressible Italian comic, Toto’. Sometimes they did move-overs of popular Italian films subtitled for general audiences, such as THE BICYCLE THIEF, BITTER RICE, SHOE SHINE, ANNA.
Footnote: In 1962 I had the pleasure of attending a recital here by legendary Italian Tenor Tito Schipa.
A scene from the 1996 film “American Buffalo”, directed by Rhode Islander Michael Corrente and starring Dustin Hoffman, was shot in front of the Leroy Theatre. I saw films in this beautiful theatre many times during the 1970s. It is a disgrace that the city of Pawtucket did not care enough to prevent the destruction of this wondrous place. Now Pawtucket has nothing, nothing at all. No more Capitol, Strand, Darlton, State, Broadway…and no more Leroy.
Was this theatre ever known as the Trans-Lux in the 1950s? If not, what else was the Trans-Lux? It was kind of a racy art house, judging from newspaper ads I remember from that time.
It was just a few hundred feet away from Symphony Hall. It also housed a small recital-hall sized little theatre called the “Fine Arts” and which was one of Boston’s best art/repertory houses in the 1960s, featuring many films by Fellini, Bergman, Antonioni, Truffaut, Visconti…generally in double-bill revivals.