Uptown Theatre

It would be a good thing if the Uptown was taken over by Landmark or another specialty chain. I don’t think Loew’s cares about any of there single screen theatres. Start making major complaints to Loew’s concerning presentation. If this was an industry house this wouldn’t be tolerated.The large theatre chains such as Loew’s only care about the megaplex that has between 14-20 screens.brucec

Sad to say the presentation at the grand old dame is bound to get a whole lot worse after recent developments. On Monday January 3, 2005, for the first time in its 70 year history, the theater was run without a projectionist. Loews Cineplex Entertainment announced it would begin using a “manager” to operate the all manual two projector system for the majority of the week using a projectionist only on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday or as requested. The very first show under this new policy was canceled after “technical difficulties”. The up to then pristine print of Martin Scorcesse’s “Aviator” was already scratched by Friday when a projectionist returned to find damage including shutter blades scorched and warped clanging together from negligent or untrained behavior. It is disheartening to see such a treasure go to waste. The slides and advertisements (almost all mono) so ubiqutous at the multiplexes were never run at the Uptown in the past. It was considered too classy. The bookings have progressively been getting worse or duplicated at one of the chains nearby multiplexes thereby marginalizing this classic theater as with so many like it around the country. Still it routinely outgrosses many of the largest multiplexes due to it’s large seating capacity and reputation for impressive presentation. Will we forget the grandeur of film in such a jewel case? Or just painfully put up with a steady deterioration until we no longer remember its majesty.

Keith

I had the privilege of revisiting the Uptown to see the midnight opening of Spiderman 2. It has been a year since I’ve been to this theater and was looking forward to being enveloped by the big screen that this gem has to offer.

The single most irritating item about watching a movie at this theater is the constant stream of commercials. While I have not been to another Loews/Cineplex theater to confirm whether it is an isolated incident, the commercials just keep coming and were in bad quality and were not even in stereo.

While the picture was good, the sound was not. As mentioned, the commercials and previews were not played in stereo. The sound, for the most part was very tinny and muddled. It was centered but some of the dialog was almost intelligible. The only time that the sound came alive was during the fusion reaction scenes with Doc Ock. You could feel the theater come alive at that time. It was like the picture played in mono and was only turned on towards the middle and end of it.

I did contact customer service at Loews/Cineplex and received an Email response from an intern, who stated that they apologized for the commercials and that the chain has to show them to compensate for the “$20M salaries that stars are demanding…” There was no response as to the rather disappointing sound presentation.

Will this second bad experience hinder me from going back to the Uptown? I don’t know. But I will think twice before travelling downtown again. I think our suburban theaters have better sound presentation and picture, albeit in a smaller and less grand setting.

The 70mm revivals aren’t as frequent as they used to be. Actually, I don’t think they’ve had a 70mm series since the 90s? I imagine, if the Uptown does host a 70mm series, it will be after the summer movie season, since attendance will drop and there won’t be any event films coming out until Thanksgiving.

If I had a wish, I would hope for a science fiction/fantasy series starting with the Star Wars films, Star Trek, Superman, Alien, all in 70mm. I read that 20th Century Fox was going to re-release a director’s cut of Aliens in theaters like they did the recent Alien one. Perhaps, they could show it here. Even older films would be nice to revisit. I remember watching Vertigo, in a restored 70mm print with a remastered soundtrack. The movie looked like it had just been shot yesterday. The print was so sharp and scratch free!

What would be really cool is if this theater had digital projection capabilities.

I just rememebered that I forgot to add two movies to list of recent movies at Uptown before Road To Perdition. Again, if am wrong please tell me! Here are the two movies before Road To Perdition.

05/16/02 Star Wars Episode II: Attack Of The Clones
06/21/02 Minority Report

Are there any 70mm revivals coming to this theater anytime soon?

To Ron3853 Have you ever done any research on the Warner Theatre in Pittsburgh? If so please contact Dave Grau. At

I lived in DC for a couple of years in the mid 90s and enjoyed a couple of fun trips to the Uptown – to see Twelve Monkeys at a full house right after the great blizzard of 99, and American President and Twister…One of the attractions was also a fantastic 1960s era Chinese restaurant up the block which attests to being a meeting place for Dean Rusk and the Russian delegation during the Cuban Missile Crisis – great sizzling rice soup.
Ron’s list also brought to mind one other sadly lost trend…that even great roadshow houses in the 60s & 70s had to put a double feature on once in a while in a fallow period…Studios would package some classics or a couple picture at the end of their runs and give us another taste…Another casualty of VCR/DVD that we don’t have that anymore…Remember seeing A Touch of Class & Paper Moon on the same bill in New York on wide release and Paul Mazursky’s The Tempest paired with a Richard Pryor concert film at the Loews State 2…we can only dream…Thanks Ron for sharing that great research

I saw How The West Was Won & It’s A Mad, Mad, Mad World when they came out originally in this theatre. I used to spend a lot of time at the zoo nearby and remember poor Smokey The Bear in his concrete cage looking forlorn and bored.

George Senda
Concord, Ca

Actually Bill, believe or not…I’ve never lived in DC, although I have lived in NYC, Chicago, but mostly Pittsburgh. I’ve made it a hobby to research first-run theaters in various cities to see what movies they played each week. I always liked the DC movie theaters ever since I visited the city wih my family on a vacation when I was 11. That’s why I chose to put DC on this website first. Check out other cities and theaters in Washington for more lists as I can add them.

I still have more researching to do, as so far I’ve been trying to get 34 cities from the period 1960-1975. Trying to borrow microfilms of other cities' old newspapers is a process that is slower than molasses in January and they will only lend you 6 reels at a time.

I hope to eventually get all research on this website for posterity from 1957-1981 for all 34 cities that I have been researching…and NYC will be my biggest challenge.

I know that “Star Wars” in its first release at the Uptown did play over a year. Watch for another posting at some time and I’ll take the theater up to December 31, 1981.

As you can see there were occasional spells where no appropriate new first-run films were available to be released, such as 1960, 1961, and the mid-70s, so the Uptown occasionally resorted to second-run rilms or rereleases played there to fill in until the next big box-office spectacular worthy of the theater was ready for release. This accounts for the double features as well as the foreign films.

In the first half of the 1970s, MGM trotted out “Gone With the Wind,” “2001,” and “Doctor Zhivago” every year as a part of what it called “MGM’s Big 3.” In some cities it was “MGM’s Big 4” with “Ryan’s Daughter” added. Usually this package played at one of the theaters in each city which had formerly shown “roadshow” films.

For excellent reading regarding motion picture theaters in Washington, D.C., try MOTION PICTURE EXHIBITION IN WASHINGTON, D.C.: AN ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PARLORS, PALACES AND MULTIPLEXES IN THE METROPOLITAN AREA, 1894-1997, by Robert K. Headley, published by McFarland & Company, Publishers in 1999.

Seeing the title Car Wash almost made me fall out of my chair. Earthquake in Sensurround…now that was a crazy experience. The Odeon in my hometown even had nurses and ambulances on stanby for the premiere screening. When the theater started to shake (with the help of huge speakers installed in the auditorium), my best friend promptly threw up in the seat next to her. She was immediately ‘treated’ in the lobby by the medical staff. That beautiful theater is now closed and abandoned.
2001: A Space Odyssey was released three times at the Washington Uptown?

I thought 2001 had its world premiere in the Loew’s Cinerama in NY.
And why does Washington still have a great classic theater like this and NY nothing? And now they’re destroying the Henry Miller. If Penn Station were around today I’m sure they’d be chomping at the bit to tear it down as well. Does anybody have the money to convert Toys R Us back into the great Criterion?