Loew's Willard Theatre
96-01 Jamaica Avenue,
Woodhaven,
NY
11421
96-01 Jamaica Avenue,
Woodhaven,
NY
11421
6 people
favorited this theater
Showing 51 - 75 of 88 comments
Welcome back, EdSolero! (Hope you either drove or ditched your tube of toothpaste with TSA and all the other Bushketeers.)
LM, rumors abound that “Black Sleep” will be released on DVD later this month or next. Previously available only on a bootleg video from PA.
Peter (“Kill! Kill!! KILL!”) Punster, yer killin' ME! AAARRRRGGGHHHH!
I’m pushing for a Tor Johnson Film Festival. 31 movies, I’m told. Care to do the research on this, mikemovies? :)–
The Lugosi clips were filmed when Ed Wood still had a few coins in his pocket back in ‘56 and later inserted into “Plan 9” with Wood’s dentist. It’s now available on DVD in a colorized version.
In 1957, with the advent of “Shock Theatre” on NY TV Channel 7 (ABC), we nutsy kids actually would use a pay phone booth at a dime a pop to call the station. We’d ask to speak to Karloff and/or Lugosi. We were told that Boris was filming something-or-other in England, and that Lugosi was also out of the country. You bet he was – with the undead. They were sharp receptionists who didn’t want to shatter l'il kids' dreams: the dissipated Lugosi had finally crapped out a year earlier from the ravages of las drogas.
Yes, EdSolero, I had wondered myself about those out-of-context day-for-night shots of Lugosi walking around in a grassy field in his Count Dracula outfit.
Actually – and here comes the OT bilge (break out the pumps!) – the footage of Lugosi that appears in “Plan 9” was shot several years before the movie was completed. In fact, the footage was shot before there was ever a script for “Plan 9”. Wood shopped around the footage to investors as the last ever shot of Lugosi with the promise he would build a movie around it that could use Lugosi’s name as a selling point. The way that reel of film is edited into the final movie (particularly the scene where Bela walks out of frame and is hit by a screeching car) is unbelievably hilarious!
You’re welcome, Lost Memory.
I only saw “The Black Sleep” once on TV when I was a kid, and a mention of it in “Monster World” also back then, spring 1965. John Carradine played a resurrected Crusader fanatic, shouting something about the Holy Land, and “Kill, kill, kill !” The still from it in
“Monster World” showed both Carradine and Johnson.
You can try shopping for it on the IMDb to see if it’s on DVD.
I saw “Mesa Of Lost Women”, but not as a kid, not the Miklos Rozsa “hairy men” film I mentioned above. I saw it at Film Forum in lower Manhattan the summer of 1988 on a double bill with “Plan 9” plus a Captain Marvel episode. It starred Jackie Coogan as a mad scientist, almost unrecognizable, because he wore heavy black-framed glasses, and had false hair.
Lost Memory, that’s correct about Lugosi. He was replaced by Ed Wood’s chiropractor, who was eight inches taller and did not resemble Lugosi in the slightest.
Tor Johnson also appeared with Lugosi in “Bride Of The Monster” and in “Night Of The Ghouls”, which was a sequel to either “Bride” or “Plan 9”. It stayed unreleased for many years because Wood was broke, and unable to pay the lab bill to process the film !
I have all three Ed Wood films on the same VHS at home.
I think “Bride Of The Monster” was the last film that Lugosi lived through the completion of.
mikemovies, I practically know “Plan 9” by heart. One of my favorite lines (among many) is when the airline pilot says to the stewardess :
“Say ! How about you and me balling it up when we get to Albuquerque ?”
I think I saw “Mesa Of Lost Women” on TV as a kid. An air force bomber crash lands on the mesa to Miklos Rozsa film music I’d heard earlier in the George Reeves “Superman” TV show, and the “lost women” make reference to “the hairy men” when they speak with the bomber crew.
“The Brain Eaters” I haven’t seen. I seem to be in more danger from
“The Fan Site That Ate My Brain”.
“Plan 9 from Outer Space” is one of the all time great bad movies… So bad it’s sublimely entertaining. A must-see. And once you’ve enjoyed it, take a look at Tim Burton’s fanciful bio-pic of the film’s director, “Ed Wood” which hilariously re-creates much of the making of “Plan 9”.
I find some odd movie titles PKoch. Ever see any of these movies. I haven’t. Plan 9 from outerspace. The Brain Eaters. Mesa of Lost Women. Funny line from Plan 9; “Now, don’t you worry. The saucers are up there. The graveyard is out there. But I’ll be locked up safely in there.â€
When you look in IMDB site PKoch it gives many TV shows that Whit Bissell guest starred in. He seems to be a famous character actor. I read the message from the Troll Institute. A troll is smelly so we should smell the troll before he arrives. haha
More Whit Bissell trivia coming at ya PKoch. Whit Bissell played Tom the scientist in Target Earth.
Whit Bissell was in The Manchurian Candidate. He is not in the credits. His character was a Medical Officer. I am at a loss as to Jay Overholts.
I’m reminded of my bus ride past Loew’s Kings on Flatbush Avenue this past Thursday July 20, 2006. I knew roughly where it was, and had my eye out for it. Then (pleasant surprise !) I actually saw the name “Kings” in two places on the marquee.
Then I got an idea of the true size of the auditorium, when I looked above the marquee and saw its roofline looming several stories above adjacent lower buildings, like the profile of the back of a brontosaurus walking through low trees and brush, and protruding above it.
Lost only toys with me because he loves me so much. And he knows I have a fondness for talking to myself (at great length I might add) on these theater pages. Go to the page for the Argo Theater in Elmont, NY to see a perfect example. That one spanned over several months! And no OT bilge on any of them!!! Actually, it is quite comical, isn’t it?
Thanks for the ground level shot, Warren. The aerial view was a bit deceptive.
The fly space seems pretty narrow from that view, doesn’t it? It doesn’t seem to be much wider than what the width of the proscenium would be. I was going to ask if that was common for a lesser vaudeville/movie house, but Warren commented early on this page that the Willard was considered a luxurious first-run house when it first opened.
Thanks, EdSolero !
Well… naturally it doesn’t open precisely as it should have. When you open the link (it doesn’t work on Macs, unfortunately) close out the Welcome window on the left and zoom in by clicking on the larger building icon on the tool palette. Then you’ll have to use your mouse to click and drag the image to the right in order to bring the theater into view. Sigh. Local.live is a great little site, but it can be damn frustrating post as a link!
Sheesh! I come back from a week’s vacation and find that Warren wants me exterminated! If I know what’s good for me I better stick to statistical facts and historically significant data germane to this theater…
Well… here’s a local.live view of the old Willard (which looks perfectly intact from the exterior despite the interior gut job we know took place in the ‘50’s for conversion to catering space):
View to the East
Hopefully, this opens properly. You may have to open the window to full size and zoom in, but the structure should be easily identifiable as an old theater, sitting along side the elevated J train tracks on Jamaica Ave. You can use the directional palette to rotate the view in any direction.
The Manster is (was?) available from sinistercinema.com
Thanks, EdSolero !
The Creep was the host of WNEW’s “Creature Features” program (portrayed by former two-bit actor, radio personality and voice over artist Lew Steele) on Saturday nights at 8:30. He was a fixture in the early 70’s. Around 1980 or so, they brought him back for another couple of years. He was a slender middle aged man with silvering hair who wore a black turtleneck under a dark sports coat and a pair of sunglasses. He had a dry and subdued sense of humor and would often run word games where they’d flash certain words in caption format during the broadcast and towards the end if the Creep picked your name from all the entries and called you up, you would have to arrange the word into the name of a movie or what have you to win a prize. What an awful run-on sentence that was, but I have no time to fix it!
Anyway, Steele died in 2001 of a heart attack at age 72, survived by his wife – radio and TV psychic Laura Steele.
By the way… Steele was the guy who first intoned the words “It’s 10 PM… do you know where your children are?” that precedes the Channel 5 broadcast of the 10 O'Clock News to this day!
Bklyn Jim, EdSolero, anyone else that’s interested, here is a link to the board I hang out on to discuss monster and other type movies.
It’s troll and flame-free, and there’s lots of great people there :
View link
Come on in, the water and the monsters are fine !
Yes, EdSolero, that’s exactly it !!! I first saw it on “Supernatural Theater”, Saturday 8:30-10 PM WOR Channel 9 in the spring of 1965. Yes, it WAS Japanese, but the guy who had “The Manster” growing out of him was white, and played by an actor with an uncanny resemblance to William H. Macy.
Tell me more about The Creep from Creature Features !
If I may join the fray for a sec… was “The Manster” the one where a monster is growing out of a guy’s body – and it begins with an eye on his shoulder!?!? I think I recall that one from my Creature Features days with The Creep on WNEW channel 5. I don’t remember that one being Japanese… but my memories of it are very faint.
Nah, no green liquid, PK. And too cold for clothes removal. The one you’re referencing may have been in the 1959 color import, “The Mysterians,” something I’ll be posting about very soon on the RKO Bushwick page. (Lookit! My own Coming Attractions! Sheesh!) Anyway, please remind me if it doesn’t go up in a week or so.
“Half Human” had to do with the Abominable Snowman, or something like that. Avalanches. Cute Japanese wenches. Wooden acting. Loud snoring…
Never saw “The Manster” that I recall, but you’ve gotta see “MANT” within the John Goodman flick, “Matinee.” I KNOW yer gonna luvit!!! Rent it this weekend and let them memories roll…
Good, good ! Thanks for the tip on “Half Human”. I remember a apanese sci fi flick in which a man told a woman to take off her clothes, and people turned into pools of green liquid. Was that it ?
Speaking of Japanese, ever see “The Manster” ?
I remember the antenna line from “Them !”