I remember going with my cousins to see “West Side Story” there, in the summer of 1961 or ‘62, while it was still playing reserved-seat on Broadway in Manhattan. Always enjoyed going to the Broadway and Rialto theaters while vacationing in the Catskills each summer.
My family used to vacation in Montecello each summer. One of my favorite things was the fact that the theaters upstate would show films that were then still playing on Broadway in NYC. I remember seeing “Guns of Navarone,” Sinatra in “Von Ryans Express” and “Cleopatra” at the Rialto, while it was still playing reserve-seat on Broadway. After the movie, there was a store a few stores away where I would purchase my beloved DC comic books.
Sorry to hear that this theater, like so many others, I attended is gone.
I saw many films at this beautiful theater as a child, including the Duke in “True Grit” and Clint Eastwood in “Kelly’s Heroes.” My high school graduation was held there. (The theater was playing one of my favorites “Where Eagles Dare” at the time and another of my favorites, “Ice Station Zebra,” was coming next.)
This was such a beautiful theater, from the brass bannisters that led down the long inner lobby to the stunning painted ceilings.
When I still lived in Brooklyn, the express bus I took each day passed to within a few blocks of the boarded-up Kings. I always wondered why the City of New York, in its endless quest for money, never fixed up the Kings and charged a small admission for guys like myself to come in and relive old memories. Now based on what I’m reading here, it looks like it will never happen. Too bad.
I went to this theater a lot during the 1980s. The first show price was $2.50. Sometimes I’d take a day off from work, jump on the Belt Parkway from my home in Canarsie and be there in less than 20 minutes. Among the films I saw were John Carpenter’s “The Thing,” “Conan the Barbarian,” “Best Little Whorehouse in Texas,” “Dirty Rotten Scoundrels,” etc. I took my son to see Disney’s “Oliver and Company” there.
I remember seeing “Hellraiser” there. The film was near the end of its run and it was playing in the theater on the extreme right. There were no ushers nearby since they all hung out in the lobby which was about half a block away. I was the only one in the theater seeing this horror film and being alone really unnerved me. I started thinking that someone could’ve come behind me and cut my throat. And nobody would know…Watching this rather disturbing film by myself in this rather large theater with no one else in close proximity was a rather nervewracking experience.
Around this time the surrounding area was going completely downhill and there was a well-publicised shoot-out duirng a showing of
“G-dfather III.” Metal detectors were installed in the theater.
And I haven’t been back since.
I lived in Canarsie from 1968 to 1999. My family fled there from East New York. I was in this theater many, many times. Among the many films I saw there were John Wayne in “The War Wagon” and “El Dorado,” “Airport,” Vincent Price’s 2 “Dr Phibes” films, Tim Burton’s “Batman” and many others. It never was much to look at. The theater was a fairly decent size until they cut it into three. The middle theater was still fairly large. However the theaters on the right and left were tiny. There were always numerous broken seats (sometimes entire rows) and the floors were always sticky.
This theater was a good theater to go to when the other more modern theaters were crowded and you couldn’t get in. This theater was never crowded on weeknights and only crowded on weekends when something big was playing. I remember when “Terminator 2-Judgement Day” first opened and you couldn’t get in anywhere else, I got into the Canarsie with no problem. Still this was not the theater to see any special effects extravaganza with Dolby sound, the screen was average size and the sound-system mediocre.
It was a nice, local family-oriented theater. When a new Disney film would open each holiday season, you could take your child there and be sure to run into other parents and their children who attended the same school or daycare as your child. I took my older son to see rereleases of “Bambi” and “Cinderella” at the Canarsie, also 2 of the Ninja Turtle films and “The Land Before Time.” The last time I remember being at the Canarsie was a cold, wet Saturday night during the Christmas season 1992 when I took my wife, son and sister to see “Home Alone 2-Lost in New York.” The theater was very crowded that evening and it is a nice, final memory I have of it.
Now, as others have stated, Canarsie is decimated like East New York where I spent the first 18 years of my life. The Canarsie theater is closed like the two local theaters I grew up with in East New York, the Biltmore and the Kinema. I live in Staten Island now and,
every so often, I pass through Canarsie on the way to visit my mother in Queens. The last time I drove down Ave. L, the Canarsie theater was closed and “Lord of the Rings” was still listed as playing on the marquee. Seemed kind of sad.
During the late 1970s, the Midwood theatre had lines going around the block and the parking was extrememly difficult. This was because the admission price in 1978 was .78, it went up to .79 in 1979 and .80 in 1980. It was a good place to see a film that you had already seen somewhere else was wanted to see again. I saw “Superman,” “Moonraker” and “Star Trek-The Motion Picture” all for the second time for the .78 or 79 cents. It took an enormous amount of time for these films to work their way down to the Midwood. “Star Trek-TMP” opened up at Christmas and didn’t work its way down to the Midwood until near-summer. Still it was a fairly decen theater. I remember going back in the early 80s to see “The Final Countdown.” Suddenly the price was back to four bucks to get in. Suddenly the lines to get in disappeared and the Midwood was history.
I saw three films at the Fox during the ‘60s: “The List Of Adrian Messinger” in 1963, “Topkapi” and “The Pink Panther” in 1964. I only remember that it was an enormous theater. However what I remember the most was coming out of the subway at Nevins St. each holiday season and seeing the teenagers lined up, sometimes surrounded by snow, for the Murray the K rock and roll shows. (I never did see one of these shows but my father did take me to an Alan Freed rock and roll show at the Brooklyn Paramount in, I believe, 1958.) The Fox theater was closed and replaced with an office building, Yessir, we needed more office buildings in New York.
The Loews Metropolitan (or Loews Met as we old Brooklynites used to call it,) was one of 4 beautiful Golden-Age theaters Downtown Brooklyn: The Brooklyn Fox, The Paramount, the RKO Albee and the Loews Met. It was one about 3 blocks from the Albee abd one block from the large A&S department store (now Macys.) Like most golden-age Loews, it was an enormous theater with a large fountain with wishing-well in the inner lobby.) Starting in the early ‘60s, I would sometimes go with my father there and later my friends, taking the number 2 IRT from East New York to get there.
It ususally showed films from MGM, Paramount or Columbia. Among the films I saw there were: “Lawrence of Arabia” (right after its roadshow run,) the Brando “Mutiny on the Bounty.” John Wayne in “Circus World,” Charlton Heston in “Major Dundee” and Jerry Lewis in “Whos Minding the Store.” I seem to recall some Elvis’ films playing there as well, I think “Blue Hawaii.”
As the area started deteriorating in the ‘70s, the Met had to resort to showing double-features of grade-D horror films. (The Albee at the same time was showing Kung-fu and Blaxploitation films.) Soon afterward, it was bought by Cineplex Odeon and converted into 4 theaters. It reopened at Christmas 1978 with great fanfare showcasing “Superman” and Clint Eastwood in “Every Which Way But Loose.” (I was working downtown at the time.) However, it was not to last. When I was working downtown again in 2001, the theater was now closed for good and being converted into a Church, the ultimate fate for many golden-age theaters in deteriorating areas.
The Loews Met was a beautiful theater, that outlasted the other beautiful golden-age theaters in downtown Brooklyn. Now it only lives in our memories.
The Earl was located on Liberty Avenue in the area known as “City Line,” the borderline between Brooklyn and Queens. I was there with my father only once in 1964 to see an MGM double-feature of “The Unsinkable Molly Brown” and Elvis in “Viva Las Vegas.” The only thing I remember was that it was the smallest theater that I had ever seen. Since that time, I can only think of possibly 2 smaller theaters: The Trump in Brooklyn and the various auditoriums that make up the Film Forum in Manhattan. But boy, the Earl was small.
I went to the Roxy for the Christmas shows, 1958 and 1959. I saw the films The 7th. Voyage of Sinbad (for which I still have the program purchased there) and Lil Abner. I remember almost nothing about the theater other than that it was enormous and they had a live lion or tiger onstage during the stage show.
Being a New Yorker, I went to Radio City numerous times growing up. I saw “The Thrill of It All” and “Where Were You When the Lights Went Out” with Doris Day, Gregory Peck and Sophia Loren in “Arabesque,” Tony Curtis, Jack Lemmon and Natalie Wood in “The Great Race,” Lemmon and Matthau in “The Odd Couple,” etc. However it was in Steve McQueen’s “Bullitt” that I came to the conclusion that Radio City wasn’t the best place to see a movie you really wanted to see. The theater was jammed and I was up in the balcony. During the film’s legendary car chase, an elderly gentleman decided to make his way towards a seat in the row in front of me. He moved extrememly slow and the people in the row in front all had to rise for him to get through. As a result, I missed most of the most famous scene in the movie.
The last film I saw in Radio City was when my wife won tickets to the World premiere of “MacArthur.” Attending that night were the star, Gregory Peck, Frank Sinatra, Henry Kissinger and Mayor Koch. Sitting in the balcony, I never saw any of them.
I now go to Radio City each March to see Celtic Woman in concert. It is still a very impressive place and never fails to bring back memories of the many times I was there in the 1960s.
Oh what a beautiful theater this was. The large chandelier, the plush carpeting. Of the 4 golden-age theaters in downtown Brooklyn, The Albee, The Paramount, The Brooklyn Fox and the Loews Metropolitan, the Albee was my favorite. They must have had distribution deals with American International since I saw several Vincent Price Poe films there: “Masque of the Red Death,” “Haunted Palace” as well as Vincent in “The Last Man on Earth.” Also numerous Universal films: Hitchcock’s “The Birds,” Brando and Niven in “Bedtime Story,” Sandra Dee in “I’d Rather Be Rich,"Tony Curtis in "Wild and Wonderful,” etc. I also saw Heston in “55 Days at Peking” and Richard Boone in “Rio Conchos” at this great theater. The first time I ever took the number 2 train alone, from my home in East New York, was to see Troy Donohue and Connie Stevens in “Palm Springs Weekend” at the Albee in 1963. During much of the early to mid-‘60s, my friends and I would go to the Albee or the Loews Met, then hit the record and book departments of Korvettes and A&S nearby. There was also a Howard Johnsons across the street. I remember eating there with my father and staring out the window at the Albee. (I believe it was showing Jack Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine in “Irma La Douce.”)
I remember being Downtown Brooklyn in the early to mid-1970s and seeing that the Albee had degenerated into showing Kung-fu and Blaxploitation films. Very sad.
Not long afterward, they tore the Albee down and put up a rather poor mall. Now I’ve heard they they tore that down as well.
However the Albee, like so many other theaters of my childhood, lives on in my memory.
The Kinema was the other theater in East New York that I went to when not going to the Biltmore. The Kinema was located on Pitkin Ave. around the corner from JHS 64 which I attended. I would go over to the Kinema each Wednesday when the shows changed and look into the lobby to see what was coming the following week.
Saw many great horror and Sci-fi films at the Kinema, many starring my favorite Vincent Price: The Fly, House of Usher, Pit and the Pendulum, The Raven, etc. Saw many other wonderful films from many of my favorites there: George Pal’s “The Time Machine,” Ray Harryhausen’s “Mysterious Island” and “First Men in the Moon,” the Disney rerelease of “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea,"in 1963 etc. etc.
On a cold day in January 1963, the G.O. of JHS 64 rented the movie out for a closed showing of Poe’s "The Raven” starring Price, Karloff and Peter Lorre. The next day I read where Boris and Peter Lorre would be making a personal appearance by the Kinema to publicise the film. I begged my father to take me, but since I already saw the film, he took my sister instead. That Saturday night, a massive blizzard hit New York and it took them several hours to get home, despite our living only about 7 or 8 blocks away. I was home at the time watching “Have Gun, Will Travel” and “Gunsmoke"in my nice warm house. Oh well.
The Kinema had numerous Saturday matinees featuring Sci fi or horror films. Like most other theaters it had these bitter, angry old maids known as "matrons” to control the kids. During one rather raucous matinee I can remember one kid flinging his sneaker and hitting the matron right in the head. I wasn’t concerned because they were rather nasty women, I always felt they would have been right at home working in the concentration camps.
The Kinema was not as big as the Biltmore, but I think it might have had a small balcony. I remember on weeknights my mother would go there with he friend, as the theater gave away free dishes.
By the way, does anyone who went to this theater or attended 64, remember a small deli a block away owned by a balding man named Moe?
I still remember his potato knishes which he would slice open with a sharp knife, spray a dollop of mustard in and a ton of salt.I keep trying to recreate his knishes but I’m never quite successful We also loved his watered-dpwn ketchup which we would douse our fries with. Does anyone know what happened to Moe? I remember his place so clearly. There was also a chinese restaurant across the street that was owned for a while by the family of my brother’s friend. In the summer sometimes my father would take me to eat dinner there and we would go across the street to see films like “The Long Ships” or “633 Squadron” there. It was great.
The Kinema, the Biltmore, I practically spent half my childhood in those theaters. What great memories of better times.
I grew up in East New York, Brooklyn and outside of home,school and Hebrew School, I think I spent more time in this theater than anywhere else. I spent virtually every Saturday there or the other local ENY movie theater, the Kinema. I still remember this theater clearly despite not being in it for about 44 years. It is the only theater that I can remember that had its own custard making machine and sold delcious vanilla custard. I remember the layout of the theater clearly, even the location of the men’s room and water fountain.
I saw so many great films there with my family or friends: The Ten Commandments, Spartacus, Its a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, the first Bond film: Dr. No, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, Hitchcock’s Psycho and The Birds, etc. etc. I remember my parents taking me to see Journey to the Center of the Earth there the Friday night of Christmas week and loving it so much that I went back to see it again the next afternoon with my friends. I remember the Saturday matinees, especially one where this theater showed 4 straight hours of cartoons. What wonderful memories. I lived about ten, twelve blocks away and when I got older sometimes I would walk there myself or take the bus down New Lots Ave.
I also remember that there was a Finkelstein’s pool hall next door. I had a Mrs. Finkelstein as my 5th grade school teacher at PS 202. Many of us always wondered whether she was married to or related to the person who owned the poolhall.
Great times at a great theater and wonderful times to be growing up in Brooklyn and the U.S. in general.
I remember going with my cousins to see “West Side Story” there, in the summer of 1961 or ‘62, while it was still playing reserved-seat on Broadway in Manhattan. Always enjoyed going to the Broadway and Rialto theaters while vacationing in the Catskills each summer.
My family used to vacation in Montecello each summer. One of my favorite things was the fact that the theaters upstate would show films that were then still playing on Broadway in NYC. I remember seeing “Guns of Navarone,” Sinatra in “Von Ryans Express” and “Cleopatra” at the Rialto, while it was still playing reserve-seat on Broadway. After the movie, there was a store a few stores away where I would purchase my beloved DC comic books.
Sorry to hear that this theater, like so many others, I attended is gone.
I saw many films at this beautiful theater as a child, including the Duke in “True Grit” and Clint Eastwood in “Kelly’s Heroes.” My high school graduation was held there. (The theater was playing one of my favorites “Where Eagles Dare” at the time and another of my favorites, “Ice Station Zebra,” was coming next.)
This was such a beautiful theater, from the brass bannisters that led down the long inner lobby to the stunning painted ceilings.
When I still lived in Brooklyn, the express bus I took each day passed to within a few blocks of the boarded-up Kings. I always wondered why the City of New York, in its endless quest for money, never fixed up the Kings and charged a small admission for guys like myself to come in and relive old memories. Now based on what I’m reading here, it looks like it will never happen. Too bad.
I went to this theater a lot during the 1980s. The first show price was $2.50. Sometimes I’d take a day off from work, jump on the Belt Parkway from my home in Canarsie and be there in less than 20 minutes. Among the films I saw were John Carpenter’s “The Thing,” “Conan the Barbarian,” “Best Little Whorehouse in Texas,” “Dirty Rotten Scoundrels,” etc. I took my son to see Disney’s “Oliver and Company” there.
I remember seeing “Hellraiser” there. The film was near the end of its run and it was playing in the theater on the extreme right. There were no ushers nearby since they all hung out in the lobby which was about half a block away. I was the only one in the theater seeing this horror film and being alone really unnerved me. I started thinking that someone could’ve come behind me and cut my throat. And nobody would know…Watching this rather disturbing film by myself in this rather large theater with no one else in close proximity was a rather nervewracking experience.
Around this time the surrounding area was going completely downhill and there was a well-publicised shoot-out duirng a showing of
“G-dfather III.” Metal detectors were installed in the theater.
And I haven’t been back since.
I lived in Canarsie from 1968 to 1999. My family fled there from East New York. I was in this theater many, many times. Among the many films I saw there were John Wayne in “The War Wagon” and “El Dorado,” “Airport,” Vincent Price’s 2 “Dr Phibes” films, Tim Burton’s “Batman” and many others. It never was much to look at. The theater was a fairly decent size until they cut it into three. The middle theater was still fairly large. However the theaters on the right and left were tiny. There were always numerous broken seats (sometimes entire rows) and the floors were always sticky.
This theater was a good theater to go to when the other more modern theaters were crowded and you couldn’t get in. This theater was never crowded on weeknights and only crowded on weekends when something big was playing. I remember when “Terminator 2-Judgement Day” first opened and you couldn’t get in anywhere else, I got into the Canarsie with no problem. Still this was not the theater to see any special effects extravaganza with Dolby sound, the screen was average size and the sound-system mediocre.
It was a nice, local family-oriented theater. When a new Disney film would open each holiday season, you could take your child there and be sure to run into other parents and their children who attended the same school or daycare as your child. I took my older son to see rereleases of “Bambi” and “Cinderella” at the Canarsie, also 2 of the Ninja Turtle films and “The Land Before Time.” The last time I remember being at the Canarsie was a cold, wet Saturday night during the Christmas season 1992 when I took my wife, son and sister to see “Home Alone 2-Lost in New York.” The theater was very crowded that evening and it is a nice, final memory I have of it.
Now, as others have stated, Canarsie is decimated like East New York where I spent the first 18 years of my life. The Canarsie theater is closed like the two local theaters I grew up with in East New York, the Biltmore and the Kinema. I live in Staten Island now and,
every so often, I pass through Canarsie on the way to visit my mother in Queens. The last time I drove down Ave. L, the Canarsie theater was closed and “Lord of the Rings” was still listed as playing on the marquee. Seemed kind of sad.
During the late 1970s, the Midwood theatre had lines going around the block and the parking was extrememly difficult. This was because the admission price in 1978 was .78, it went up to .79 in 1979 and .80 in 1980. It was a good place to see a film that you had already seen somewhere else was wanted to see again. I saw “Superman,” “Moonraker” and “Star Trek-The Motion Picture” all for the second time for the .78 or 79 cents. It took an enormous amount of time for these films to work their way down to the Midwood. “Star Trek-TMP” opened up at Christmas and didn’t work its way down to the Midwood until near-summer. Still it was a fairly decen theater. I remember going back in the early 80s to see “The Final Countdown.” Suddenly the price was back to four bucks to get in. Suddenly the lines to get in disappeared and the Midwood was history.
I saw three films at the Fox during the ‘60s: “The List Of Adrian Messinger” in 1963, “Topkapi” and “The Pink Panther” in 1964. I only remember that it was an enormous theater. However what I remember the most was coming out of the subway at Nevins St. each holiday season and seeing the teenagers lined up, sometimes surrounded by snow, for the Murray the K rock and roll shows. (I never did see one of these shows but my father did take me to an Alan Freed rock and roll show at the Brooklyn Paramount in, I believe, 1958.) The Fox theater was closed and replaced with an office building, Yessir, we needed more office buildings in New York.
The Loews Metropolitan (or Loews Met as we old Brooklynites used to call it,) was one of 4 beautiful Golden-Age theaters Downtown Brooklyn: The Brooklyn Fox, The Paramount, the RKO Albee and the Loews Met. It was one about 3 blocks from the Albee abd one block from the large A&S department store (now Macys.) Like most golden-age Loews, it was an enormous theater with a large fountain with wishing-well in the inner lobby.) Starting in the early ‘60s, I would sometimes go with my father there and later my friends, taking the number 2 IRT from East New York to get there.
It ususally showed films from MGM, Paramount or Columbia. Among the films I saw there were: “Lawrence of Arabia” (right after its roadshow run,) the Brando “Mutiny on the Bounty.” John Wayne in “Circus World,” Charlton Heston in “Major Dundee” and Jerry Lewis in “Whos Minding the Store.” I seem to recall some Elvis’ films playing there as well, I think “Blue Hawaii.”
As the area started deteriorating in the ‘70s, the Met had to resort to showing double-features of grade-D horror films. (The Albee at the same time was showing Kung-fu and Blaxploitation films.) Soon afterward, it was bought by Cineplex Odeon and converted into 4 theaters. It reopened at Christmas 1978 with great fanfare showcasing “Superman” and Clint Eastwood in “Every Which Way But Loose.” (I was working downtown at the time.) However, it was not to last. When I was working downtown again in 2001, the theater was now closed for good and being converted into a Church, the ultimate fate for many golden-age theaters in deteriorating areas.
The Loews Met was a beautiful theater, that outlasted the other beautiful golden-age theaters in downtown Brooklyn. Now it only lives in our memories.
The Earl was located on Liberty Avenue in the area known as “City Line,” the borderline between Brooklyn and Queens. I was there with my father only once in 1964 to see an MGM double-feature of “The Unsinkable Molly Brown” and Elvis in “Viva Las Vegas.” The only thing I remember was that it was the smallest theater that I had ever seen. Since that time, I can only think of possibly 2 smaller theaters: The Trump in Brooklyn and the various auditoriums that make up the Film Forum in Manhattan. But boy, the Earl was small.
I went to the Roxy for the Christmas shows, 1958 and 1959. I saw the films The 7th. Voyage of Sinbad (for which I still have the program purchased there) and Lil Abner. I remember almost nothing about the theater other than that it was enormous and they had a live lion or tiger onstage during the stage show.
Being a New Yorker, I went to Radio City numerous times growing up. I saw “The Thrill of It All” and “Where Were You When the Lights Went Out” with Doris Day, Gregory Peck and Sophia Loren in “Arabesque,” Tony Curtis, Jack Lemmon and Natalie Wood in “The Great Race,” Lemmon and Matthau in “The Odd Couple,” etc. However it was in Steve McQueen’s “Bullitt” that I came to the conclusion that Radio City wasn’t the best place to see a movie you really wanted to see. The theater was jammed and I was up in the balcony. During the film’s legendary car chase, an elderly gentleman decided to make his way towards a seat in the row in front of me. He moved extrememly slow and the people in the row in front all had to rise for him to get through. As a result, I missed most of the most famous scene in the movie.
The last film I saw in Radio City was when my wife won tickets to the World premiere of “MacArthur.” Attending that night were the star, Gregory Peck, Frank Sinatra, Henry Kissinger and Mayor Koch. Sitting in the balcony, I never saw any of them.
I now go to Radio City each March to see Celtic Woman in concert. It is still a very impressive place and never fails to bring back memories of the many times I was there in the 1960s.
Oh what a beautiful theater this was. The large chandelier, the plush carpeting. Of the 4 golden-age theaters in downtown Brooklyn, The Albee, The Paramount, The Brooklyn Fox and the Loews Metropolitan, the Albee was my favorite. They must have had distribution deals with American International since I saw several Vincent Price Poe films there: “Masque of the Red Death,” “Haunted Palace” as well as Vincent in “The Last Man on Earth.” Also numerous Universal films: Hitchcock’s “The Birds,” Brando and Niven in “Bedtime Story,” Sandra Dee in “I’d Rather Be Rich,"Tony Curtis in "Wild and Wonderful,” etc. I also saw Heston in “55 Days at Peking” and Richard Boone in “Rio Conchos” at this great theater. The first time I ever took the number 2 train alone, from my home in East New York, was to see Troy Donohue and Connie Stevens in “Palm Springs Weekend” at the Albee in 1963. During much of the early to mid-‘60s, my friends and I would go to the Albee or the Loews Met, then hit the record and book departments of Korvettes and A&S nearby. There was also a Howard Johnsons across the street. I remember eating there with my father and staring out the window at the Albee. (I believe it was showing Jack Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine in “Irma La Douce.”)
I remember being Downtown Brooklyn in the early to mid-1970s and seeing that the Albee had degenerated into showing Kung-fu and Blaxploitation films. Very sad.
Not long afterward, they tore the Albee down and put up a rather poor mall. Now I’ve heard they they tore that down as well.
However the Albee, like so many other theaters of my childhood, lives on in my memory.
The Kinema was the other theater in East New York that I went to when not going to the Biltmore. The Kinema was located on Pitkin Ave. around the corner from JHS 64 which I attended. I would go over to the Kinema each Wednesday when the shows changed and look into the lobby to see what was coming the following week.
Saw many great horror and Sci-fi films at the Kinema, many starring my favorite Vincent Price: The Fly, House of Usher, Pit and the Pendulum, The Raven, etc. Saw many other wonderful films from many of my favorites there: George Pal’s “The Time Machine,” Ray Harryhausen’s “Mysterious Island” and “First Men in the Moon,” the Disney rerelease of “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea,"in 1963 etc. etc.
On a cold day in January 1963, the G.O. of JHS 64 rented the movie out for a closed showing of Poe’s "The Raven” starring Price, Karloff and Peter Lorre. The next day I read where Boris and Peter Lorre would be making a personal appearance by the Kinema to publicise the film. I begged my father to take me, but since I already saw the film, he took my sister instead. That Saturday night, a massive blizzard hit New York and it took them several hours to get home, despite our living only about 7 or 8 blocks away. I was home at the time watching “Have Gun, Will Travel” and “Gunsmoke"in my nice warm house. Oh well.
The Kinema had numerous Saturday matinees featuring Sci fi or horror films. Like most other theaters it had these bitter, angry old maids known as "matrons” to control the kids. During one rather raucous matinee I can remember one kid flinging his sneaker and hitting the matron right in the head. I wasn’t concerned because they were rather nasty women, I always felt they would have been right at home working in the concentration camps.
The Kinema was not as big as the Biltmore, but I think it might have had a small balcony. I remember on weeknights my mother would go there with he friend, as the theater gave away free dishes.
By the way, does anyone who went to this theater or attended 64, remember a small deli a block away owned by a balding man named Moe?
I still remember his potato knishes which he would slice open with a sharp knife, spray a dollop of mustard in and a ton of salt.I keep trying to recreate his knishes but I’m never quite successful We also loved his watered-dpwn ketchup which we would douse our fries with. Does anyone know what happened to Moe? I remember his place so clearly. There was also a chinese restaurant across the street that was owned for a while by the family of my brother’s friend. In the summer sometimes my father would take me to eat dinner there and we would go across the street to see films like “The Long Ships” or “633 Squadron” there. It was great.
The Kinema, the Biltmore, I practically spent half my childhood in those theaters. What great memories of better times.
I grew up in East New York, Brooklyn and outside of home,school and Hebrew School, I think I spent more time in this theater than anywhere else. I spent virtually every Saturday there or the other local ENY movie theater, the Kinema. I still remember this theater clearly despite not being in it for about 44 years. It is the only theater that I can remember that had its own custard making machine and sold delcious vanilla custard. I remember the layout of the theater clearly, even the location of the men’s room and water fountain.
I saw so many great films there with my family or friends: The Ten Commandments, Spartacus, Its a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, the first Bond film: Dr. No, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, Hitchcock’s Psycho and The Birds, etc. etc. I remember my parents taking me to see Journey to the Center of the Earth there the Friday night of Christmas week and loving it so much that I went back to see it again the next afternoon with my friends. I remember the Saturday matinees, especially one where this theater showed 4 straight hours of cartoons. What wonderful memories. I lived about ten, twelve blocks away and when I got older sometimes I would walk there myself or take the bus down New Lots Ave.
I also remember that there was a Finkelstein’s pool hall next door. I had a Mrs. Finkelstein as my 5th grade school teacher at PS 202. Many of us always wondered whether she was married to or related to the person who owned the poolhall.
Great times at a great theater and wonderful times to be growing up in Brooklyn and the U.S. in general.