Dormont theater to reopen this fall to show second-run films
Thursday, September 14, 2006
By Al Lowe
Dormont Councilman John Sparvero, 69, had his first kiss at the Hollywood Theater.
He doesn’t remember other details. “I wasn’t looking at the movie,” he said.
Mr. Sparvero and other Dormont officials are happy that the Hollywood Theater, 1439 Potomac Ave., which closed in 1998, is to reopen this year.
“I’m excited that young families in the South Hills can once again enjoy what I did growing up in Dormont, motion picture entertainment you can walk to and near to dining choices,” Dormont council President Linda Kitchen said.
“We’re on our way,” Mr. Sparvero said of the theater restoration and other revitalization efforts attempting to change the face of the borough.
Bradley Center has agreed to lease the theater for 10 years with options to renew and, after renovations, wants to open it by Thanksgiving. But center officials said that contractors' work might not be finished until the holiday season in December. Mayor Thomas Lloyd announced at last week’s council meeting that Bradley has applied for a building permit to start renovations.
No money details were released.
Bradley Center, a foster care program with services for children in need of a safe and structured environment, houses 76 abused, neglected, orphaned or abandoned children at its Mt. Lebanon site, a quarter-mile from the theater.
Other sites are in North Strabane and Robinson, said Garry McGrath, the center’s chief financial officer, who will oversee the program.
The Hollywood Theater venture is the first time the center has tried another kind of business.
Bradley will employ three youngsters daily during the week and seven or eight on the weekends under supervision of adults from the center, in addition to two full-time theater staff members who are not center personnel. They will collect admission, staff the refreshment stand and clean the theater.
“This will be the cleanest theater anyone has ever seen,” said Mr. McGrath, of Upper St. Clair.
Plans call for two movies daily, one at 6 or 6:15 p.m. and another at 8 or 8:15 p.m. On the weekends, there will be two children’s movies shown before the regular films. Admission will be $2.50 or $3.
The movies will be second-run features previously shown for three or four weeks at theaters such as the Galleria or South Hills Village. A movie classic will be shown occasionally during one of the weekdays.
The seating is being replaced and reduced from 700 seats to 300, with 50 resembling coffeehouse seating and situated on the side of the theater. The regular seats will be farther from each other, giving people room to stretch along the flat floor of the theater.
There also will be balcony seating. “There are not too many theater balconies left,” Mr. McGrath said.
He estimated the cost of buying theater equipment and seating to be $113,000. Other renovations, such as replacing heating, air conditioning and wiring, will be done by the landlord, Hollywood Partners LLC. Brian Kelly, one of the owners, declined to give those costs.
Refreshments will be cheaper than those sold at other theaters and will include bakery goods and sandwich wraps, Mr. McGrath said.
Paintings by the students will be on display in the lobby and will be for sale.
The advantages of the Dormont location are its proximity to the Potomac Station T stop and parking spaces in a lot across the street and on West Liberty Avenue. It also is near several Dormont restaurants, including one next door, Fredo’s Deli. The restaurant’s owner, Alfredo Shaheen, head of the Dormont Business Association, brokered the deal.
The theater operation by the nonprofit organization will give the students work experience and an opportunity to earn money. The students have jobs at the center, but this will be a chance for them to interact with people other than supervisors or peers. An adult supervisor will be on hand to help the students if they make mistakes, such as giving out the wrong change. Some students will get a chance to become licensed projectionists.
“They never had an opportunity before to be part of the community,” he said.
The operation is modeled on a successful theater in upstate New York, Scotia Cinema, in Scotia. That theater has shown second-run films for 25 years but has no affiliation with any organization such as Bradley Center.
Mr. McGrath said his attorney advised against revealing the specifics of the lease agreement because part of it is still being negotiated.
Plans are to retain the name unless the attorney finds legal objections.
He said he was pleased recently when he and contractors inspected the site and found themselves questioned by numerous people. They were eager for the theater to reopen, he said.
“Mary Poppins” played first-run at the Ontario Theater, located in the same neighborhood as the Ambassador. The film opened there in October 1964 and played until the next spring when “The Sound of Music” replaced it.
The Fiesta was on Sixth Avenue in downtown Pittsburgh. After it closed it was later used by the Art Institute of Pittsburgh as classrooms for the school’s video department. The school moved up to the Boulevard of the Allies between Smithfield and Grant and now the Fiesta is empty again, although it could be used by the Casablanca Restaurant next door for storage.
The Forum on Forbes Avenue in Squirrel Hill later bacame a bagel shop. I haven’t been on that block in a while, so I’m not sure what exactly it is now. It closed around 1978 or 1979.
The others are neighborhood theaters that closed at different times. If you have access to a library that has or can get microfilms of old Pittsburgh Press newspapers via Inter-Library Loan, you may want to check out the Sunday Arts & Leisure sections that were published in July 1983. One of them has an article by then-film critic Ed Blank about the old theaters in the Pittsburgh area and what became of them. Mr. Blank rode through almost every neighborhood, got out and talked to the old-timers he could find about their locations and later history. Addresses are given for most. I have a copy but it’s not with me at present, so I don’t know the exact date, other than a Sunday in July 1983.
There is a lot of information on Harry Crandall in the book:
Motion Picture Exhibition in Washington, D.C.: An Illustrated History of Parlors, Palaces, and Multiplexes in the Metropolitan Area, 1894-1997
The author is Robert K. Headley
Published in 1999 by McFarland & Company, Inc.
Jefferson, NC & London
I was able to purchase it at Barnes & Noble.
Most of the bibliographical info is on pages 151 through 155, althouh he is mentioned throughout the book. It does NOT give his wife’s name, although she is mentioned twice as “his widow.” He had a daughter who married a man named John Payette, who also was involved in the movie theater business.
Here is another batch of Films that played at the Keith’s Theater, picking up from where my previous post left off:
01/01/72 Diamonds are Forever
02/16/72 Mark of the Devil
03/15/72 Shaft/The Split
03/29/72 Cool Breeze
04/26/72 Bigfoot
05/03/72 Chato’s Land
05/24/72 The Legend of Nigger Charley
06/28/72 Duck, You Sucker
07/19/72 Dr. No/From Russia, With Love/Goldfinger
07/26/72 Blacula
08/23/72 The Magnificent Seven Ride
08/30/72 The Return of Sabata
09/06/72 Twitch of the Death Nerve
09/20/72 Melinda
10/18/72 Hammer
11/01/72 Hickey and Boggs
11/08/72 The Mechanic
11/22/72 Ulzana’s Raid
11/29/72 Daughters of Satan/Superbeast
12/06/72 Born Black
12/13/72 Across 110th Street
02/14/73 Shaft/Shaft’s Big Score
02/21/73 Wattstax
04/18/73 Scorpio
05/02/73 Deep Thrust
05/16/73 Coffy
06/20/73 Karado: The Hong Kong Cat
06/27/73 Live and Let Die
08/08/73 Scream, Blacula, Scream
08/29/73 I Escaped from Devil’s Island
09/26/73 The Outside Man
10/03/73 The Spook Who Sat by the Door
11/07/73 The Black Six
11/21/73 Coffy/The Mack
12/12/73 Embassy
12/19/73 That Man Bolt
01/09/74 Black Girl/Across 110th Street
01/16/74 The Dragon’s Vengeance
01/30/74 Five on the Black Hand Side
03/13/74 Busting
03/27/74 The Street Gangs of Hong Kong
04/03/74 Theater of Blood
04/10/74 The Super Cops
04/24/74 Africa Uncensored
05/08/74 The Dynamite Brothers
05/22/74 The Spikes Gang
05/29/74 The Spook Who Sat by the Door
06/05/74 Fists of Fury/ The Chinese Connection/Enter the Dragon
06/19/74 Mr. Majestyk
07/03/74 Thunderbolt and Lightfoot
07/31/74 The Black Godfather
08/14/74 The Return of the Dragon
08/28/74 Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia
09/11/74 Amazing Grace
10/09/74 Honey Baby, Honey Baby
10/16/74 Cool Breeze/Melinda
10/23/74 The Taking of Pelham 1-2-3
11/13/74 The House on Skull Mountain
11/20/74 Kato & the Green Hornet
12/04/74 Five on the Black Hand Side/Hickey and Boggs
12/11/74 Uptown Saturday Night/Cleopatra Jones
12/18/74 The Man With the Golden Gun
01/15/75 Black Starlet
01/29/75 Shanghai Lil/Man of Iron
02/05/75 Coffy/The Mack
02/12/75 Bogard
03/05/75 Report to the Commissioner
03/19/75 Shoot it Black, Shoot it Blue
03/26/75 The Black Gestapo
04/02/75 Twilight People
04/09/75 Enter the Dragon/The Chinese Professionals
04/16/75 Karate One by One/Top of the Heap
04/23/75 Womens' Cell Block 7/A Town Called Hell
04/30/75 Man of the East
05/07/75 Moonrunners/Charley One-Eye
05/14/75 The Exorcist
05/21/75 Mandingo
07/02/75 The Wilby Conspiracy
07/23/75 Take a Hard Ride
08/06/75 The Devil’s Rain
08/13/75 The Chinese Connection/Fists of Fury
08/20/75 Power Kill
09/03/75 The Exorcist
09/10/75 The Street Fighter/Return of the Street Fighter
09/17/75 The Taking of Pelham 1-2-3
09/24/75 Return of the Dragon/Kato & the Green Hornet
10/01/75 Skill, Brains, and Guts/Ali-Frazier Fight
10/08/75 The Return of the Panther/Dragon Squad
10/22/75 Truck Turner/Book of Numbers
10/29/75 Massacre, Mafia Style/Voodoo Heartbeat
11/05/75 Sisters/Coffy
11/12/75 Thou Shalt Not Kill/Savage Sisters
11/19/75 No Way Out/Together Brothers
11/26/75 Mean Johnny Barrows
12/10/75 Call Him Mr. Shatter/The Four Deuces
12/17/75 The Killer Elite
01/21/76 Psychic Killer
01/28/76 Beyond the Door/Abby
02/11/76 Goodbye, Bruce Lee
03/03/76 (call theater for title!)
03/17/76 Deadly Hero
03/24/76 Super Dragon/Dragon Squad
03/31/76 The Premonition
04/07/76 Sparkle
05/05/76 Hot Potato/Enter the Dragon
05/12/76 Grizzly
05/26/76 Dolemite/Boss Nigger
06/09/76 The Exorcist
06/23/76 Black Christmas
06/30/76 Mahogany/Lady Sings the Blues
07/21/76 Velvet Smooth
07/28/76 The Super Weapon
08/04/76 House of Exorcism
08/11/76 St. Ives/Thomasine and Bushrod
08/18/76 Infra-Man/Together Brothers
08/25/76 Super Dragon/Three the Hard Way
09/01/76 HOUSE DARK
11/03/76 Shout at the Devil
11/17/76 Get Mean
11/24/76 Twitch of the Death Nerve
12/01/76 The Erotic Adventures of Pinocchio
12/15/76 Fritz the Cat/9 Lives of Fritz the Cat/Heavy Traffic
12/22/76 Exit the Dragon, Enter the Tiger
01/19/77 Executive Action
01/26/77 The Town That Dreaded Sundown
02/09/77 Madam Kitty
03/02/77 Death Collector
03/16/77 The House by the Lake
03/30/77 The Enforcer/Hustle
04/06/77 Black Samurai
04/20/77 Car Wash/Super Fly
04/27/77 Uncle Tom’s Cabin
05/18/77 Cross of Iron
06/01/77 Le Grande Bourgeoisie
06/08/77 Mandingo/Drum
06/15/77 Tentacles
My research ends here. The Keith’s Theater went on for about another year, then shuttered forever. Most of its last years were just a melange of blaxploitation, kung fu, and horror films—some were brought back over and over in double bills. The house was still the city’s outlet (playing day-and-date with a number of houses in the suburbs) for UA action-type releases, including the James bond series, but the rest of UA’s films mostly played the Avalon on upper Connecticut Avenue.
I had lunch in the place the other week – it’s now the Old Ebbetts Grill, and I wish it well…still, I wish I’d been there once in my life to see a film on its screen. Maybe July 1965, when my favorite spy film, “Masquerade” with Cliff Robertson & Jack Hawkins graced it’s screen. Oh well, that’s what dreams are for.
I visited Washington from February 6-12, as work sent me down to spend a week in our DC office. I went to the Uptown to see “Good Night and Good Luck.” It was as if I died and went to “movie theater heaven.” The theater still looked as beautiful as ever, although there wasn’t that big a crowd for the Tuesday night late show. All I can say is, “Please Washington,don’t let AMC let this place die. Do what you can to make it a historical place so they can’t mess with it or if they do decide to sell it, make sure it’s someone who will keep it just as it is…A magnificent piece of history.
Does anybody have a photo of the front and marquee of this theater in its latter days (circa 1961-1966)? I would really like to see what it looked like – all the photos I’ve ever seen were on the interior, and it was razed before I was able to visit the site in person. Thanks!
The two weeks marked as “Stage Show” in the listing of films that I provided are instances where the theater was used either for a touring legitimate show or possibly something like a ballet or orchestra. In those days the big legitimate theater was the National Theater on Pennsylvania Avenue, particularly for future or past Broadway productions on the road. Washington was one of the cities that Broadway producers used for previews prior to taking the show to the Great White Way. Occasionally the National may have already been booked and a downtown motion picture palace was used instead.
Warner Centre was sold at Allegheny County’s sheriff’s sale yesterday (February 7, 2005) for $2,700,000. It was purchased by Allied Capital, a Washington DC-based investment company who was acting for LaSalle Bank. LaSalle Bank was owed $3.7 million by the building’s owners and the property is assessed at $4.9 million. Allied says that it will seek to acquire new tenants for the retail, restaurant, and office areas of the building, in order to raise its market value.
Listed below are the films which played at Loew’s Penn from June 25, 1958 until it closed in September 1964. Research is from microfilms of Variety and The Pittsburgh Press and The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. The dates listed are the Wedensday of the film’s opening week as in those days, theaters most often changed their bills on that day.
06/25/58 The Vikings
07/16/58 The Imitation General
07/23/58 Rock-A-Bye Baby
07/30/58 Peter Pan
08/06/58 Kings Go Forth
08/20/58 The Badlanders
08/27/58 Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
10/01/58 The Reluctant Debutante
10/08/58 The Big Country
10/29/58 The Defiant Ones
11/19/58 Houseboat
12/10/58 Tunnel of Love
12/17/58 The Buccaneer
12/31/58 tom thumb
01/07/59 Some Came Running
01/21/59 I Want to Live
02/11/59 Anna Lucasta
02/18/59 Separate Tables
03/11/59 The Journey
03/18/59 Lonelyhearts
03/25/59 Some Like it Hot
04/29/59 The Mating Game
05/06/59 Green Mansions
05/13/59 The Naked Maja
05/20/59 Pork Chop Hill
05/27/59 The World, the Flesh, and the Devil
06/03/59 Shake Hands With the Devil
06/10/59 Ask Any Girl
06/17/59 The Mysterians
06/24/59 The Horse Soldiers
07/15/59 A Hole in the Head
08/05/59 North by Northwest
09/09/59 It Started With a Kiss
09/30/59 The Devil’s Disciple
10/07/59 For the First time
10/14/59 The Wonderful Country
10/21/59 Scapegoat
10/28/59 But Not for Me
11/04/59 Odds Against Tomorrow
11/11/59 Career
11/25/59 The Wreck of the Mary Deare
12/09/59 The House of the Seven Hawks
12/16/59 DARK
12/23/59 Solomon and Sheba
01/27/60 The Gazebo
02/03/60 On the Beach
02/24/60 Once More, With Feeling
03/09/60 The Last Voyage
03/16/60 Home From the Hill
04/06/60 Visit to a Small Planet
04/20/60 Please Don’t Eat the Daisies
05/11/60 The Unforgiven
05/25/60 The Fugitive Kind
06/01/60 The Gallant Hours
06/08/60 The Giant of Marathon
06/15/60 Macumba Love
06/22/60 The Apartment
07/20/60 The Rat Race
07/27/60 Bells are Ringing
08/03/60 Elmer Gantry
08/17/60 Psycho
09/28/60 All the Fine Young Cannibals
10/12/60 The Angel Wore Red
10/19/60 Night Fighters
10/26/60 The Magnificent Seven
11/09/60 Where the Hot Wind Blows
11/16/60 Butterfield 8
12/14/60 Inherit the Wind
12/28/60 The Facts of Life
01/04/61 Where the Boys Are
01/18/61 Village of the Damned
01/25/61 Go Naked in the World
02/01/61 The Misfits
03/01/61 Gorgo
03/15/61 The Hoodlum Priest
03/29/61 Cimarron
04/19/61 The Apartment/Elmer Gantry
05/03/61 All in a Night’s Work
05/10/61 Mein Kamph
05/24/61 The Young Savages
05/31/61 Two Loves
06/07/61 The Last Time I Saw Archie
06/21/61 By Love Possessed
07/05/61 Morgan the Pirate
07/12/61 The Naked Edge
07/26/61 The Honeymoon Machine
08/02/61 Goodbye Again
08/09/61 Thief of Baghdad
08/16/61 After Mein Kamph
08/23/61 Ada
09/06/61 The Young Doctors
09/20/61 A Thunder of Drums
09/27/61 Paris Blues
10/11/61 Bridge to the Sun
10/18/61 The Explosive Generation
10/25/61 Town Without Pity
11/01/61 The Mask
11/08/61 Bachelor in Paradise
11/29/61 X-15
12/06/61 Room at the Top/A Streetcar Named Desire
12/13/61 Gigi/Butterfield 8
12/20/61 The Wonders of Aladdin
12/27/61 Pocketful of Miracles
01/10/62 The Happy Thieves
01/17/62 The Innocents
01/24/62 One, Two, Three
02/14/62 Sergeants 3
03/07/62 Light in the Piazza
03/14/62 The 4 Horsemen of the Apocalypse
03/21/62 Satan Never Sleeps
03/28/62 Sweet Bird of Youth
04/11/62 All Fall Down
04/18/62 The Horizontal Lieutenant
04/25/62 The Children’s Hour
05/02/62 Jessica
05/09/62 Judgement at Nuremberg (pop prices)
05/23/62 Colossus of Rhodes
05/30/62 Follow That Dream
06/06/62 The Cabinet of Caligari
06/13/62 The Vikings/Trapeze
06/20/62 Geronimo
06/27/62 The Road to Hong Kong
07/04/62 Boys' Night Out
07/11/62 Ride the High Country/The Tartars
07/18/62 Reprieve
07/25/62 Birdman of Alcatraz
08/08/62 Lolita
08/29/62 The Miracle Worker
09/12/62 Tarzan Goes to India
09/19/62 Two Weeks in Another Town
09/26/62 Flame in the Streets
10/03/62 I Thank a Fool
10/10/62 The Pigeon That Took Rome
10/24/62 A Very Private Affair
10/31/62 Gigot
11/21/62 Period of Adjustment
11/28/62 Escape from East Berlin
12/05/62 Fancy Pants/The Seven Little Foys
12/12/62 King of Kings (pop prices)
12/19/62 The Swordsmen of Siena
12/26/62 Billy Rose’s Jumbo
01/02/63 The Password is Courage
01/09/63 The Lion
01/23/63 Who’s Got the Action?
01/30/63 STAGE SHOW
02/13/63 A Girl Named Tamiko
03/06/63 Follow the Boys
03/20/63 The Courtship of Eddie’s Father
03/27/63 Papa’s Delicate Condition
04/03/63 STAGE SHOW
04/17/63 Critic’s Choice
04/24/63 Nine Hours to Rama
05/01/63 Madame
05/08/63 The Apartment/The Facts of Life
05/15/63 Father of the Bride/Seven Brides for Seven Brothers
05/22/63 No Exit
05/29/63 55 Days at Peking
06/26/63 Cleopatra
12/25/63 The Sword in the Stone
01/15/64 Move Over, Darling
02/12/64 A Global Affair
02/19/64 The Misadventures of Merlin Jones
03/04/64 West Side Story
03/18/64 Shock Treatment
03/25/64 The Brass Bottle
04/08/64 The Seven Faces of Dr. Lao
04/15/64 Hud/Come Blow Your Horn
04/29/64 South Pacific
05/13/64 The Molesters (5/13 & 5/14 Macbeth)
05/20/64 A Summer Place/Parrish
05/27/64 Lady in a Cage
06/10/64 Empty Canvas
06/17/64 The Patsy
06/24/64 The Carpetbaggers
08/19/64 A Hard Day’s Night
08/26/64 Ensign Pulver
09/02/64 CLOSED PERMANENTLY AS FILM HOUSE
Part of the history of a great motion picture theater is the films that played there. Listed below are the first-run films and major reissues that played at the Alexandria from January 1, 1960 to December 31, 1975. Research is from microfilms of Variety as well as The San Francisco Chronicle. The dates listed are the Wednesday of the opening week since in those days most new films opened on Wednesdays, rather than Fridays as they do now. In the early 1960’s the Alexandria was one of San Francisco’s major houses for “roadshow” films, and subsequently, was DARK between engagements. Films from January 1, 1976 will be provided in subsequent postings.
01/01/60 DARK
05/18/60 Can-Can
10/26/60 The Alamo
02/08/61 Exodus
10/18/61 Breakfast at Tiffany's
12/20/61 El Cid
06/27/62 My Geisha
10/10/62 The Longest Day
02/27/63 To Kill a Mockingbird
06/26/63 Cleopatra
07/22/64 The Fall of the Roman Empire
09/02/64 I’d Rather Be Rich
09/23/64 Woman of Straw
10/14/64 Where Love Has Gone
11/04/64 Topkapi
12/23/64 Kiss Me, Stupid
02/10/65 How to Murder Your Wife
04/07/65 The Train
06/30/65 What’s New, Pussycat?
09/01/65 Darling
09/29/65 Ship of Fools
11/24/65 King Rat
12/22/65 Boeing, Boeing
01/26/66 Lord Love a Duck
03/16/66 Viva, Maria!
03/30/66 The Group
06/22/66 The Russians are Coming…The Russians are Coming
08/03/66 Walk, Don’t Run
10/05/66 Diabolique
10/26/66 The Fortune Cookie
12/21/66 A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum
02/15/67 The Deadly Affair
03/22/67 The Happening
05/03/67 Casino Royale
06/28/67 Woman Times Seven
08/09/67 Luv
09/06/67 The Tiger and the Pussycat
09/20/67 The Trip
12/20/67 Counterpoint/The Jokers
01/31/68 Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner
04/03/68 The Secret War of Harry Frigg
05/15/68 A Man for All Seasons/To Sir, With Love
06/19/68 Boom
07/17/68 Anzio
08/07/68 The Producers
10/09/68 The Heart is a Lonely Hunter
12/18/68 Oliver!
10/15/69 Journey to the Far Side of the Sun
11/05/69 Thank You All Very Much/Lock Up Your Daughters
11/19/69 Don’t Drink the Water
12/17/69 Viva, Max!
02/04/70 The Magic Christian
03/25/70 The Adventurers
05/13/70 Goodbye, Mr. Chips
06/03/70 Rider on the Rain
06/24/70 The Out-of-Towners
07/29/70 On a Clear Day You Can See Forever
11/11/70 WUSA
12/23/70 Cromwell
02/17/71 My Fair Lady
03/31/71 Waterloo
06/23/71 The Anderson Tapes
08/18/71 The Love Machine
11/24/71 The French Connection
02/02/72 Nicholas and Alexandra
05/24/72 Confessions of a Police Captain
06/07/72 Patton
06/14/72 Hello, Dolly!
06/28/72 Last of the Red Hot Lovers
07/19/72 The Other
10/04/72 Doctor Zhivago
10/11/72 Gone With the Wind
10/18/72 2001: A Space Odyssey
10/25/72 The Valachi Papers
12/20/72 The Poseidon Adventure
04/11/73 Class of ‘44
05/23/73 Hitler: The Last 10 Days
06/27/73 The Friends of Eddie Coyle
08/08/73 The Mackintosh Man
09/19/73 The Stone Killer
10/24/73 Westworld
12/19/73 Papillon
03/27/74 The Three Musketeers
06/26/74 For Pete’s Sake
08/07/74 Pink Floyd
08/21/74 California Split
09/18/74 Doctor Zhivago
10/16/74 The Odessa File
12/18/74 The Towering Inferno
05/21/75 The French Connection II
06/25/75 Bite the Bullet
09/24/75 Mysteries Beyond the Earth
10/08/75 Royal Flash
11/26/75 The Human Factor
12/25/75 Lucky Lady
Listed below are the films which played at the Gateway from January 1, 1964 to December 31, 1971
01/01/64 Charade
02/19/64 Man’s Favorite Sort
03/04/65 Dark Purpose
03/11/64 Man in the Middle
03/18/64 Captain Newman, M. D.
04/22/64 Dr. Strangelove
05/13/64 Operation Petticoat/Pillow Talk
05/20/64 Evil of Frankenstein
05/27/64 Wild and Wonderful
06/10/64 The Chalk Garden
06/24/64 The Seventh Dawn
07/01/64 Bedtime Story
07/15/64 Honeymoon Hotel
07/22/64 Marnie
08/19/64 The New Interns
09/02/64 Looking for Love
09/09/64 The Killers
09/16/64 I’d Rather Be Rich
10/07/64 Diary of a Bachelor
10/14/64 Send Me No Flowers
11/25/64 Kitten With a Whip
12/03/64 Joy House
12/16/64 Bye Bye Birdie/West Side Story
12/23/64 Father Goose
01/20/65 Kiss Me, Stupid
02/10/65 How to Murder Your Wife
03/17/65 Bus Riley’s Back in Town
03/31/65 The Truth About Spring
04/14/65 Major Dundee
04/28/65 Dr. No/From Russia, With Love
06/16/65 McHale’s Navy Joins the Air Force
06/23/65 The Art of Love
07/07/65 What’s New, Pussycat?
08/18/65 Help!
09/01/65 Billie
09/15/65 Never on Sunday/Topkapi
09/29/65 Ship of Fools
10/20/65 A Rage to Live
10/27/65 The Secret of My Success
11/03/65 The Nanny
11/24/65 The War Lord
12/22/65 Thunderball
03/30/66 The Group
04/27/66 A Man Could Get Killed
05/11/66 The Pink Panther/A Shot in the Dark
05/25/66 Blindfold
06/15/66 Marnie/The Birds
06/22/66 The Russians are Coming… The Russians are Coming
08/10/66 Torn Curtain
09/21/66 Goldfinger/Dr. No
10/12/66 Alvarez Kelly
10/26/66 An American Dream
11/02/66 Return of the Seven
11/16/66 The Fortune Cookie
12/21/66 Murderers Row
02/01/67 The Spy With a Cold Nose
02/08/67 Tobruk
02/22/67 Is Paris Burning?
03/15/67 Ulysses (Mar 15-17 only)
03/22/67 How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying
04/19/67 The Alamo
04/26/67 Who’s Afrai of Virginia Woolf?
05/03/67 To Kill a Mockingbird/That Touch of Mink
05/10/67 One Million Years, B. C.
05/24/67 For a Few Dollars More
06/07/67 8 on the Lam
06/21/67 You Only Live Twice
08/16/67 The War Wagon
08/30/67 Fathom
09/06/67 DARK – CLOSED FOR REMODELING
10/11/67 Point Blank
11/15/67 Tony Rome
12/20/67 The Jungle Book
01/17/68 The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
02/14/68 The Billion Dollar Brain
02/21/68 The President’s Analyst
03/06/68 P. J.
03/20/68 How to Save a Marriage and Ruin Your Life
04/03/68 The Scalphunters
04/17/68 The Secret War of Harry Frigg
05/08/68 Where Angels Go, Trouble Follows
05/15/68 Will Penny
05/22/68 The Devil’s Brigade
06/12/68 What’s So Bad About Feeling Good?
06/19/68 The Private Navy of Sgt. O'Farrell
06/26/68 The Thomas Crown Affair
08/07/68 With Six You Get Eggroll
08/21/68 Hang ‘Em High
08/28/68 The Hell With Heroes
09/04/68 Salt and Pepper
09/18/68 The Ugly Ones
09/25/68 A Lovely Way to Die
10/02/68 West Side Story
10/30/68 Shalako
11/06/67 Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
11/13/68 Yellow Submarine
11/27/68 Coogan’s Bluff
12/18/68 The Night They Raided Minsky's
01/01/69 The Brotherhood
01/15/69 Play Dirty
01/22/69 The Stalking Moon
02/05/69 Buona Sera, Mrs. Campbell
03/12/69 Mayerling
03/26/69 Where Eagles Dare
04/23/69 A Fistful of Dollars/For a Few Dollars More
04/30/69 The First Time
05/14/69 Where It’s At
05/21/69 If It’s Tuesday, This Must Be Belgium
06/11/69 How to Commit Marriage
06/25/69 The Maltese Bippy
07/09/69 Peter Pan
07/16/69 Mackenna’s Gold
07/30/69 Daddy’s Gone A-Hunting
08/13/69 Castle Keep
08/27/69 Number One
09/10/69 3 into 2 Won’t Go
09/24/69 The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly/Hang 'Em High
10/01/69 The File of the Golden Goose
10/08/69 Some Kind of a Nut
10/15/69 Marlowe
10/22/69 The Battle of Britain
11/19/69 Change of Habit
11/26/69 The Gypsy Moths
12/17/69 On Her Majesty’s Secret Service
02/04/70 The Happy Ending
02/25/70 A Dream of Kings
03/04/70 Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
04/08/70 Halls of Anger
04/22/70 The Honeymoon Killers
05/06/70 The Lawyer
05/13/70 Let it Be
05/20/70 Suppose They Gave a War and Nobody Came
06/03/70 A Man Called Horse
06/24/70 A Boy Named Charlie Brown
07/22/70 Beneath the Planet of the Apes
08/12/70 Cotton Comes to Harlem
09/16/70 Hornet’s Nest
09/23/70 Sabata
09/30/70 Witchcraft '70
10/07/70 Cannon for Cordoba
10/14/70 It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World
11/04/70 The McKenzie Break
11/18/70 Scrooge
12/16/70 Burn!
12/23/70 Rio Lobo
01/13/71 You Only Live Twice/Thunderball
02/10/71 Doctors’ Wives
03/10/71 My Fair Lady
03/24/71 Mrs. Pollifax-Spy
04/07/71 Valdez is Coming
04/28/71 Brother John
05/05/71 Lawrence of Arabia
05/19/71 Valley of the Dolls/Beyond the Valley of the Dolls
05/26/71 Support Your Local Gunfighter
06/02/71 Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song
06/30/71 Le Mans
07/21/71 Big Jake
08/11/71 Dr. No/From Russia, With Love
08/18/71 The Love Machine
09/22/71 Adios, Sabata
09/29/71 The Seven Minutes
10/06/71 Klute
10/13/71 Jennifer on My Mind
10/20/71 The Organization
11/17/71 Going Home
11/24/71 something big
12/08/71 Play Misty for Me
12/22/71 Diamonds are Forever
Films which played the Gateway from January 1, 1972 on will be listed in later posts.
Listed below are films which played at the Gateway (Harris) heater in downtown Pittsburgh from June 25, 1958 to December 31, 1963. Reasearch is from microfilms of Variety and The Pittsburgh Press and The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. The dates listed are the Wednesday of the opening week of new bills. Films which played in later years will be listed in subsequent posts.
Harris
06/25/58 The Bravados
07/09/58 The Key
07/30/58 The Fly
08/13/58 Gunman’s Walk
08/20/58 The Fiend Who Walked West
08/27/58 The Hunters
09/10/58 The Whole Truth
09/17/58 Tank Force
09/24/58 Me and the Colonel
10/01/58 Andy Hardy Comes Home
10/08/58 The Decks Ran Red
10/15/58 Missouri Traveler
10/22/58 Gun Runners
10/29/58 The Mark of Zorro
11/05/58 In Love and War
11/19/58 The Last Hurrah
12/10/58 A Nice Little Bank That Should Be Robbed
12/17/58 The 7th Voyage of Sinbad
12/31/58 The Inn of the Sixth Happiness
01/21/59 Rally Round the Flag, Boys!
02/11/59 Bell, Book, and Candle
02/25/59 These Thousand Hills
03/04/59 Up Periscope
03/18/59 The Trap
03/25/59 The Sound and the Fury
04/08/59 Gidget
04/15/59 I, Mobster
04/22/59 Warlock
05/06/59 Alias Jesse James
05/20/59 Count Your Blessings
05/27/59 Shane
06/10/59 It Happened to Jane
06/24/59 Say One for Me
07/22/59 Anatomy of a Murder
09/02/59 The Blue Angel
09/16/59 A Private’s Affair
09/23/59 The Tingler
10/07/59 The Man Who Understood Women
10/14/59 The Best of Everything
10/28/59 They Came to Cordura
11/18/59 Yesterday’s Enemy
11/25/59 Hound Dog Man
12/02/59 Day of the Outlaw
12/09/59 Northwest Mounted Police
12/16/59 1001 Arabian Nights/The Flying Fontaines
12/30/59 Journey to the Center of the Earth
01/20/60 The Rookie
01/27/60 Suddenly, Last Summer
02/24/60 Seven Thieves
03/02/60 Who Was That Lady?
04/06/60 Because They’re Young
04/13/60 Sink the Bismarck
04/27/60 Babette Goes to War
05/04/60 The Wind Cannot Read
05/11/60 The Killers of Kilimanjaro
05/18/60 The Third Voice
05/25/60 The Mountain Road
06/08/60 Man on a String
06/15/60 The Story of Ruth
07/06/60 13 Ghosts
07/13/60 Murder, Inc.
07/20/60 Strangers When We Meet
08/10/60 Hell to Eternity
08/24/60 Let’s Make Love
09/14/60 The Time Machine
09/21/60 All the Young Men
10/05/60 High Time
10/12/60 Surprise Package
10/26/60 I Aim at the Stars
11/02/60 Song Without End
12/14/60 The 3 Worlds of Gulliver
12/28/60 The Wackiest Ship in the Army
Gateway
01/18/61 Let No Man Write My Epitaph
01/25/61 The Marriage-Go-Round
02/01/61 The Plunderers
02/08/61 Can-Can
03/01/61 Cry for Happy
03/15/61 The Sword and the Dragon
03/22/61 Pepe
04/26/61 Operation Eichmann
05/03/61 The Trapp Family
05/10/61 Return to Peyton Place
06/07/61 Atlantis, the Lost Continent
06/14/61 Wild in the Country
06/21/61 Homicidal
07/05/61 Gidget Goes Hawaiian
07/12/61 Two Rode Together
07/19/61 The Guns of Navarone
09/13/61 The Big Gamble
09/20/61 Armored Command
09/27/61 Scream of Fear
10/04/61 Seven Women from Hell
10/11/61 Francis of Assisi
10/18/61 The Devil at 4 O'Clock
11/15/61 The Comancheros
12/06/61 Twenty Plus Two
12/13/61 Twist Around the Clock
12/20/61 Flower Drum Song
01/24/62 Tender is the Night
02/07/62 The George Raft Story
02/14/62 Lover Come Back
04/04/62 Walk on the Wild Side
04/18/62 State Fair
05/09/62 Experiment in Terror
05/30/62 Cape Fear
06/20/62 That Touch of Mink
08/08/62 The Head
08/15/62 Five Weeks in a Balloon
08/22/62 The Spiral Road
09/12/62 The Phantom of the Opera
09/26/62 No Man is an Island
10/10/62 Damn the Defiant
10/17/62 Roman Holiday
10/24/62 White Slave Ship
10/31/62 We’ll Bury You
11/07/62 The War Lover
11/21/62 If a Man Answers
12/19/62 Barabbas
01/09/63 A Child is Waiting
01/16/63 Taras Bulba
02/13/63 40 Pounds of Trouble
03/06/63 Diamond Head
03/27/63 To Kill a Mockingbird
05/08/63 The Ugly American
05/29/63 Hud
06/12/63 Tammy and the Doctor
06/19/63 The Nutty Professor
06/26/63 A Gathering of Eagles
07/10/63 Come Blow Your Horn
08/14/63 The Thrill of it All
09/18/63 For Love or Money
10/02/63 The Haunting
10/09/63 The Leopard
10/23/63 The Running Man
10/30/63 Rampage
11/06/63 Mondo Cane
11/13/63 Under the Yum Yum Tree
11/27/63 The Wheeler Dealers
12/25/63 Charade
Below are the motion pictures which played the Chatham Cinema from its opening in 1966 through December 31, 1975. research is from microfilms of Variety and The Pittsburgh Press and The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. The dates listed are the Wednesday of the opening week of the new films, as in those days, new releases generally opened on that day, rather than on Fridays as they do now. Films from January 1, 1976 on will be provided in later posts.
10/26/66 Alfie
03/22/67 Funeral in Berlin
04/19/67 The Taming of the Shrew
07/12/67 Two for the Road
08/16/67 Barefoot in the Park
11/15/67 Reflections in a Golden Eye
12/20/67 Wait Until Dark
04/03/68 The Fox
06/26/68 The Odd Couple
10/30/68 The Bliss of Mrs. Blossom
11/13/68 The Subject Was Roses
11/27/68 Secret Ceremony
12/18/68 Bullitt
03/26/69 The Killing of Sister George
05/07/69 Midas Run
05/14/69 Romeo and Juliet
05/28/69 Goodbye, Columbus
08/27/69 Last Summer
10/08/69 The Rain People
10/22/69 The Sterile Cuckoo
11/26/69 Don’t Drink the Water
12/10/69 Blow-Up/The Loved One
12/17/69 John and Mary
02/11/70 The Molly Maguires
03/11/70 Z
05/06/70 Airport
08/12/70 The Out-of-Towners
10/21/70 Sunflower
11/04/70 Little Fauss and Big Halsey
12/16/70 South Pacific
12/23/70 There’s a Girl in My Soup
02/10/71 Husbands
03/10/71 Little Big Man
05/12/71 The Mephisto Waltz
05/26/71 When Eight Bells Toll
06/02/71 The Odd Couple/The Out-of-Towners
06/09/71 Joe/Lovers and Other Strangers
06/16/71 Summer of ‘42
08/25/71 Billy Jack
09/01/71 Doc
09/22/71 The Devils
10/13/71 A Criminal Affair
10/20/71 Play Misty for Me
11/17/71 The French Connection
03/22/72 A Clockwork Orange
05/24/72 Play It Again, Sam
07/12/72 Prime Cut
08/09/72 The Candidate
10/04/72 Deliverance
12/20/72 Jeremiah Johnson
01/31/73 The Heartbreak Kid
03/28/73 The Emigrants
04/11/73 Brother Sun, Sister Moon
05/02/73 Sleuth
05/23/73 The Day of the Jackal
07/11/73 Scarecrow
08/15/73 O Lucky Man
08/29/73 Happy Mother’s Day…Love, George
09/19/73 Bang the Drum Slowly
10/03/73 I Could Never Have Sex With Any Man…
10/17/73 American Graffiti
12/19/73 The Sting
03/27/74 Mame
05/22/74 The Sugarland Express
06/26/74 Our Time
07/17/74 That’s Entertainment
10/16/74 Airport 1975
12/18/74 The Front Page
02/05/75 Young Frankenstein
05/07/75 At Long Last Love
05/21/75 The Other Side of the Mountain
06/25/75 The French Connection II
08/13/75 The Fortune
09/10/75 The Hound of the Baskervilles
09/24/75 Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?
10/01/75 Hennessy
10/15/75 Dog Day Afternoon
12/24/75 The Black Bird
Below is Part II of the list of films which played at the Fulton Theater in downtown Pittsburgh. As in the posting above, research is from microfilms of Variety and The Pittsburgh Press and The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Again, the dates are the Wednesday of the opening week. This posting contains films from Janaury 1, 1964 to December 31, 1971.
01/01/64 The Cardinal
01/22/64 Kings of the Sun
02/05/64 The Victors
03/04/64 Soldier in the Rain
03/11/64 One Man’s Way
03/18/64 Flight from Ashiya
04/01/64 Some Like it Hot/Irma La Douce
04/15/64 Paris When it Sizzles
04/22/64 Lilies of the Field
05/13/64 From Russia, With Love
06/03/64 The Pink Panther
07/01/64 Good Neighbor Sam
07/22/64 McHale’s Navy
08/05/64 A Shot in the Dark
09/16/64 Woman of Straw
09/30/64 Behold a Pale Horse
10/14/64 Where Love Has Gone
10/28/64 Topkapi
11/25/64 Fail-Safe
12/16/64 Lili
12/23/64 Goldfinger
02/24/65 Strange Bedfellows
03/10/65 Mary Poppins
04/07/65 The Train
05/12/65 Fluffy
05/26/65 Mirage
06/09/64 Marriage, Italian Style
06/23/65 Von Ryan’s Express
07/14/65 Lord Jim
07/28/65 Shenandoah
08/25/65 A Very Special Favor
09/15/65 That Funny Feeling
09/29/65 The Reward
10/06/65 It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World
10/13/65 Return From the Ashes
11/10/65 The Ipcress File
12/22/65 Boeing Boeing
12/29/65 Never Too Late
01/19/66 The Slender Thread
01/26/66 The Heroes of Telemark
02/09/66 Moment to Moment
02/23/66 Made in Paris
03/09/66 The Spy With My Face/To Trap a Spy
03/16/66 Inside Daisy Clover
03/23/66 The Flight of the Phoenix
03/30/66 Madame X
04/13/66 The Trouble With Angels
05/11/66 Promise Her Anything
05/18/66 The Oscar
06/01/66 North by Northwest
06/08/66 Lost Command
06/22/66 Arabesque
07/20/66 The Glass-Bottom Boat
08/17/66 Walk, Don’t Run
09/14/66 The Wild Angels
10/05/66 Mister Buddwing
10/19/66 The Appaloosa
10/26/66 Way…Way Out
11/02/66 Texas Across the River
11/23/66 The Professionals
12/21/66 Gambit
01/11/67 Kiss the Girls and Make Them Die
01/25/67 A Fistful of Dollars
02/15/67 The 25th Hour
03/01/67 Deadlier Than the Male
03/15/67 The Russians are Coming…/The Fortune Cookie
03/22/67 A Countess from Hong Kong
04/12/67 Doctor, You’ve Got to Be Kidding!
04/26/67 Casino Royale
05/31/67 Devil’s Angels
06/07/67 Triple Cross
06/21/67 You Only Live Twice
07/05/67 El Dorado
07/12/67 Banning
07/19/67 Divorce, American Style
08/16/67 The Honey Pot
08/23/67 Luv
09/13/67 Murderers Row/The Silencers
09/20/67 The Flim-Flam Man
09/27/67 Beach Red
10/04/67 Hour of the Gun
10/18/67 The Happiest Millionaire
11/29/67 To Sir, With Love
12/20/67 The Ambushers
01/24/68 The Wicked Dreams of Paula Schultz
02/07/68 Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner
05/22/68 Guns for San Sebastian
05/29/68 Wild in the Streets
06/19/68 Villa Rides!
06/26/68 Where Were You When the Lights Went Out?
07/17/68 Boom
07/24/68 The Detective
08/21/68 The Secret Life of an American Wife
09/18/68 Deadfall
09/25/68 Anyone Can Play
10/02/68 From Russia, With Love/Thunderball
10/16/68 Funny Girl
12/25/68 Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
02/26/69 Rachel, Rachel/The Heart is a Lonely Hunter
03/05/69 The Night of the Following Day
03/19/69 Sam Whiskey
03/26/69 Sinful Davey
04/02/69 Support Your Local Sheriff
04/23/69 The Illustrated Man
04/30/69 Hannibal Brooks
05/07/69 3 in the Attic
05/28/69 Hard Contract
06/11/69 Once Upon a Time in the West
06/18/69 True Grit
07/09/69 The April Fools
08/06/69 The Bridge at Remagen
08/13/69 Midnight Cowboy
12/17/69 Topaz
01/21/70 Goodbye, Mr. Chips
02/25/70 Gaily, Gaily
03/04/70 Anne of the Thousand Days
03/25/70 Marooned
04/08/70 The Ballad of Cable Hogue
04/15/70 In Search of the Castaways
04/22/70 The Kremlin Letter
04/29/70 The Liberation of L. B. Jones
05/13/70 A Walk in the Spring Rain
05/27/70 One More Time
06/03/70 The Grasshopper
06/17/70 Ned Kelly
06/24/70 The Hawaiians
07/15/70 They Call Me Mister Tibbs
07/29/70 Two Mules for Sister Sara
08/19/70 El Condor
08/26/70 Move
09/09/70 Darker Than Amber
09/16/70 The Professionals/In Cold Blood
09/23/70 Hotel
09/30/70 Watermelon Man
10/07/70 Doctor Zhivago
10/14/70 Lovers and Other Strangers
12/23/70 Tora! Tora! Tora!
02/10/71 Cromwell
02/24/71 Cold Turkey
04/07/71 Pretty Maids All in a Row
04/21/71 THX 1138
05/05/71 The House That Dripped Blood
05/12/71 The Beguiled
05/26/71 Cat O'Nine Tails
06/09/71 What’s the Matter With Helen?
06/23/71 Plaza Suite
07/21/71 The Last Run
07/28/71 Shaft
08/25/71 The Omega Man
09/29/71 The Todd Killings
10/06/71 The Clay Pigeon
10/13/71 Kotch
11/17/71 Catlow
11/24/71 Man in the Wilderness
12/22/71 $
Films from January 1, 1972 on will be provided in later postings.
Thanks. I do have the research completed for Pittsburgh from December 16, 1959 to December 31, 1977 for Pittsburgh first-run theaters. It’s just a matter of time getting it all onto this site. I also have been compiling the same information for NYC, LA, CHIC, PHILA, DET, SF, DC, BOST, STL, DAL, BALT, CLEVE, HOUS, MPLS, ATL, SEAT, MILW, CINC, SD, BUFF, KC, MIAMI, DENV, IND, TAMPA,
NO, COL, PHNX, PORT, PROV, SA, CHAR & TOR – have 17 cities beside PGH finished from 1959-1975…it’s a slow process getting microfilms of other cities newspapers Inter-Library Loaned to Carnegie Library in Oakland. I’d love to see your collection sometime – I have a huge collection of ads cut from pressbooks and newspaers myself. I live in Dormont – originally from Bethel Park. You can reach me at
or
Premiering a big, splashy roadshow musical in the 60s was a hit or miss proposition. Certainly “West Side Story,” “Mary Poppins,” and “My Fair Lady” were huge successes.
But then in 1965 came “The Sound of Music,” and the overwhelming popularity of the Julie Andrews-20th Century Fox hit changed everything. All of the studios thought the public wanted big musicals and that they too would have similar blockbusters. So many of the Broadway musical hits which hadn’t yet been filmed were dusted off for the big screen, as well as ideas for original screen musicals.
In the next decade, we got “The Happiest Millionaire,” “Doctor Dolittle,” “Thoroughly Modern Millie,” “Camelot,” “Funny Girl,” “Oliver!,” “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang,” “Half a Sixpence,” “Star!,” “Finian’s Rainbow,” “Goodbye, Mr. Chips,” “Sweet Charity,” “Paint Your Wagon,” “Hello, Dolly!,” “Song of Norway,” “Fiddler on the Roof,” “Man of La Mancha,” “On a Clear Day You Can See Forever,” “1776,” “Jesus Christ Superstar,” “Tom Sawyer,” “Cabaret,” “Godspell, and "Mame.” Most of these WERE released as hard-ticket roadshow films, and although their artistic qualities varied, very few of them earned back their production costs. And younger audiences at the time were not embracing the musical unless it was rock music, which is one of the reasons for the decline of the film musical until it was revived recently with “Chicago.”
PS – I’m still waiting for the film version of Stephen Sondheim’s “Follies” with Debbie Reynolds singing “I’m Still Here,” as well as film versions of “Pippin,” “Dreamgirls,” “Promises, Promises,” and “On the 20th Century.” Probably not to be…alas! But there is “The Phantom of the Opera” coming for Christmas, which would be perfect for the RCMH as an exclusive NYC run. That won’t happen either!
To the best of my knowledge, Warner Brothers premiered and showed “The Music Man” as a regular non-roadshow film in all of the big cities during the summer of 1962.
“Mary Poppins,” however, was a roadshow film in almost all of the large cities when it came out in the fall of 1964.
Looking again through the list of films which played RCMH that I previously submitted, only “Mary Poppins” and “The Happiest Millionaire” (both from Disney) could truly be considered to have played roadshow engagements in cities other than New York, although “Fanny,” “The Unsinkable Molly Brown,” “The Great Race,” “Bedknobs and Broomsticks,” and “1776,” among others, probably could have been roadshow films, had the studios decided to release them that way.
Films which played at Loew’s Palace in Washington, DC from January 1964 to December 1971.
01/01/64 Move Over, Darling
02/12/64 Man’s Favorite Sport
03/04/64 Sunday in New York
03/25/64 The Seven Faces of Dr. Lao
04/01/64 Shock Treatment
04/08/64 Night Must Fall
04/22/64 Lilies of the Field
04/29/64 The Best Man
05/27/64 A Distant Trumpet
06/03/64 Advance to the Rear
06/10/64 The Carpetbaggers
08/19/64 McHale’s Navy
09/02/64 The Killers
09/16/64 Quo Vadis
09/30/64 Fate is the Hunter
10/21/64 Where Love Has Gone
11/11/64 Youngblood Hawke
12/16/64 Curse of Frankenstein/Horror of Dracula
12/23/64 The Pleasure Seekers
01/13/65 Quick, Before It Melts!
01/20/65 Baby, the Rain Must Fall
02/03/65 Psycho
02/17/65 Sylvia
03/03/65 Crack in the World
03/10/65 Hush, Hush…Sweet Charlotte
03/24/65 Bus Riley’s Back in Town
04/07/65 In Harm’s Way
05/19/65 Dr. No/From Russia, With Love
06/30/65 Von Ryan’s Express
08/04/65 Harlow
08/18/65 Operation Crossbow
09/29/65 Ship of Fools
11/03/65 The King and I
11/17/65 The Cincinnati Kid
12/22/65 Do Not Disturb
01/12/66 The Spy With My Face/To Trap a Spy
01/26/66 Our Man Flint
03/30/66 The Ten Commandments
04/27/66 Harper
06/15/66 A Big Hand for the Little Lady
06/22/66 Nevada Smith
07/20/66 Assault on a Queen
08/03/66 The Glass-Bottom Boat
08/24/66 Cat on a Hot Tin Roof/Butterfield 8
09/14/66 Our Man Flint/Von Ryan’s Express
09/21/66 One Spy Too Many
09/28/66 Mister Buddwing
10/05/66 Seconds
10/12/66 An American Dream
10/19/66 Kaleidoscope
10/26/66 Dead Heat on a Merry-Go-Round
11/09/66 The Professionals
12/21/66 Any Wednesday
01/04/67 Kiss the Girls and Make Them Die
01/18/67 The Venetian Affair
01/25/67 The Quiller Memorandum
02/08/67 Tobruk
03/01/67 The 25th Hour
03/15/67 One Million Years, BC
03/22/67 In Like Flint
04/26/67 Casino Royale
06/14/67 El Dorado
07/05/67 Up the Down Staircase
08/02/67 The Naked Runner
08/16/67 To Sir, With Love
10/25/67 The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre
11/01/67 Bonnie and Clyde
11/22/67 Cool Hand Luke
12/20/67 The Ambushers
01/17/68 Valley of the Dolls
02/21/68 Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner
04/10/68 Planet of the Apes
05/29/68 The Carpetbaggers/Nevada Smith
06/12/68 Villa Rides
06/26/68 The Detective
07/10/68 Bandolero
07/24/68 Where Were You When the Lights Went Out?
08/07/68 Five Card Stud
08/28/68 The Secret Life of an American Wife
09/11/68 The Big Gundown
09/25/68 Deadfall
10/02/68 Duffy
10/16/68 If He Hollers, Let Him Go
11/06/68 The Boston Strangler
11/27/68 The Lady in Cement
12/11/68 Coogan’s Bluff
12/18/68 Candy
01/29/69 Up Tight
02/12/69 Secret Ceremony
03/05/69 The Night of the Following Day
03/12/69 Planet of the Apes/Valley of the Dolls
03/26/69 100 Rifles
04/23/69 The Odd Couple/Rosemary’s Baby
04/30/69 House of Cards
05/07/69 Midas Run
05/14/69 The Dirty Dozen/Grand Prix
05/21/69 Goldfinger/Dr. No
05/28/69 Once Upon a Time in the West
06/11/69 Heaven With a Gun/The Cincinnati Kid
06/18/69 Shalako/If He Hollers, Let Him Go
06/25/69 Mackenna’s Gold
07/09/69 The Wild Bunch
08/13/69 Castle Keep
09/03/69 Succubus
09/17/69 A Stranger in Town/The Stranger Returns
09/24/69 The Italian Job
10/01/69 Bonnie and Clyde/Bullitt
10/08/69 The Boston Strangler/The Lady in Cement
10/15/69 The Good Guys and the Bad Guys
10/29/69 All the Loving Couples
11/19/69 The Undefeated
12/24/69 The Arrangement
01/21/70 Without a Stitch
02/25/70 The Last of the Mobile Hotshots
03/04/70 The Honeymoon Killers
03/11/70 Cain’s Way
03/18/70 The Wild Bunch
03/25/70 The Adventurers
05/06/70 The Liberation of L. B. Jones
05/27/70 The Grasshopper
06/10/70 How to Succeed With Sex
06/17/70 Kelly’s Heroes
07/08/70 Beyond the Valley of the Dolls
08/05/70 Chisum
08/26/70 Watermelon Man
09/16/70 El Condor
09/23/70 The Man from C. O. T. T. O. N. (Purlie Victorious)
10/07/70 King: A Filmed Journey (Montgomery to Memphis)
10/14/70 The Lady of Monza
10/21/70 Threesome
11/18/70 WUSA
12/02/70 Flap
12/23/70 There Was a Crooked Man…
01/13/71 Horror of Frankenstein/Scars of Dracula
01/27/71 Her and She and Him
02/10/71 Doctors' Wives
03/03/71 Sexual Practics in Sweden
03/24/71 The House That Dripped Blood
04/07/71 Brother John
04/28/71 Patton
05/12/71 Sweet Sweetback’s Badasssssss Song
06/23/71 Klute
07/21/71 The Seven Minutes
08/04/71 Billy Jack
08/18/71 Soul to Soul
10/06/71 Ginger
11/17/71 Private Duty Nurses
12/01/71 Woman in Cages
12/22/71 Dirty Harry
The Palace was one of Washington’s premier downtown movie palaces from the time it was built, and it was the theater where many important films had their first Washington showing. That all changed after April 4, 1968 and the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. Along with the Warner, Keith’s, Trans-Lux, and the rest of the older downtown houses, the Palace found that audiences were preferring to do their moviegoing at the newer theaters being built in suburban malls, and Washington theaters increasingly lost their exclusive first-run status in favor of showcasing new films in a number of theaters spread throughout the area. So the Place and other theaters downtown began to feature more double bills of second-run films, soft-core pornography films, and beginning in 1971, black-oriented films.
Part of the history of a great motion picture theater is the films that played there. Listed below are the films which played at Loew’s Palace in Washington, DC from November 1957 to December 1963. Research is from microfilms of The Washington Post and Variety. The dates listed are the Wednesday of the week in which the film opened, as in those days, most new films opened on Wednesdays instead of Fridays, as they do now. Films from January 1964 to the theater’s closing in 1978 will be listed in later posts due to space considerations.
11/20/57 Baby Face Nelson
11/27/57 Kiss Them for Me
12/04/57 Man in the Shadow
12/18/57 Peyton Place
02/19/58 A Farewell to Arms
03/12/58 The Brothers Karamazov
04/16/58 The Young Lions
05/14/58 Fraulein
05/21/58 Ten North Frederick
06/04/58 The Law and Jake Wade
06/18/58 Proud Rebel
07/02/58 Kings Go Forth
08/06/58 A Certain Smile
08/20/58 The Big Country
10/01/58 Harry Black and the Tiger
10/08/58 The Barbarian and the Geisha
10/22/58 Dunkirk
10/29/58 In Love and War
11/12/58 The Decks Ran Red
11/19/58 Mardi Gras
12/10/58 A Nice Little Bank That Should Be Robbed
12/17/58 The Restless Years
12/24/58 The Roots of Heaven
12/31/58 The Inn of the Sixth Happiness
02/18/59 Rally Round the Flag, Boys
03/11/59 The Remarkable Mr. Pennypacker
03/25/59 The Mating Game
04/15/59 Green Mansions
04/29/59 Al Capone
05/20/59 Watusi
05/27/59 A Woman Obsessed
06/03/59 The World, the Flesh, and the Devil
06/17/59 A Hole in the Head
07/15/59 This Earth is Mine
08/05/59 North by Northwest
10/14/59 For the First Time
10/21/59 Career
11/11/59 Hound Dog Man
11/18/59 The Wreck of the Mary Deare
12/09/59 House of the Seven Hawks
12/23/59 Solomon and Sheba
02/10/60 Sink the Bismarck
03/02/60 Three Murderesses
03/16/60 Home from the Hill
04/13/60 Kidnapped
04/20/60 The Fugitive Kind
05/25/60 Wild River
06/08/60 Flame Over India
06/15/60 The Story of Ruth
06/29/60 Pay or Die
07/06/60 The Mountain Road
07/13/60 Pollyanna
07/27/60 From the Terrace
08/31/60 All the Fine Young Cannibals
09/14/60 The Time Machine
09/28/60 I Aim at the Stars
10/05/60 The Angel Wore Red
10/12/60 Desire in the Dust
10/19/60 One Foot in Hell
11/02/60 A Breath of Scandal
11/09/60 Butterfield 8
01/04/61 Flaming Star
01/11/61 The Marriage-Go-Round
01/25/61 Go Naked in the World
02/15/61 The Sword and the Dragon
02/22/61 The Alamo
03/22/61 All Hands on Deck
04/05/61 All in a Night’s Work
04/19/61 The Apartment/Elmer Gantry
05/03/61 Cimarron
05/17/61 Return to Peyton Place
06/14/61 The Ladies Man
06/28/61 Morgan the Pirate
07/05/61 The Parent Trap
08/02/61 Exodus
08/23/61 Thief of Bagdad
08/30/61 The Pit and the Pendulum
09/13/61 Marines, Let’s Go!
09/20/61 The Big Gamble
09/27/61 The Invasion Quartet
10/04/61 The Hustler
10/25/61 Back Street
11/22/61 The Comancheros
12/06/61 I Bombed Pearl Harbor
12/13/61 Aladdin
12/27/61 The Second Time Around
01/10/62 Bachelor Flat
01/24/62 Knights of the Round Table/Ivanhoe
01/31/62 Tender is the Night
02/14/62 Pinocchio
03/07/62 Satan Never Sleeps
03/21/62 Oklahoma
04/04/62 Premature Burial
04/18/62 State Fair
05/16/62 The Horizontal Lieutenant
05/23/62 King Solomon’s Mines/The Naked Spur
05/30/62 Lisa
06/06/62 Hell is for Heroes
06/13/62 The Vikings/Trapeze
06/20/62 13 West Street
06/27/62 Boy’s Night Out
08/01/62 Hemingway’s Adventures of a Young Man
08/15/62 My Geisha
08/22/62 Five Weeks in a Balloon
08/29/62 Two Weeks in Another Town
09/19/62 I Thank a Fool
10/10/62 Damon and Pythias
10/17/62 A Very Private Affair
10/24/62 Roman Holiday/Sabrina
10/31/62 Billy Budd
11/21/62 If a Man Answers
12/05/62 The Legend of Lobo
12/12/62 The Trojan Horse/The Mongols
12/19/62 Ride Vaquero/Escape from Fort Bravo
12/26/62 Billy Rose’s Jumbo
01/16/63 The Password is Courage
01/23/63 40 Pounds of Trouble
02/13/63 Joseph and His Brethren
02/20/63 A Girl Named Tamiko
03/06/63 The Robe
03/13/63 The Courtship of Eddie’s Father
04/03/63 Constantine and the Cross
04/10/63 The Miracle of the White Stallions
05/01/63 Come Fly With Me
05/15/63 The Yellow Canary
05/22/63 We Shall Return
05/29/63 The List of Adrian Messenger
06/19/63 The Stripper
06/26/63 The Main Attraction
07/03/63 Savage Sam
07/17/63 Donovan’s Reef
07/31/63 Come Blow Your Horn
09/11/63 The Haunting
09/25/63 The VIPs
11/20/63 The Wheeler Dealers
12/25/63 Move Over, Darling
Part of the history of a great motion picture theater is the films that played there. Listed below are the films that were featured at the Ambassador Theater in Washington, Dc from November 1957 until its closure in 1966. Research is from microfilms of The Washington Post and Variety. The dates listed are the Wednesday of the film’s opening week, as in those years, most films opened on Wednesdays instead of the Friday openings that occur today. In most instances, the Ambassador played its films day-and-date with an other theater. In earlier years it was the Earle (later Warner) in downtown Washington. After the Warner began to feature hard-ticket roadshow films, the Ambassador shared its openings with the Metropolitan, which was also downtown.
11/20/57 The Tin Star
11/27/57 Bombers B-52
12/04/57 Battle Stripe/Armored Attack
12/11/57 Rodan
12/18/57 Esther Costello
12/25/57 Sayonara
02/19/58 The Deep Six
02/26/57 Fort Dobbs
03/05/58 Darby’s Rangers
03/12/58 Cowboy
03/19/58 Lafayette Escadrille
03/26/58 Jumping Jacks/Scared Stiff
04/02/58 Marjorie Morningstar
04/30/58 Another Time, Another Place
05/07/58 Chase a Crooked Shadow
05/14/58 Too Much, Too Soon
05/21/58 The Left-Handed Gun
05/28/58 Vertigo
06/25/58 Attila
07/02/58 No Time for Sergeants
08/06/58 The Light in the Forest
08/13/58 Indiscreet
09/03/58 The Naked and the Dead
09/17/58 Wind Across the Everglades
09/24/58 Damn Yankees
10/15/58 Onionhead
10/29/58 The Blob
11/05/58 From the Earth to the Moon
11/12/58 The Spider/The Brain Eaters
11/19/58 Enchanted Island/Appointment With a Shadow
11/26/58 Home Before Dark
12/17/58 The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad
12/31/58 Auntie Mame
02/25/59 The House on Haunted Hill
03/04/59 Up Periscope
03/11/59 The Hanging Tree
03/18/59 Rio Bravo
04/08/59 The Trap
04/15/59 Alias Jesse James
04/29/59 Lonelyhearts
05/06/59 Westbound/Born Reckless
05/13/59 A Star is Born
05/20/59 The Man in the Net
05/27/59 The Young Philadelphians
06/17/59 Don’t Give Up the Ship
07/01/59 Hercules
07/22/59 The Nun’s Story
09/02/59 Yellowstone Kelly
09/09/59 John Paul Jones
09/16/59 That Kind of Woman
09/23/59 Sign of the Gladiator
10/07/59 Room 43
10/14/59 The FBI Story
11/11/59 -30-
11/18/59 The Jayhawkers
11/25/59 A Summer Place
12/16/59 Goliath and the Barbarians
12/30/59 The Miracle
01/13/60 Cash McCall
01/27/60 The Purple Gang
02/03/60 Seven Thieves
02/10/60 The Rise and Fall of Legs Diamond
02/17/60 Jack the Ripper
03/02/60 The Bramble Bush
03/23/60 This Rebel Breed
03/30/60 Guns of the Timberland
04/06/60 The Nun’s Story
04/13/60 Visit to a Small Planet
04/27/60 Tall Story
05/11/60 Wake Me When It’s Over
05/25/60 The Rat Race
06/15/60 Because They’re Young (Ambassador ONLY)
06/22/60 Hannibal
06/29/60 Ice Palace
07/13/60 The Lost World
07/27/60 Hercules Unchained
08/10/60 Oceans 11
09/07/60 The Crowded Sky
09/14/60 13 Ghosts
09/21/60 Hell to Eternity
10/05/60 The Dark at the Top of the Stairs
10/26/60 Fast and Sexy
11/12/60 Girl of the Night
11/09/60 Journey to the Lost City
11/23/60 G. I. Blues
12/07/60 Sunrise from Campobello (moveover from Uptown)
12/14/60 Cinderfella
12/28/60 The Sundowners
01/25/61 Swiss Family Robinson
02/22/61 The Great Imposter
03/08/61 A Fever in the Blood/No Time for Sergeants
03/15/61 Gold of the Seven Saints/Auntie Mame
03/22/61 Giant
03/29/61 White Warrior
04/05/61 101 Dalmatians
04/26/61 The Sins of Rachel Cade
05/03/61 The Absent-Minded Professor
06/07/61 The Last Sunset
06/28/61 Parrish
07/19/61 Tammy Tell Me True
08/02/61 The King of the Roaring 20s/The Plunderers
08/09/61 The World by Night/The Steel Claw
08/16/61 Armored Command
08/23/61 Claudelle Inglish
09/13/61 Come September (day-and-date w/ Warner – Metropolitan DARK)
10/04/61 Greyfriar’s Bobby
10/11/61 Splendor in the Grass
11/08/61 The Mask
11/15/61 Susan Slade
11/29/61 Blue Hawaii
12/20/61 Babes in Toyland
01/17/62 The George Raft Story
01/24/62 The Singer, Not the Song
01/31/62 Madison Avenue
02/07/62 A Majority of One
02/21/62 The Big Country/Thunder Road
02/28/62 The Outsider
03/14/62 The Couch/Malaga
03/21/62 Hitler
03/28/62 The Day the Earth Caught Fire
04/11/62 Splendor in the Grass/Fanny
04/18/62 Moon Pilot
05/09/62 Burn, Witch, Burn
05/16/62 Samar/House of Women
05/23/62 Love Me or Leave Me/Love is Better Than Ever
05/30/62 Escape from Zahrain
06/06/62 Lonely are the Brave
06/13/62 The Count of Monte Cristo
06/20/62 Merrill’s Marauders
06/27/62 Bon Voyage
07/18/62 The Sad Sack/The Delicate Delinquent
07/25/62 The Music Man
09/26/62 Guns of Darkness
10/03/62 The Phantom of the Opera
10/10/62 The Chapman Report
10/31/62 Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?
11/21/62 Girls! Girls! Girls!
12/05/62 We’ll Bury You/Who Was That Lady?
12/12/62 Boccaccio 70 (English language version)
12/19/62 Gay Purr-ee/The Sundowners
12/26/62 Gypsy
01/30/63 Who’s Got the Action?
02/13/63 Son of Flubber
03/13/63 The Days of Wine and Roses
04/10/63 Critic’s Choice
04/24/63 Giant
05/01/63 The Man from the Diners Club
05/15/63 Indiscreet
05/22/63 It Happened at the World’s Fair
06/05/63 Island of Love
06/12/63 West Side Story (Ambassador ONLY)
07/03/63 Spencer’s Mountain
07/17/63 Summer Magic
08/07/63 PT 109
08/21/63 Tarzan’s 3 Challenges/The Slave
08/28/63 Wall of Noise
09/04/63 Of Love and Desire
09/11/63 The Castilian
09/18/63 Hootenanny Hoot
09/25/63 The Girl Hunters
10/02/63 Women of the World
10/09/63 Rampage
10/16/63 Twice Told Tales
10/23/63 Shock Corridor
10/30/63 Mary, Mary
11/13/63 The Incredible Journey
11/27/63 Palm Springs Weekend
12/11/63 No, My Darling Daughter
12/18/63 Four for Texas
01/08/64 Strait-Jacket
01/22/64 Who’s Been Sleeping in My Bed?
02/05/64 Dead Ringer
02/19/64 Love With the Proper Stranger
03/18/64 Children of the Damned
03/25/64 A Tiger Walks
04/01/64 Paris When It Sizzles
04/15/64 A Global Affair/Tamahine
04/22/64 PT 109
04/29/64 A Yank in Vietnam/The Strangler
05/06/64 Empty Canvas
05/20/64 Lilies of the Field (Ambassador ONLY)
05/27/64 The Pink Panther (day and date with Calvert)
06/03/64 The Longest Day (Ambassador ONLY)
06/10/64 South Pacific (day and date with Calvert)
06/17/64 Oklahoma (Ambassador ONLY)
06/24/64 Lawrence of Arabia (Ambassador ONLY)
07/01/64 El Cid (Ambassador ONLY)
07/08/64 Ensign Pulver
07/22/64 The Long Ships
08/12/64 Viva Las Vegas
08/26/64 Looking for Love
09/02/64 Honeymoon Hotel
09/09/64 The Thin Red Line
09/16/64 Stop Train 349
09/23/64 Station Six-Sahara
10/07/64 Kisses for My President
10/21/64 The Stripper/The Hustler
10/28/64 Rio Conchos
11/18/64 From Russia, With Love/The Defiant Ones (Ambassador ONLY)
11/25/64 Whatever Happend to Baby Jane/Days of Wine & Roses (A ONLY)
12/02/64 Seven Days in May/Hud (Ambassador ONLY)
12/09/64 Charade/To Kill a Mockingbird (Ambassador ONLY)
12/16/64 The Carpetbaggers/That Kind of Woman (Ambassador ONLY)
12/23/64 Sex and the Single Girl
01/20/65 First Men in the Moon
01/27/65 Peyton Place/Return to Peyton Place
02/03/65 36 Hours
02/24/65 Dear Brigitte
03/10/65 How the West Was Won
03/17/65 A Boy Ten Feet Tall
03/24/65 Love Has Many Faces
03/31/65 John Goldfarb, Please Come Home
05/12/65 Synanon
05/19/65 Die! Die! My Darling
05/26/65 A High Wind in Jamaica
06/09/65 Up From the Beach
06/16/65 The Battle of the Villa Fiorita
06/23/65 Genghis Khan
07/14/65 The Sons of Katie Elder
08/04/65 Morituri
08/25/65 The Third Day
09/01/65 Pardners/Living It Up
09/08/65 My Blood Runs Cold/Murieta
09/15/65 Brakfast at Tiffany’s/Sabrina
09/29/65 Marriage on the Rocks
10/27/65 Taboos of the World/The Conquered City
11/10/65 Village of the Giants/Seaside Swingers
11/17/65 The Bedford Incident
12/01/65 The Rounders/Zebra in the Kitchen
12/08/65 Gypsy/The Music Man
12/22/65 Boeing Boeing
After Boeing Boeing" completed its run, the Metropolitan in downtown Washington closed on January 3, 1966. The Ambassador stayed open as a second-run house for 16 more weeks.
01/05/66 Secret Agent Fireball/Spy in Your Eye
01/12/66 Requiem for a Gunfighter/Pussycat Alley
01/19/66 The Skull/The Mad Executioner
01/26/66 The Cincinnati Kid/Gunfighters of the Casa Grande
02/02/66 Zorba the Greek/Cat Ballou
02/09/66 Tom Jones/Irma La Douce
02/16/66 The Ipcress File/Ship of Fools
02/23/66 The Pawnbroker/The Collector
03/02/66 Darling
03/09/66 That Darn Cat/Kid Rodelo
03/16/66 The King and I/Agent from H. A. R. M.
03/23/66 The Ugly Dachshund
03/30/66 The Slender Thread/Bunny Lake is Missing
04/06/66 Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines
04/20/66 The Spy Who Came in From the Cold/Never Too Late
The Ambassador stayed standing until the fall of 1969 when it was demolished. Between 1966 and 1969 the theater served mostly as a rock concert hall with pyschedelic lights and patrons dancing where the seats used to be. There is now a bank located on the site.
I forgot to mention that my preiviois post was found on page S-4 of the September 14, 2006 edition of The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
Dormont theater to reopen this fall to show second-run films
Thursday, September 14, 2006
By Al Lowe
Dormont Councilman John Sparvero, 69, had his first kiss at the Hollywood Theater.
He doesn’t remember other details. “I wasn’t looking at the movie,” he said.
Mr. Sparvero and other Dormont officials are happy that the Hollywood Theater, 1439 Potomac Ave., which closed in 1998, is to reopen this year.
“I’m excited that young families in the South Hills can once again enjoy what I did growing up in Dormont, motion picture entertainment you can walk to and near to dining choices,” Dormont council President Linda Kitchen said.
“We’re on our way,” Mr. Sparvero said of the theater restoration and other revitalization efforts attempting to change the face of the borough.
Bradley Center has agreed to lease the theater for 10 years with options to renew and, after renovations, wants to open it by Thanksgiving. But center officials said that contractors' work might not be finished until the holiday season in December. Mayor Thomas Lloyd announced at last week’s council meeting that Bradley has applied for a building permit to start renovations.
No money details were released.
Bradley Center, a foster care program with services for children in need of a safe and structured environment, houses 76 abused, neglected, orphaned or abandoned children at its Mt. Lebanon site, a quarter-mile from the theater.
Other sites are in North Strabane and Robinson, said Garry McGrath, the center’s chief financial officer, who will oversee the program.
The Hollywood Theater venture is the first time the center has tried another kind of business.
Bradley will employ three youngsters daily during the week and seven or eight on the weekends under supervision of adults from the center, in addition to two full-time theater staff members who are not center personnel. They will collect admission, staff the refreshment stand and clean the theater.
“This will be the cleanest theater anyone has ever seen,” said Mr. McGrath, of Upper St. Clair.
Plans call for two movies daily, one at 6 or 6:15 p.m. and another at 8 or 8:15 p.m. On the weekends, there will be two children’s movies shown before the regular films. Admission will be $2.50 or $3.
The movies will be second-run features previously shown for three or four weeks at theaters such as the Galleria or South Hills Village. A movie classic will be shown occasionally during one of the weekdays.
The seating is being replaced and reduced from 700 seats to 300, with 50 resembling coffeehouse seating and situated on the side of the theater. The regular seats will be farther from each other, giving people room to stretch along the flat floor of the theater.
There also will be balcony seating. “There are not too many theater balconies left,” Mr. McGrath said.
He estimated the cost of buying theater equipment and seating to be $113,000. Other renovations, such as replacing heating, air conditioning and wiring, will be done by the landlord, Hollywood Partners LLC. Brian Kelly, one of the owners, declined to give those costs.
Refreshments will be cheaper than those sold at other theaters and will include bakery goods and sandwich wraps, Mr. McGrath said.
Paintings by the students will be on display in the lobby and will be for sale.
The advantages of the Dormont location are its proximity to the Potomac Station T stop and parking spaces in a lot across the street and on West Liberty Avenue. It also is near several Dormont restaurants, including one next door, Fredo’s Deli. The restaurant’s owner, Alfredo Shaheen, head of the Dormont Business Association, brokered the deal.
The theater operation by the nonprofit organization will give the students work experience and an opportunity to earn money. The students have jobs at the center, but this will be a chance for them to interact with people other than supervisors or peers. An adult supervisor will be on hand to help the students if they make mistakes, such as giving out the wrong change. Some students will get a chance to become licensed projectionists.
“They never had an opportunity before to be part of the community,” he said.
The operation is modeled on a successful theater in upstate New York, Scotia Cinema, in Scotia. That theater has shown second-run films for 25 years but has no affiliation with any organization such as Bradley Center.
Mr. McGrath said his attorney advised against revealing the specifics of the lease agreement because part of it is still being negotiated.
Plans are to retain the name unless the attorney finds legal objections.
He said he was pleased recently when he and contractors inspected the site and found themselves questioned by numerous people. They were eager for the theater to reopen, he said.
“Mary Poppins” played first-run at the Ontario Theater, located in the same neighborhood as the Ambassador. The film opened there in October 1964 and played until the next spring when “The Sound of Music” replaced it.
The Arcade was in fine shape when it burned – it was one of the buildings that fell victim to a serial arsonist.
The Fiesta was on Sixth Avenue in downtown Pittsburgh. After it closed it was later used by the Art Institute of Pittsburgh as classrooms for the school’s video department. The school moved up to the Boulevard of the Allies between Smithfield and Grant and now the Fiesta is empty again, although it could be used by the Casablanca Restaurant next door for storage.
The Forum on Forbes Avenue in Squirrel Hill later bacame a bagel shop. I haven’t been on that block in a while, so I’m not sure what exactly it is now. It closed around 1978 or 1979.
The others are neighborhood theaters that closed at different times. If you have access to a library that has or can get microfilms of old Pittsburgh Press newspapers via Inter-Library Loan, you may want to check out the Sunday Arts & Leisure sections that were published in July 1983. One of them has an article by then-film critic Ed Blank about the old theaters in the Pittsburgh area and what became of them. Mr. Blank rode through almost every neighborhood, got out and talked to the old-timers he could find about their locations and later history. Addresses are given for most. I have a copy but it’s not with me at present, so I don’t know the exact date, other than a Sunday in July 1983.
There is a lot of information on Harry Crandall in the book:
Motion Picture Exhibition in Washington, D.C.: An Illustrated History of Parlors, Palaces, and Multiplexes in the Metropolitan Area, 1894-1997
The author is Robert K. Headley
Published in 1999 by McFarland & Company, Inc.
Jefferson, NC & London
I was able to purchase it at Barnes & Noble.
Most of the bibliographical info is on pages 151 through 155, althouh he is mentioned throughout the book. It does NOT give his wife’s name, although she is mentioned twice as “his widow.” He had a daughter who married a man named John Payette, who also was involved in the movie theater business.
Here is another batch of Films that played at the Keith’s Theater, picking up from where my previous post left off:
01/01/72 Diamonds are Forever
02/16/72 Mark of the Devil
03/15/72 Shaft/The Split
03/29/72 Cool Breeze
04/26/72 Bigfoot
05/03/72 Chato’s Land
05/24/72 The Legend of Nigger Charley
06/28/72 Duck, You Sucker
07/19/72 Dr. No/From Russia, With Love/Goldfinger
07/26/72 Blacula
08/23/72 The Magnificent Seven Ride
08/30/72 The Return of Sabata
09/06/72 Twitch of the Death Nerve
09/20/72 Melinda
10/18/72 Hammer
11/01/72 Hickey and Boggs
11/08/72 The Mechanic
11/22/72 Ulzana’s Raid
11/29/72 Daughters of Satan/Superbeast
12/06/72 Born Black
12/13/72 Across 110th Street
02/14/73 Shaft/Shaft’s Big Score
02/21/73 Wattstax
04/18/73 Scorpio
05/02/73 Deep Thrust
05/16/73 Coffy
06/20/73 Karado: The Hong Kong Cat
06/27/73 Live and Let Die
08/08/73 Scream, Blacula, Scream
08/29/73 I Escaped from Devil’s Island
09/26/73 The Outside Man
10/03/73 The Spook Who Sat by the Door
11/07/73 The Black Six
11/21/73 Coffy/The Mack
12/12/73 Embassy
12/19/73 That Man Bolt
01/09/74 Black Girl/Across 110th Street
01/16/74 The Dragon’s Vengeance
01/30/74 Five on the Black Hand Side
03/13/74 Busting
03/27/74 The Street Gangs of Hong Kong
04/03/74 Theater of Blood
04/10/74 The Super Cops
04/24/74 Africa Uncensored
05/08/74 The Dynamite Brothers
05/22/74 The Spikes Gang
05/29/74 The Spook Who Sat by the Door
06/05/74 Fists of Fury/ The Chinese Connection/Enter the Dragon
06/19/74 Mr. Majestyk
07/03/74 Thunderbolt and Lightfoot
07/31/74 The Black Godfather
08/14/74 The Return of the Dragon
08/28/74 Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia
09/11/74 Amazing Grace
10/09/74 Honey Baby, Honey Baby
10/16/74 Cool Breeze/Melinda
10/23/74 The Taking of Pelham 1-2-3
11/13/74 The House on Skull Mountain
11/20/74 Kato & the Green Hornet
12/04/74 Five on the Black Hand Side/Hickey and Boggs
12/11/74 Uptown Saturday Night/Cleopatra Jones
12/18/74 The Man With the Golden Gun
01/15/75 Black Starlet
01/29/75 Shanghai Lil/Man of Iron
02/05/75 Coffy/The Mack
02/12/75 Bogard
03/05/75 Report to the Commissioner
03/19/75 Shoot it Black, Shoot it Blue
03/26/75 The Black Gestapo
04/02/75 Twilight People
04/09/75 Enter the Dragon/The Chinese Professionals
04/16/75 Karate One by One/Top of the Heap
04/23/75 Womens' Cell Block 7/A Town Called Hell
04/30/75 Man of the East
05/07/75 Moonrunners/Charley One-Eye
05/14/75 The Exorcist
05/21/75 Mandingo
07/02/75 The Wilby Conspiracy
07/23/75 Take a Hard Ride
08/06/75 The Devil’s Rain
08/13/75 The Chinese Connection/Fists of Fury
08/20/75 Power Kill
09/03/75 The Exorcist
09/10/75 The Street Fighter/Return of the Street Fighter
09/17/75 The Taking of Pelham 1-2-3
09/24/75 Return of the Dragon/Kato & the Green Hornet
10/01/75 Skill, Brains, and Guts/Ali-Frazier Fight
10/08/75 The Return of the Panther/Dragon Squad
10/22/75 Truck Turner/Book of Numbers
10/29/75 Massacre, Mafia Style/Voodoo Heartbeat
11/05/75 Sisters/Coffy
11/12/75 Thou Shalt Not Kill/Savage Sisters
11/19/75 No Way Out/Together Brothers
11/26/75 Mean Johnny Barrows
12/10/75 Call Him Mr. Shatter/The Four Deuces
12/17/75 The Killer Elite
01/21/76 Psychic Killer
01/28/76 Beyond the Door/Abby
02/11/76 Goodbye, Bruce Lee
03/03/76 (call theater for title!)
03/17/76 Deadly Hero
03/24/76 Super Dragon/Dragon Squad
03/31/76 The Premonition
04/07/76 Sparkle
05/05/76 Hot Potato/Enter the Dragon
05/12/76 Grizzly
05/26/76 Dolemite/Boss Nigger
06/09/76 The Exorcist
06/23/76 Black Christmas
06/30/76 Mahogany/Lady Sings the Blues
07/21/76 Velvet Smooth
07/28/76 The Super Weapon
08/04/76 House of Exorcism
08/11/76 St. Ives/Thomasine and Bushrod
08/18/76 Infra-Man/Together Brothers
08/25/76 Super Dragon/Three the Hard Way
09/01/76 HOUSE DARK
11/03/76 Shout at the Devil
11/17/76 Get Mean
11/24/76 Twitch of the Death Nerve
12/01/76 The Erotic Adventures of Pinocchio
12/15/76 Fritz the Cat/9 Lives of Fritz the Cat/Heavy Traffic
12/22/76 Exit the Dragon, Enter the Tiger
01/19/77 Executive Action
01/26/77 The Town That Dreaded Sundown
02/09/77 Madam Kitty
03/02/77 Death Collector
03/16/77 The House by the Lake
03/30/77 The Enforcer/Hustle
04/06/77 Black Samurai
04/20/77 Car Wash/Super Fly
04/27/77 Uncle Tom’s Cabin
05/18/77 Cross of Iron
06/01/77 Le Grande Bourgeoisie
06/08/77 Mandingo/Drum
06/15/77 Tentacles
My research ends here. The Keith’s Theater went on for about another year, then shuttered forever. Most of its last years were just a melange of blaxploitation, kung fu, and horror films—some were brought back over and over in double bills. The house was still the city’s outlet (playing day-and-date with a number of houses in the suburbs) for UA action-type releases, including the James bond series, but the rest of UA’s films mostly played the Avalon on upper Connecticut Avenue.
I had lunch in the place the other week – it’s now the Old Ebbetts Grill, and I wish it well…still, I wish I’d been there once in my life to see a film on its screen. Maybe July 1965, when my favorite spy film, “Masquerade” with Cliff Robertson & Jack Hawkins graced it’s screen. Oh well, that’s what dreams are for.
I visited Washington from February 6-12, as work sent me down to spend a week in our DC office. I went to the Uptown to see “Good Night and Good Luck.” It was as if I died and went to “movie theater heaven.” The theater still looked as beautiful as ever, although there wasn’t that big a crowd for the Tuesday night late show. All I can say is, “Please Washington,don’t let AMC let this place die. Do what you can to make it a historical place so they can’t mess with it or if they do decide to sell it, make sure it’s someone who will keep it just as it is…A magnificent piece of history.
Does anybody have a photo of the front and marquee of this theater in its latter days (circa 1961-1966)? I would really like to see what it looked like – all the photos I’ve ever seen were on the interior, and it was razed before I was able to visit the site in person. Thanks!
The two weeks marked as “Stage Show” in the listing of films that I provided are instances where the theater was used either for a touring legitimate show or possibly something like a ballet or orchestra. In those days the big legitimate theater was the National Theater on Pennsylvania Avenue, particularly for future or past Broadway productions on the road. Washington was one of the cities that Broadway producers used for previews prior to taking the show to the Great White Way. Occasionally the National may have already been booked and a downtown motion picture palace was used instead.
I would nominate Francis Ford Coppola’s 1968 film “Finian’s Rainbow” as one of the best roadshow musicals of the late 60s.
Loew’s still ran this theater well into the 1970s.
Warner Centre was sold at Allegheny County’s sheriff’s sale yesterday (February 7, 2005) for $2,700,000. It was purchased by Allied Capital, a Washington DC-based investment company who was acting for LaSalle Bank. LaSalle Bank was owed $3.7 million by the building’s owners and the property is assessed at $4.9 million. Allied says that it will seek to acquire new tenants for the retail, restaurant, and office areas of the building, in order to raise its market value.
Listed below are the films which played at Loew’s Penn from June 25, 1958 until it closed in September 1964. Research is from microfilms of Variety and The Pittsburgh Press and The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. The dates listed are the Wedensday of the film’s opening week as in those days, theaters most often changed their bills on that day.
06/25/58 The Vikings
07/16/58 The Imitation General
07/23/58 Rock-A-Bye Baby
07/30/58 Peter Pan
08/06/58 Kings Go Forth
08/20/58 The Badlanders
08/27/58 Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
10/01/58 The Reluctant Debutante
10/08/58 The Big Country
10/29/58 The Defiant Ones
11/19/58 Houseboat
12/10/58 Tunnel of Love
12/17/58 The Buccaneer
12/31/58 tom thumb
01/07/59 Some Came Running
01/21/59 I Want to Live
02/11/59 Anna Lucasta
02/18/59 Separate Tables
03/11/59 The Journey
03/18/59 Lonelyhearts
03/25/59 Some Like it Hot
04/29/59 The Mating Game
05/06/59 Green Mansions
05/13/59 The Naked Maja
05/20/59 Pork Chop Hill
05/27/59 The World, the Flesh, and the Devil
06/03/59 Shake Hands With the Devil
06/10/59 Ask Any Girl
06/17/59 The Mysterians
06/24/59 The Horse Soldiers
07/15/59 A Hole in the Head
08/05/59 North by Northwest
09/09/59 It Started With a Kiss
09/30/59 The Devil’s Disciple
10/07/59 For the First time
10/14/59 The Wonderful Country
10/21/59 Scapegoat
10/28/59 But Not for Me
11/04/59 Odds Against Tomorrow
11/11/59 Career
11/25/59 The Wreck of the Mary Deare
12/09/59 The House of the Seven Hawks
12/16/59 DARK
12/23/59 Solomon and Sheba
01/27/60 The Gazebo
02/03/60 On the Beach
02/24/60 Once More, With Feeling
03/09/60 The Last Voyage
03/16/60 Home From the Hill
04/06/60 Visit to a Small Planet
04/20/60 Please Don’t Eat the Daisies
05/11/60 The Unforgiven
05/25/60 The Fugitive Kind
06/01/60 The Gallant Hours
06/08/60 The Giant of Marathon
06/15/60 Macumba Love
06/22/60 The Apartment
07/20/60 The Rat Race
07/27/60 Bells are Ringing
08/03/60 Elmer Gantry
08/17/60 Psycho
09/28/60 All the Fine Young Cannibals
10/12/60 The Angel Wore Red
10/19/60 Night Fighters
10/26/60 The Magnificent Seven
11/09/60 Where the Hot Wind Blows
11/16/60 Butterfield 8
12/14/60 Inherit the Wind
12/28/60 The Facts of Life
01/04/61 Where the Boys Are
01/18/61 Village of the Damned
01/25/61 Go Naked in the World
02/01/61 The Misfits
03/01/61 Gorgo
03/15/61 The Hoodlum Priest
03/29/61 Cimarron
04/19/61 The Apartment/Elmer Gantry
05/03/61 All in a Night’s Work
05/10/61 Mein Kamph
05/24/61 The Young Savages
05/31/61 Two Loves
06/07/61 The Last Time I Saw Archie
06/21/61 By Love Possessed
07/05/61 Morgan the Pirate
07/12/61 The Naked Edge
07/26/61 The Honeymoon Machine
08/02/61 Goodbye Again
08/09/61 Thief of Baghdad
08/16/61 After Mein Kamph
08/23/61 Ada
09/06/61 The Young Doctors
09/20/61 A Thunder of Drums
09/27/61 Paris Blues
10/11/61 Bridge to the Sun
10/18/61 The Explosive Generation
10/25/61 Town Without Pity
11/01/61 The Mask
11/08/61 Bachelor in Paradise
11/29/61 X-15
12/06/61 Room at the Top/A Streetcar Named Desire
12/13/61 Gigi/Butterfield 8
12/20/61 The Wonders of Aladdin
12/27/61 Pocketful of Miracles
01/10/62 The Happy Thieves
01/17/62 The Innocents
01/24/62 One, Two, Three
02/14/62 Sergeants 3
03/07/62 Light in the Piazza
03/14/62 The 4 Horsemen of the Apocalypse
03/21/62 Satan Never Sleeps
03/28/62 Sweet Bird of Youth
04/11/62 All Fall Down
04/18/62 The Horizontal Lieutenant
04/25/62 The Children’s Hour
05/02/62 Jessica
05/09/62 Judgement at Nuremberg (pop prices)
05/23/62 Colossus of Rhodes
05/30/62 Follow That Dream
06/06/62 The Cabinet of Caligari
06/13/62 The Vikings/Trapeze
06/20/62 Geronimo
06/27/62 The Road to Hong Kong
07/04/62 Boys' Night Out
07/11/62 Ride the High Country/The Tartars
07/18/62 Reprieve
07/25/62 Birdman of Alcatraz
08/08/62 Lolita
08/29/62 The Miracle Worker
09/12/62 Tarzan Goes to India
09/19/62 Two Weeks in Another Town
09/26/62 Flame in the Streets
10/03/62 I Thank a Fool
10/10/62 The Pigeon That Took Rome
10/24/62 A Very Private Affair
10/31/62 Gigot
11/21/62 Period of Adjustment
11/28/62 Escape from East Berlin
12/05/62 Fancy Pants/The Seven Little Foys
12/12/62 King of Kings (pop prices)
12/19/62 The Swordsmen of Siena
12/26/62 Billy Rose’s Jumbo
01/02/63 The Password is Courage
01/09/63 The Lion
01/23/63 Who’s Got the Action?
01/30/63 STAGE SHOW
02/13/63 A Girl Named Tamiko
03/06/63 Follow the Boys
03/20/63 The Courtship of Eddie’s Father
03/27/63 Papa’s Delicate Condition
04/03/63 STAGE SHOW
04/17/63 Critic’s Choice
04/24/63 Nine Hours to Rama
05/01/63 Madame
05/08/63 The Apartment/The Facts of Life
05/15/63 Father of the Bride/Seven Brides for Seven Brothers
05/22/63 No Exit
05/29/63 55 Days at Peking
06/26/63 Cleopatra
12/25/63 The Sword in the Stone
01/15/64 Move Over, Darling
02/12/64 A Global Affair
02/19/64 The Misadventures of Merlin Jones
03/04/64 West Side Story
03/18/64 Shock Treatment
03/25/64 The Brass Bottle
04/08/64 The Seven Faces of Dr. Lao
04/15/64 Hud/Come Blow Your Horn
04/29/64 South Pacific
05/13/64 The Molesters (5/13 & 5/14 Macbeth)
05/20/64 A Summer Place/Parrish
05/27/64 Lady in a Cage
06/10/64 Empty Canvas
06/17/64 The Patsy
06/24/64 The Carpetbaggers
08/19/64 A Hard Day’s Night
08/26/64 Ensign Pulver
09/02/64 CLOSED PERMANENTLY AS FILM HOUSE
Part of the history of a great motion picture theater is the films that played there. Listed below are the first-run films and major reissues that played at the Alexandria from January 1, 1960 to December 31, 1975. Research is from microfilms of Variety as well as The San Francisco Chronicle. The dates listed are the Wednesday of the opening week since in those days most new films opened on Wednesdays, rather than Fridays as they do now. In the early 1960’s the Alexandria was one of San Francisco’s major houses for “roadshow” films, and subsequently, was DARK between engagements. Films from January 1, 1976 will be provided in subsequent postings.
01/01/60 DARK
05/18/60 Can-Can
10/26/60 The Alamo
02/08/61 Exodus
10/18/61 Breakfast at Tiffany's
12/20/61 El Cid
06/27/62 My Geisha
10/10/62 The Longest Day
02/27/63 To Kill a Mockingbird
06/26/63 Cleopatra
07/22/64 The Fall of the Roman Empire
09/02/64 I’d Rather Be Rich
09/23/64 Woman of Straw
10/14/64 Where Love Has Gone
11/04/64 Topkapi
12/23/64 Kiss Me, Stupid
02/10/65 How to Murder Your Wife
04/07/65 The Train
06/30/65 What’s New, Pussycat?
09/01/65 Darling
09/29/65 Ship of Fools
11/24/65 King Rat
12/22/65 Boeing, Boeing
01/26/66 Lord Love a Duck
03/16/66 Viva, Maria!
03/30/66 The Group
06/22/66 The Russians are Coming…The Russians are Coming
08/03/66 Walk, Don’t Run
10/05/66 Diabolique
10/26/66 The Fortune Cookie
12/21/66 A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum
02/15/67 The Deadly Affair
03/22/67 The Happening
05/03/67 Casino Royale
06/28/67 Woman Times Seven
08/09/67 Luv
09/06/67 The Tiger and the Pussycat
09/20/67 The Trip
12/20/67 Counterpoint/The Jokers
01/31/68 Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner
04/03/68 The Secret War of Harry Frigg
05/15/68 A Man for All Seasons/To Sir, With Love
06/19/68 Boom
07/17/68 Anzio
08/07/68 The Producers
10/09/68 The Heart is a Lonely Hunter
12/18/68 Oliver!
10/15/69 Journey to the Far Side of the Sun
11/05/69 Thank You All Very Much/Lock Up Your Daughters
11/19/69 Don’t Drink the Water
12/17/69 Viva, Max!
02/04/70 The Magic Christian
03/25/70 The Adventurers
05/13/70 Goodbye, Mr. Chips
06/03/70 Rider on the Rain
06/24/70 The Out-of-Towners
07/29/70 On a Clear Day You Can See Forever
11/11/70 WUSA
12/23/70 Cromwell
02/17/71 My Fair Lady
03/31/71 Waterloo
06/23/71 The Anderson Tapes
08/18/71 The Love Machine
11/24/71 The French Connection
02/02/72 Nicholas and Alexandra
05/24/72 Confessions of a Police Captain
06/07/72 Patton
06/14/72 Hello, Dolly!
06/28/72 Last of the Red Hot Lovers
07/19/72 The Other
10/04/72 Doctor Zhivago
10/11/72 Gone With the Wind
10/18/72 2001: A Space Odyssey
10/25/72 The Valachi Papers
12/20/72 The Poseidon Adventure
04/11/73 Class of ‘44
05/23/73 Hitler: The Last 10 Days
06/27/73 The Friends of Eddie Coyle
08/08/73 The Mackintosh Man
09/19/73 The Stone Killer
10/24/73 Westworld
12/19/73 Papillon
03/27/74 The Three Musketeers
06/26/74 For Pete’s Sake
08/07/74 Pink Floyd
08/21/74 California Split
09/18/74 Doctor Zhivago
10/16/74 The Odessa File
12/18/74 The Towering Inferno
05/21/75 The French Connection II
06/25/75 Bite the Bullet
09/24/75 Mysteries Beyond the Earth
10/08/75 Royal Flash
11/26/75 The Human Factor
12/25/75 Lucky Lady
Listed below are the films which played at the Gateway from January 1, 1964 to December 31, 1971
01/01/64 Charade
02/19/64 Man’s Favorite Sort
03/04/65 Dark Purpose
03/11/64 Man in the Middle
03/18/64 Captain Newman, M. D.
04/22/64 Dr. Strangelove
05/13/64 Operation Petticoat/Pillow Talk
05/20/64 Evil of Frankenstein
05/27/64 Wild and Wonderful
06/10/64 The Chalk Garden
06/24/64 The Seventh Dawn
07/01/64 Bedtime Story
07/15/64 Honeymoon Hotel
07/22/64 Marnie
08/19/64 The New Interns
09/02/64 Looking for Love
09/09/64 The Killers
09/16/64 I’d Rather Be Rich
10/07/64 Diary of a Bachelor
10/14/64 Send Me No Flowers
11/25/64 Kitten With a Whip
12/03/64 Joy House
12/16/64 Bye Bye Birdie/West Side Story
12/23/64 Father Goose
01/20/65 Kiss Me, Stupid
02/10/65 How to Murder Your Wife
03/17/65 Bus Riley’s Back in Town
03/31/65 The Truth About Spring
04/14/65 Major Dundee
04/28/65 Dr. No/From Russia, With Love
06/16/65 McHale’s Navy Joins the Air Force
06/23/65 The Art of Love
07/07/65 What’s New, Pussycat?
08/18/65 Help!
09/01/65 Billie
09/15/65 Never on Sunday/Topkapi
09/29/65 Ship of Fools
10/20/65 A Rage to Live
10/27/65 The Secret of My Success
11/03/65 The Nanny
11/24/65 The War Lord
12/22/65 Thunderball
03/30/66 The Group
04/27/66 A Man Could Get Killed
05/11/66 The Pink Panther/A Shot in the Dark
05/25/66 Blindfold
06/15/66 Marnie/The Birds
06/22/66 The Russians are Coming… The Russians are Coming
08/10/66 Torn Curtain
09/21/66 Goldfinger/Dr. No
10/12/66 Alvarez Kelly
10/26/66 An American Dream
11/02/66 Return of the Seven
11/16/66 The Fortune Cookie
12/21/66 Murderers Row
02/01/67 The Spy With a Cold Nose
02/08/67 Tobruk
02/22/67 Is Paris Burning?
03/15/67 Ulysses (Mar 15-17 only)
03/22/67 How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying
04/19/67 The Alamo
04/26/67 Who’s Afrai of Virginia Woolf?
05/03/67 To Kill a Mockingbird/That Touch of Mink
05/10/67 One Million Years, B. C.
05/24/67 For a Few Dollars More
06/07/67 8 on the Lam
06/21/67 You Only Live Twice
08/16/67 The War Wagon
08/30/67 Fathom
09/06/67 DARK – CLOSED FOR REMODELING
10/11/67 Point Blank
11/15/67 Tony Rome
12/20/67 The Jungle Book
01/17/68 The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
02/14/68 The Billion Dollar Brain
02/21/68 The President’s Analyst
03/06/68 P. J.
03/20/68 How to Save a Marriage and Ruin Your Life
04/03/68 The Scalphunters
04/17/68 The Secret War of Harry Frigg
05/08/68 Where Angels Go, Trouble Follows
05/15/68 Will Penny
05/22/68 The Devil’s Brigade
06/12/68 What’s So Bad About Feeling Good?
06/19/68 The Private Navy of Sgt. O'Farrell
06/26/68 The Thomas Crown Affair
08/07/68 With Six You Get Eggroll
08/21/68 Hang ‘Em High
08/28/68 The Hell With Heroes
09/04/68 Salt and Pepper
09/18/68 The Ugly Ones
09/25/68 A Lovely Way to Die
10/02/68 West Side Story
10/30/68 Shalako
11/06/67 Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
11/13/68 Yellow Submarine
11/27/68 Coogan’s Bluff
12/18/68 The Night They Raided Minsky's
01/01/69 The Brotherhood
01/15/69 Play Dirty
01/22/69 The Stalking Moon
02/05/69 Buona Sera, Mrs. Campbell
03/12/69 Mayerling
03/26/69 Where Eagles Dare
04/23/69 A Fistful of Dollars/For a Few Dollars More
04/30/69 The First Time
05/14/69 Where It’s At
05/21/69 If It’s Tuesday, This Must Be Belgium
06/11/69 How to Commit Marriage
06/25/69 The Maltese Bippy
07/09/69 Peter Pan
07/16/69 Mackenna’s Gold
07/30/69 Daddy’s Gone A-Hunting
08/13/69 Castle Keep
08/27/69 Number One
09/10/69 3 into 2 Won’t Go
09/24/69 The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly/Hang 'Em High
10/01/69 The File of the Golden Goose
10/08/69 Some Kind of a Nut
10/15/69 Marlowe
10/22/69 The Battle of Britain
11/19/69 Change of Habit
11/26/69 The Gypsy Moths
12/17/69 On Her Majesty’s Secret Service
02/04/70 The Happy Ending
02/25/70 A Dream of Kings
03/04/70 Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
04/08/70 Halls of Anger
04/22/70 The Honeymoon Killers
05/06/70 The Lawyer
05/13/70 Let it Be
05/20/70 Suppose They Gave a War and Nobody Came
06/03/70 A Man Called Horse
06/24/70 A Boy Named Charlie Brown
07/22/70 Beneath the Planet of the Apes
08/12/70 Cotton Comes to Harlem
09/16/70 Hornet’s Nest
09/23/70 Sabata
09/30/70 Witchcraft '70
10/07/70 Cannon for Cordoba
10/14/70 It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World
11/04/70 The McKenzie Break
11/18/70 Scrooge
12/16/70 Burn!
12/23/70 Rio Lobo
01/13/71 You Only Live Twice/Thunderball
02/10/71 Doctors’ Wives
03/10/71 My Fair Lady
03/24/71 Mrs. Pollifax-Spy
04/07/71 Valdez is Coming
04/28/71 Brother John
05/05/71 Lawrence of Arabia
05/19/71 Valley of the Dolls/Beyond the Valley of the Dolls
05/26/71 Support Your Local Gunfighter
06/02/71 Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song
06/30/71 Le Mans
07/21/71 Big Jake
08/11/71 Dr. No/From Russia, With Love
08/18/71 The Love Machine
09/22/71 Adios, Sabata
09/29/71 The Seven Minutes
10/06/71 Klute
10/13/71 Jennifer on My Mind
10/20/71 The Organization
11/17/71 Going Home
11/24/71 something big
12/08/71 Play Misty for Me
12/22/71 Diamonds are Forever
Films which played the Gateway from January 1, 1972 on will be listed in later posts.
Listed below are films which played at the Gateway (Harris) heater in downtown Pittsburgh from June 25, 1958 to December 31, 1963. Reasearch is from microfilms of Variety and The Pittsburgh Press and The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. The dates listed are the Wednesday of the opening week of new bills. Films which played in later years will be listed in subsequent posts.
Harris
06/25/58 The Bravados
07/09/58 The Key
07/30/58 The Fly
08/13/58 Gunman’s Walk
08/20/58 The Fiend Who Walked West
08/27/58 The Hunters
09/10/58 The Whole Truth
09/17/58 Tank Force
09/24/58 Me and the Colonel
10/01/58 Andy Hardy Comes Home
10/08/58 The Decks Ran Red
10/15/58 Missouri Traveler
10/22/58 Gun Runners
10/29/58 The Mark of Zorro
11/05/58 In Love and War
11/19/58 The Last Hurrah
12/10/58 A Nice Little Bank That Should Be Robbed
12/17/58 The 7th Voyage of Sinbad
12/31/58 The Inn of the Sixth Happiness
01/21/59 Rally Round the Flag, Boys!
02/11/59 Bell, Book, and Candle
02/25/59 These Thousand Hills
03/04/59 Up Periscope
03/18/59 The Trap
03/25/59 The Sound and the Fury
04/08/59 Gidget
04/15/59 I, Mobster
04/22/59 Warlock
05/06/59 Alias Jesse James
05/20/59 Count Your Blessings
05/27/59 Shane
06/10/59 It Happened to Jane
06/24/59 Say One for Me
07/22/59 Anatomy of a Murder
09/02/59 The Blue Angel
09/16/59 A Private’s Affair
09/23/59 The Tingler
10/07/59 The Man Who Understood Women
10/14/59 The Best of Everything
10/28/59 They Came to Cordura
11/18/59 Yesterday’s Enemy
11/25/59 Hound Dog Man
12/02/59 Day of the Outlaw
12/09/59 Northwest Mounted Police
12/16/59 1001 Arabian Nights/The Flying Fontaines
12/30/59 Journey to the Center of the Earth
01/20/60 The Rookie
01/27/60 Suddenly, Last Summer
02/24/60 Seven Thieves
03/02/60 Who Was That Lady?
04/06/60 Because They’re Young
04/13/60 Sink the Bismarck
04/27/60 Babette Goes to War
05/04/60 The Wind Cannot Read
05/11/60 The Killers of Kilimanjaro
05/18/60 The Third Voice
05/25/60 The Mountain Road
06/08/60 Man on a String
06/15/60 The Story of Ruth
07/06/60 13 Ghosts
07/13/60 Murder, Inc.
07/20/60 Strangers When We Meet
08/10/60 Hell to Eternity
08/24/60 Let’s Make Love
09/14/60 The Time Machine
09/21/60 All the Young Men
10/05/60 High Time
10/12/60 Surprise Package
10/26/60 I Aim at the Stars
11/02/60 Song Without End
12/14/60 The 3 Worlds of Gulliver
12/28/60 The Wackiest Ship in the Army
Gateway
01/18/61 Let No Man Write My Epitaph
01/25/61 The Marriage-Go-Round
02/01/61 The Plunderers
02/08/61 Can-Can
03/01/61 Cry for Happy
03/15/61 The Sword and the Dragon
03/22/61 Pepe
04/26/61 Operation Eichmann
05/03/61 The Trapp Family
05/10/61 Return to Peyton Place
06/07/61 Atlantis, the Lost Continent
06/14/61 Wild in the Country
06/21/61 Homicidal
07/05/61 Gidget Goes Hawaiian
07/12/61 Two Rode Together
07/19/61 The Guns of Navarone
09/13/61 The Big Gamble
09/20/61 Armored Command
09/27/61 Scream of Fear
10/04/61 Seven Women from Hell
10/11/61 Francis of Assisi
10/18/61 The Devil at 4 O'Clock
11/15/61 The Comancheros
12/06/61 Twenty Plus Two
12/13/61 Twist Around the Clock
12/20/61 Flower Drum Song
01/24/62 Tender is the Night
02/07/62 The George Raft Story
02/14/62 Lover Come Back
04/04/62 Walk on the Wild Side
04/18/62 State Fair
05/09/62 Experiment in Terror
05/30/62 Cape Fear
06/20/62 That Touch of Mink
08/08/62 The Head
08/15/62 Five Weeks in a Balloon
08/22/62 The Spiral Road
09/12/62 The Phantom of the Opera
09/26/62 No Man is an Island
10/10/62 Damn the Defiant
10/17/62 Roman Holiday
10/24/62 White Slave Ship
10/31/62 We’ll Bury You
11/07/62 The War Lover
11/21/62 If a Man Answers
12/19/62 Barabbas
01/09/63 A Child is Waiting
01/16/63 Taras Bulba
02/13/63 40 Pounds of Trouble
03/06/63 Diamond Head
03/27/63 To Kill a Mockingbird
05/08/63 The Ugly American
05/29/63 Hud
06/12/63 Tammy and the Doctor
06/19/63 The Nutty Professor
06/26/63 A Gathering of Eagles
07/10/63 Come Blow Your Horn
08/14/63 The Thrill of it All
09/18/63 For Love or Money
10/02/63 The Haunting
10/09/63 The Leopard
10/23/63 The Running Man
10/30/63 Rampage
11/06/63 Mondo Cane
11/13/63 Under the Yum Yum Tree
11/27/63 The Wheeler Dealers
12/25/63 Charade
Below are the motion pictures which played the Chatham Cinema from its opening in 1966 through December 31, 1975. research is from microfilms of Variety and The Pittsburgh Press and The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. The dates listed are the Wednesday of the opening week of the new films, as in those days, new releases generally opened on that day, rather than on Fridays as they do now. Films from January 1, 1976 on will be provided in later posts.
10/26/66 Alfie
03/22/67 Funeral in Berlin
04/19/67 The Taming of the Shrew
07/12/67 Two for the Road
08/16/67 Barefoot in the Park
11/15/67 Reflections in a Golden Eye
12/20/67 Wait Until Dark
04/03/68 The Fox
06/26/68 The Odd Couple
10/30/68 The Bliss of Mrs. Blossom
11/13/68 The Subject Was Roses
11/27/68 Secret Ceremony
12/18/68 Bullitt
03/26/69 The Killing of Sister George
05/07/69 Midas Run
05/14/69 Romeo and Juliet
05/28/69 Goodbye, Columbus
08/27/69 Last Summer
10/08/69 The Rain People
10/22/69 The Sterile Cuckoo
11/26/69 Don’t Drink the Water
12/10/69 Blow-Up/The Loved One
12/17/69 John and Mary
02/11/70 The Molly Maguires
03/11/70 Z
05/06/70 Airport
08/12/70 The Out-of-Towners
10/21/70 Sunflower
11/04/70 Little Fauss and Big Halsey
12/16/70 South Pacific
12/23/70 There’s a Girl in My Soup
02/10/71 Husbands
03/10/71 Little Big Man
05/12/71 The Mephisto Waltz
05/26/71 When Eight Bells Toll
06/02/71 The Odd Couple/The Out-of-Towners
06/09/71 Joe/Lovers and Other Strangers
06/16/71 Summer of ‘42
08/25/71 Billy Jack
09/01/71 Doc
09/22/71 The Devils
10/13/71 A Criminal Affair
10/20/71 Play Misty for Me
11/17/71 The French Connection
03/22/72 A Clockwork Orange
05/24/72 Play It Again, Sam
07/12/72 Prime Cut
08/09/72 The Candidate
10/04/72 Deliverance
12/20/72 Jeremiah Johnson
01/31/73 The Heartbreak Kid
03/28/73 The Emigrants
04/11/73 Brother Sun, Sister Moon
05/02/73 Sleuth
05/23/73 The Day of the Jackal
07/11/73 Scarecrow
08/15/73 O Lucky Man
08/29/73 Happy Mother’s Day…Love, George
09/19/73 Bang the Drum Slowly
10/03/73 I Could Never Have Sex With Any Man…
10/17/73 American Graffiti
12/19/73 The Sting
03/27/74 Mame
05/22/74 The Sugarland Express
06/26/74 Our Time
07/17/74 That’s Entertainment
10/16/74 Airport 1975
12/18/74 The Front Page
02/05/75 Young Frankenstein
05/07/75 At Long Last Love
05/21/75 The Other Side of the Mountain
06/25/75 The French Connection II
08/13/75 The Fortune
09/10/75 The Hound of the Baskervilles
09/24/75 Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?
10/01/75 Hennessy
10/15/75 Dog Day Afternoon
12/24/75 The Black Bird
Below is Part II of the list of films which played at the Fulton Theater in downtown Pittsburgh. As in the posting above, research is from microfilms of Variety and The Pittsburgh Press and The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Again, the dates are the Wednesday of the opening week. This posting contains films from Janaury 1, 1964 to December 31, 1971.
01/01/64 The Cardinal
01/22/64 Kings of the Sun
02/05/64 The Victors
03/04/64 Soldier in the Rain
03/11/64 One Man’s Way
03/18/64 Flight from Ashiya
04/01/64 Some Like it Hot/Irma La Douce
04/15/64 Paris When it Sizzles
04/22/64 Lilies of the Field
05/13/64 From Russia, With Love
06/03/64 The Pink Panther
07/01/64 Good Neighbor Sam
07/22/64 McHale’s Navy
08/05/64 A Shot in the Dark
09/16/64 Woman of Straw
09/30/64 Behold a Pale Horse
10/14/64 Where Love Has Gone
10/28/64 Topkapi
11/25/64 Fail-Safe
12/16/64 Lili
12/23/64 Goldfinger
02/24/65 Strange Bedfellows
03/10/65 Mary Poppins
04/07/65 The Train
05/12/65 Fluffy
05/26/65 Mirage
06/09/64 Marriage, Italian Style
06/23/65 Von Ryan’s Express
07/14/65 Lord Jim
07/28/65 Shenandoah
08/25/65 A Very Special Favor
09/15/65 That Funny Feeling
09/29/65 The Reward
10/06/65 It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World
10/13/65 Return From the Ashes
11/10/65 The Ipcress File
12/22/65 Boeing Boeing
12/29/65 Never Too Late
01/19/66 The Slender Thread
01/26/66 The Heroes of Telemark
02/09/66 Moment to Moment
02/23/66 Made in Paris
03/09/66 The Spy With My Face/To Trap a Spy
03/16/66 Inside Daisy Clover
03/23/66 The Flight of the Phoenix
03/30/66 Madame X
04/13/66 The Trouble With Angels
05/11/66 Promise Her Anything
05/18/66 The Oscar
06/01/66 North by Northwest
06/08/66 Lost Command
06/22/66 Arabesque
07/20/66 The Glass-Bottom Boat
08/17/66 Walk, Don’t Run
09/14/66 The Wild Angels
10/05/66 Mister Buddwing
10/19/66 The Appaloosa
10/26/66 Way…Way Out
11/02/66 Texas Across the River
11/23/66 The Professionals
12/21/66 Gambit
01/11/67 Kiss the Girls and Make Them Die
01/25/67 A Fistful of Dollars
02/15/67 The 25th Hour
03/01/67 Deadlier Than the Male
03/15/67 The Russians are Coming…/The Fortune Cookie
03/22/67 A Countess from Hong Kong
04/12/67 Doctor, You’ve Got to Be Kidding!
04/26/67 Casino Royale
05/31/67 Devil’s Angels
06/07/67 Triple Cross
06/21/67 You Only Live Twice
07/05/67 El Dorado
07/12/67 Banning
07/19/67 Divorce, American Style
08/16/67 The Honey Pot
08/23/67 Luv
09/13/67 Murderers Row/The Silencers
09/20/67 The Flim-Flam Man
09/27/67 Beach Red
10/04/67 Hour of the Gun
10/18/67 The Happiest Millionaire
11/29/67 To Sir, With Love
12/20/67 The Ambushers
01/24/68 The Wicked Dreams of Paula Schultz
02/07/68 Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner
05/22/68 Guns for San Sebastian
05/29/68 Wild in the Streets
06/19/68 Villa Rides!
06/26/68 Where Were You When the Lights Went Out?
07/17/68 Boom
07/24/68 The Detective
08/21/68 The Secret Life of an American Wife
09/18/68 Deadfall
09/25/68 Anyone Can Play
10/02/68 From Russia, With Love/Thunderball
10/16/68 Funny Girl
12/25/68 Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
02/26/69 Rachel, Rachel/The Heart is a Lonely Hunter
03/05/69 The Night of the Following Day
03/19/69 Sam Whiskey
03/26/69 Sinful Davey
04/02/69 Support Your Local Sheriff
04/23/69 The Illustrated Man
04/30/69 Hannibal Brooks
05/07/69 3 in the Attic
05/28/69 Hard Contract
06/11/69 Once Upon a Time in the West
06/18/69 True Grit
07/09/69 The April Fools
08/06/69 The Bridge at Remagen
08/13/69 Midnight Cowboy
12/17/69 Topaz
01/21/70 Goodbye, Mr. Chips
02/25/70 Gaily, Gaily
03/04/70 Anne of the Thousand Days
03/25/70 Marooned
04/08/70 The Ballad of Cable Hogue
04/15/70 In Search of the Castaways
04/22/70 The Kremlin Letter
04/29/70 The Liberation of L. B. Jones
05/13/70 A Walk in the Spring Rain
05/27/70 One More Time
06/03/70 The Grasshopper
06/17/70 Ned Kelly
06/24/70 The Hawaiians
07/15/70 They Call Me Mister Tibbs
07/29/70 Two Mules for Sister Sara
08/19/70 El Condor
08/26/70 Move
09/09/70 Darker Than Amber
09/16/70 The Professionals/In Cold Blood
09/23/70 Hotel
09/30/70 Watermelon Man
10/07/70 Doctor Zhivago
10/14/70 Lovers and Other Strangers
12/23/70 Tora! Tora! Tora!
02/10/71 Cromwell
02/24/71 Cold Turkey
04/07/71 Pretty Maids All in a Row
04/21/71 THX 1138
05/05/71 The House That Dripped Blood
05/12/71 The Beguiled
05/26/71 Cat O'Nine Tails
06/09/71 What’s the Matter With Helen?
06/23/71 Plaza Suite
07/21/71 The Last Run
07/28/71 Shaft
08/25/71 The Omega Man
09/29/71 The Todd Killings
10/06/71 The Clay Pigeon
10/13/71 Kotch
11/17/71 Catlow
11/24/71 Man in the Wilderness
12/22/71 $
Films from January 1, 1972 on will be provided in later postings.
Thanks. I do have the research completed for Pittsburgh from December 16, 1959 to December 31, 1977 for Pittsburgh first-run theaters. It’s just a matter of time getting it all onto this site. I also have been compiling the same information for NYC, LA, CHIC, PHILA, DET, SF, DC, BOST, STL, DAL, BALT, CLEVE, HOUS, MPLS, ATL, SEAT, MILW, CINC, SD, BUFF, KC, MIAMI, DENV, IND, TAMPA,
NO, COL, PHNX, PORT, PROV, SA, CHAR & TOR – have 17 cities beside PGH finished from 1959-1975…it’s a slow process getting microfilms of other cities newspapers Inter-Library Loaned to Carnegie Library in Oakland. I’d love to see your collection sometime – I have a huge collection of ads cut from pressbooks and newspaers myself. I live in Dormont – originally from Bethel Park. You can reach me at
or
Premiering a big, splashy roadshow musical in the 60s was a hit or miss proposition. Certainly “West Side Story,” “Mary Poppins,” and “My Fair Lady” were huge successes.
But then in 1965 came “The Sound of Music,” and the overwhelming popularity of the Julie Andrews-20th Century Fox hit changed everything. All of the studios thought the public wanted big musicals and that they too would have similar blockbusters. So many of the Broadway musical hits which hadn’t yet been filmed were dusted off for the big screen, as well as ideas for original screen musicals.
In the next decade, we got “The Happiest Millionaire,” “Doctor Dolittle,” “Thoroughly Modern Millie,” “Camelot,” “Funny Girl,” “Oliver!,” “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang,” “Half a Sixpence,” “Star!,” “Finian’s Rainbow,” “Goodbye, Mr. Chips,” “Sweet Charity,” “Paint Your Wagon,” “Hello, Dolly!,” “Song of Norway,” “Fiddler on the Roof,” “Man of La Mancha,” “On a Clear Day You Can See Forever,” “1776,” “Jesus Christ Superstar,” “Tom Sawyer,” “Cabaret,” “Godspell, and "Mame.” Most of these WERE released as hard-ticket roadshow films, and although their artistic qualities varied, very few of them earned back their production costs. And younger audiences at the time were not embracing the musical unless it was rock music, which is one of the reasons for the decline of the film musical until it was revived recently with “Chicago.”
PS – I’m still waiting for the film version of Stephen Sondheim’s “Follies” with Debbie Reynolds singing “I’m Still Here,” as well as film versions of “Pippin,” “Dreamgirls,” “Promises, Promises,” and “On the 20th Century.” Probably not to be…alas! But there is “The Phantom of the Opera” coming for Christmas, which would be perfect for the RCMH as an exclusive NYC run. That won’t happen either!
To the best of my knowledge, Warner Brothers premiered and showed “The Music Man” as a regular non-roadshow film in all of the big cities during the summer of 1962.
“Mary Poppins,” however, was a roadshow film in almost all of the large cities when it came out in the fall of 1964.
Looking again through the list of films which played RCMH that I previously submitted, only “Mary Poppins” and “The Happiest Millionaire” (both from Disney) could truly be considered to have played roadshow engagements in cities other than New York, although “Fanny,” “The Unsinkable Molly Brown,” “The Great Race,” “Bedknobs and Broomsticks,” and “1776,” among others, probably could have been roadshow films, had the studios decided to release them that way.
Films which played at Loew’s Palace in Washington, DC from January 1964 to December 1971.
01/01/64 Move Over, Darling
02/12/64 Man’s Favorite Sport
03/04/64 Sunday in New York
03/25/64 The Seven Faces of Dr. Lao
04/01/64 Shock Treatment
04/08/64 Night Must Fall
04/22/64 Lilies of the Field
04/29/64 The Best Man
05/27/64 A Distant Trumpet
06/03/64 Advance to the Rear
06/10/64 The Carpetbaggers
08/19/64 McHale’s Navy
09/02/64 The Killers
09/16/64 Quo Vadis
09/30/64 Fate is the Hunter
10/21/64 Where Love Has Gone
11/11/64 Youngblood Hawke
12/16/64 Curse of Frankenstein/Horror of Dracula
12/23/64 The Pleasure Seekers
01/13/65 Quick, Before It Melts!
01/20/65 Baby, the Rain Must Fall
02/03/65 Psycho
02/17/65 Sylvia
03/03/65 Crack in the World
03/10/65 Hush, Hush…Sweet Charlotte
03/24/65 Bus Riley’s Back in Town
04/07/65 In Harm’s Way
05/19/65 Dr. No/From Russia, With Love
06/30/65 Von Ryan’s Express
08/04/65 Harlow
08/18/65 Operation Crossbow
09/29/65 Ship of Fools
11/03/65 The King and I
11/17/65 The Cincinnati Kid
12/22/65 Do Not Disturb
01/12/66 The Spy With My Face/To Trap a Spy
01/26/66 Our Man Flint
03/30/66 The Ten Commandments
04/27/66 Harper
06/15/66 A Big Hand for the Little Lady
06/22/66 Nevada Smith
07/20/66 Assault on a Queen
08/03/66 The Glass-Bottom Boat
08/24/66 Cat on a Hot Tin Roof/Butterfield 8
09/14/66 Our Man Flint/Von Ryan’s Express
09/21/66 One Spy Too Many
09/28/66 Mister Buddwing
10/05/66 Seconds
10/12/66 An American Dream
10/19/66 Kaleidoscope
10/26/66 Dead Heat on a Merry-Go-Round
11/09/66 The Professionals
12/21/66 Any Wednesday
01/04/67 Kiss the Girls and Make Them Die
01/18/67 The Venetian Affair
01/25/67 The Quiller Memorandum
02/08/67 Tobruk
03/01/67 The 25th Hour
03/15/67 One Million Years, BC
03/22/67 In Like Flint
04/26/67 Casino Royale
06/14/67 El Dorado
07/05/67 Up the Down Staircase
08/02/67 The Naked Runner
08/16/67 To Sir, With Love
10/25/67 The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre
11/01/67 Bonnie and Clyde
11/22/67 Cool Hand Luke
12/20/67 The Ambushers
01/17/68 Valley of the Dolls
02/21/68 Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner
04/10/68 Planet of the Apes
05/29/68 The Carpetbaggers/Nevada Smith
06/12/68 Villa Rides
06/26/68 The Detective
07/10/68 Bandolero
07/24/68 Where Were You When the Lights Went Out?
08/07/68 Five Card Stud
08/28/68 The Secret Life of an American Wife
09/11/68 The Big Gundown
09/25/68 Deadfall
10/02/68 Duffy
10/16/68 If He Hollers, Let Him Go
11/06/68 The Boston Strangler
11/27/68 The Lady in Cement
12/11/68 Coogan’s Bluff
12/18/68 Candy
01/29/69 Up Tight
02/12/69 Secret Ceremony
03/05/69 The Night of the Following Day
03/12/69 Planet of the Apes/Valley of the Dolls
03/26/69 100 Rifles
04/23/69 The Odd Couple/Rosemary’s Baby
04/30/69 House of Cards
05/07/69 Midas Run
05/14/69 The Dirty Dozen/Grand Prix
05/21/69 Goldfinger/Dr. No
05/28/69 Once Upon a Time in the West
06/11/69 Heaven With a Gun/The Cincinnati Kid
06/18/69 Shalako/If He Hollers, Let Him Go
06/25/69 Mackenna’s Gold
07/09/69 The Wild Bunch
08/13/69 Castle Keep
09/03/69 Succubus
09/17/69 A Stranger in Town/The Stranger Returns
09/24/69 The Italian Job
10/01/69 Bonnie and Clyde/Bullitt
10/08/69 The Boston Strangler/The Lady in Cement
10/15/69 The Good Guys and the Bad Guys
10/29/69 All the Loving Couples
11/19/69 The Undefeated
12/24/69 The Arrangement
01/21/70 Without a Stitch
02/25/70 The Last of the Mobile Hotshots
03/04/70 The Honeymoon Killers
03/11/70 Cain’s Way
03/18/70 The Wild Bunch
03/25/70 The Adventurers
05/06/70 The Liberation of L. B. Jones
05/27/70 The Grasshopper
06/10/70 How to Succeed With Sex
06/17/70 Kelly’s Heroes
07/08/70 Beyond the Valley of the Dolls
08/05/70 Chisum
08/26/70 Watermelon Man
09/16/70 El Condor
09/23/70 The Man from C. O. T. T. O. N. (Purlie Victorious)
10/07/70 King: A Filmed Journey (Montgomery to Memphis)
10/14/70 The Lady of Monza
10/21/70 Threesome
11/18/70 WUSA
12/02/70 Flap
12/23/70 There Was a Crooked Man…
01/13/71 Horror of Frankenstein/Scars of Dracula
01/27/71 Her and She and Him
02/10/71 Doctors' Wives
03/03/71 Sexual Practics in Sweden
03/24/71 The House That Dripped Blood
04/07/71 Brother John
04/28/71 Patton
05/12/71 Sweet Sweetback’s Badasssssss Song
06/23/71 Klute
07/21/71 The Seven Minutes
08/04/71 Billy Jack
08/18/71 Soul to Soul
10/06/71 Ginger
11/17/71 Private Duty Nurses
12/01/71 Woman in Cages
12/22/71 Dirty Harry
The Palace was one of Washington’s premier downtown movie palaces from the time it was built, and it was the theater where many important films had their first Washington showing. That all changed after April 4, 1968 and the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. Along with the Warner, Keith’s, Trans-Lux, and the rest of the older downtown houses, the Palace found that audiences were preferring to do their moviegoing at the newer theaters being built in suburban malls, and Washington theaters increasingly lost their exclusive first-run status in favor of showcasing new films in a number of theaters spread throughout the area. So the Place and other theaters downtown began to feature more double bills of second-run films, soft-core pornography films, and beginning in 1971, black-oriented films.
Part of the history of a great motion picture theater is the films that played there. Listed below are the films which played at Loew’s Palace in Washington, DC from November 1957 to December 1963. Research is from microfilms of The Washington Post and Variety. The dates listed are the Wednesday of the week in which the film opened, as in those days, most new films opened on Wednesdays instead of Fridays, as they do now. Films from January 1964 to the theater’s closing in 1978 will be listed in later posts due to space considerations.
11/20/57 Baby Face Nelson
11/27/57 Kiss Them for Me
12/04/57 Man in the Shadow
12/18/57 Peyton Place
02/19/58 A Farewell to Arms
03/12/58 The Brothers Karamazov
04/16/58 The Young Lions
05/14/58 Fraulein
05/21/58 Ten North Frederick
06/04/58 The Law and Jake Wade
06/18/58 Proud Rebel
07/02/58 Kings Go Forth
08/06/58 A Certain Smile
08/20/58 The Big Country
10/01/58 Harry Black and the Tiger
10/08/58 The Barbarian and the Geisha
10/22/58 Dunkirk
10/29/58 In Love and War
11/12/58 The Decks Ran Red
11/19/58 Mardi Gras
12/10/58 A Nice Little Bank That Should Be Robbed
12/17/58 The Restless Years
12/24/58 The Roots of Heaven
12/31/58 The Inn of the Sixth Happiness
02/18/59 Rally Round the Flag, Boys
03/11/59 The Remarkable Mr. Pennypacker
03/25/59 The Mating Game
04/15/59 Green Mansions
04/29/59 Al Capone
05/20/59 Watusi
05/27/59 A Woman Obsessed
06/03/59 The World, the Flesh, and the Devil
06/17/59 A Hole in the Head
07/15/59 This Earth is Mine
08/05/59 North by Northwest
10/14/59 For the First Time
10/21/59 Career
11/11/59 Hound Dog Man
11/18/59 The Wreck of the Mary Deare
12/09/59 House of the Seven Hawks
12/23/59 Solomon and Sheba
02/10/60 Sink the Bismarck
03/02/60 Three Murderesses
03/16/60 Home from the Hill
04/13/60 Kidnapped
04/20/60 The Fugitive Kind
05/25/60 Wild River
06/08/60 Flame Over India
06/15/60 The Story of Ruth
06/29/60 Pay or Die
07/06/60 The Mountain Road
07/13/60 Pollyanna
07/27/60 From the Terrace
08/31/60 All the Fine Young Cannibals
09/14/60 The Time Machine
09/28/60 I Aim at the Stars
10/05/60 The Angel Wore Red
10/12/60 Desire in the Dust
10/19/60 One Foot in Hell
11/02/60 A Breath of Scandal
11/09/60 Butterfield 8
01/04/61 Flaming Star
01/11/61 The Marriage-Go-Round
01/25/61 Go Naked in the World
02/15/61 The Sword and the Dragon
02/22/61 The Alamo
03/22/61 All Hands on Deck
04/05/61 All in a Night’s Work
04/19/61 The Apartment/Elmer Gantry
05/03/61 Cimarron
05/17/61 Return to Peyton Place
06/14/61 The Ladies Man
06/28/61 Morgan the Pirate
07/05/61 The Parent Trap
08/02/61 Exodus
08/23/61 Thief of Bagdad
08/30/61 The Pit and the Pendulum
09/13/61 Marines, Let’s Go!
09/20/61 The Big Gamble
09/27/61 The Invasion Quartet
10/04/61 The Hustler
10/25/61 Back Street
11/22/61 The Comancheros
12/06/61 I Bombed Pearl Harbor
12/13/61 Aladdin
12/27/61 The Second Time Around
01/10/62 Bachelor Flat
01/24/62 Knights of the Round Table/Ivanhoe
01/31/62 Tender is the Night
02/14/62 Pinocchio
03/07/62 Satan Never Sleeps
03/21/62 Oklahoma
04/04/62 Premature Burial
04/18/62 State Fair
05/16/62 The Horizontal Lieutenant
05/23/62 King Solomon’s Mines/The Naked Spur
05/30/62 Lisa
06/06/62 Hell is for Heroes
06/13/62 The Vikings/Trapeze
06/20/62 13 West Street
06/27/62 Boy’s Night Out
08/01/62 Hemingway’s Adventures of a Young Man
08/15/62 My Geisha
08/22/62 Five Weeks in a Balloon
08/29/62 Two Weeks in Another Town
09/19/62 I Thank a Fool
10/10/62 Damon and Pythias
10/17/62 A Very Private Affair
10/24/62 Roman Holiday/Sabrina
10/31/62 Billy Budd
11/21/62 If a Man Answers
12/05/62 The Legend of Lobo
12/12/62 The Trojan Horse/The Mongols
12/19/62 Ride Vaquero/Escape from Fort Bravo
12/26/62 Billy Rose’s Jumbo
01/16/63 The Password is Courage
01/23/63 40 Pounds of Trouble
02/13/63 Joseph and His Brethren
02/20/63 A Girl Named Tamiko
03/06/63 The Robe
03/13/63 The Courtship of Eddie’s Father
04/03/63 Constantine and the Cross
04/10/63 The Miracle of the White Stallions
05/01/63 Come Fly With Me
05/15/63 The Yellow Canary
05/22/63 We Shall Return
05/29/63 The List of Adrian Messenger
06/19/63 The Stripper
06/26/63 The Main Attraction
07/03/63 Savage Sam
07/17/63 Donovan’s Reef
07/31/63 Come Blow Your Horn
09/11/63 The Haunting
09/25/63 The VIPs
11/20/63 The Wheeler Dealers
12/25/63 Move Over, Darling
Part of the history of a great motion picture theater is the films that played there. Listed below are the films that were featured at the Ambassador Theater in Washington, Dc from November 1957 until its closure in 1966. Research is from microfilms of The Washington Post and Variety. The dates listed are the Wednesday of the film’s opening week, as in those years, most films opened on Wednesdays instead of the Friday openings that occur today. In most instances, the Ambassador played its films day-and-date with an other theater. In earlier years it was the Earle (later Warner) in downtown Washington. After the Warner began to feature hard-ticket roadshow films, the Ambassador shared its openings with the Metropolitan, which was also downtown.
11/20/57 The Tin Star
11/27/57 Bombers B-52
12/04/57 Battle Stripe/Armored Attack
12/11/57 Rodan
12/18/57 Esther Costello
12/25/57 Sayonara
02/19/58 The Deep Six
02/26/57 Fort Dobbs
03/05/58 Darby’s Rangers
03/12/58 Cowboy
03/19/58 Lafayette Escadrille
03/26/58 Jumping Jacks/Scared Stiff
04/02/58 Marjorie Morningstar
04/30/58 Another Time, Another Place
05/07/58 Chase a Crooked Shadow
05/14/58 Too Much, Too Soon
05/21/58 The Left-Handed Gun
05/28/58 Vertigo
06/25/58 Attila
07/02/58 No Time for Sergeants
08/06/58 The Light in the Forest
08/13/58 Indiscreet
09/03/58 The Naked and the Dead
09/17/58 Wind Across the Everglades
09/24/58 Damn Yankees
10/15/58 Onionhead
10/29/58 The Blob
11/05/58 From the Earth to the Moon
11/12/58 The Spider/The Brain Eaters
11/19/58 Enchanted Island/Appointment With a Shadow
11/26/58 Home Before Dark
12/17/58 The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad
12/31/58 Auntie Mame
02/25/59 The House on Haunted Hill
03/04/59 Up Periscope
03/11/59 The Hanging Tree
03/18/59 Rio Bravo
04/08/59 The Trap
04/15/59 Alias Jesse James
04/29/59 Lonelyhearts
05/06/59 Westbound/Born Reckless
05/13/59 A Star is Born
05/20/59 The Man in the Net
05/27/59 The Young Philadelphians
06/17/59 Don’t Give Up the Ship
07/01/59 Hercules
07/22/59 The Nun’s Story
09/02/59 Yellowstone Kelly
09/09/59 John Paul Jones
09/16/59 That Kind of Woman
09/23/59 Sign of the Gladiator
10/07/59 Room 43
10/14/59 The FBI Story
11/11/59 -30-
11/18/59 The Jayhawkers
11/25/59 A Summer Place
12/16/59 Goliath and the Barbarians
12/30/59 The Miracle
01/13/60 Cash McCall
01/27/60 The Purple Gang
02/03/60 Seven Thieves
02/10/60 The Rise and Fall of Legs Diamond
02/17/60 Jack the Ripper
03/02/60 The Bramble Bush
03/23/60 This Rebel Breed
03/30/60 Guns of the Timberland
04/06/60 The Nun’s Story
04/13/60 Visit to a Small Planet
04/27/60 Tall Story
05/11/60 Wake Me When It’s Over
05/25/60 The Rat Race
06/15/60 Because They’re Young (Ambassador ONLY)
06/22/60 Hannibal
06/29/60 Ice Palace
07/13/60 The Lost World
07/27/60 Hercules Unchained
08/10/60 Oceans 11
09/07/60 The Crowded Sky
09/14/60 13 Ghosts
09/21/60 Hell to Eternity
10/05/60 The Dark at the Top of the Stairs
10/26/60 Fast and Sexy
11/12/60 Girl of the Night
11/09/60 Journey to the Lost City
11/23/60 G. I. Blues
12/07/60 Sunrise from Campobello (moveover from Uptown)
12/14/60 Cinderfella
12/28/60 The Sundowners
01/25/61 Swiss Family Robinson
02/22/61 The Great Imposter
03/08/61 A Fever in the Blood/No Time for Sergeants
03/15/61 Gold of the Seven Saints/Auntie Mame
03/22/61 Giant
03/29/61 White Warrior
04/05/61 101 Dalmatians
04/26/61 The Sins of Rachel Cade
05/03/61 The Absent-Minded Professor
06/07/61 The Last Sunset
06/28/61 Parrish
07/19/61 Tammy Tell Me True
08/02/61 The King of the Roaring 20s/The Plunderers
08/09/61 The World by Night/The Steel Claw
08/16/61 Armored Command
08/23/61 Claudelle Inglish
09/13/61 Come September (day-and-date w/ Warner – Metropolitan DARK)
10/04/61 Greyfriar’s Bobby
10/11/61 Splendor in the Grass
11/08/61 The Mask
11/15/61 Susan Slade
11/29/61 Blue Hawaii
12/20/61 Babes in Toyland
01/17/62 The George Raft Story
01/24/62 The Singer, Not the Song
01/31/62 Madison Avenue
02/07/62 A Majority of One
02/21/62 The Big Country/Thunder Road
02/28/62 The Outsider
03/14/62 The Couch/Malaga
03/21/62 Hitler
03/28/62 The Day the Earth Caught Fire
04/11/62 Splendor in the Grass/Fanny
04/18/62 Moon Pilot
05/09/62 Burn, Witch, Burn
05/16/62 Samar/House of Women
05/23/62 Love Me or Leave Me/Love is Better Than Ever
05/30/62 Escape from Zahrain
06/06/62 Lonely are the Brave
06/13/62 The Count of Monte Cristo
06/20/62 Merrill’s Marauders
06/27/62 Bon Voyage
07/18/62 The Sad Sack/The Delicate Delinquent
07/25/62 The Music Man
09/26/62 Guns of Darkness
10/03/62 The Phantom of the Opera
10/10/62 The Chapman Report
10/31/62 Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?
11/21/62 Girls! Girls! Girls!
12/05/62 We’ll Bury You/Who Was That Lady?
12/12/62 Boccaccio 70 (English language version)
12/19/62 Gay Purr-ee/The Sundowners
12/26/62 Gypsy
01/30/63 Who’s Got the Action?
02/13/63 Son of Flubber
03/13/63 The Days of Wine and Roses
04/10/63 Critic’s Choice
04/24/63 Giant
05/01/63 The Man from the Diners Club
05/15/63 Indiscreet
05/22/63 It Happened at the World’s Fair
06/05/63 Island of Love
06/12/63 West Side Story (Ambassador ONLY)
07/03/63 Spencer’s Mountain
07/17/63 Summer Magic
08/07/63 PT 109
08/21/63 Tarzan’s 3 Challenges/The Slave
08/28/63 Wall of Noise
09/04/63 Of Love and Desire
09/11/63 The Castilian
09/18/63 Hootenanny Hoot
09/25/63 The Girl Hunters
10/02/63 Women of the World
10/09/63 Rampage
10/16/63 Twice Told Tales
10/23/63 Shock Corridor
10/30/63 Mary, Mary
11/13/63 The Incredible Journey
11/27/63 Palm Springs Weekend
12/11/63 No, My Darling Daughter
12/18/63 Four for Texas
01/08/64 Strait-Jacket
01/22/64 Who’s Been Sleeping in My Bed?
02/05/64 Dead Ringer
02/19/64 Love With the Proper Stranger
03/18/64 Children of the Damned
03/25/64 A Tiger Walks
04/01/64 Paris When It Sizzles
04/15/64 A Global Affair/Tamahine
04/22/64 PT 109
04/29/64 A Yank in Vietnam/The Strangler
05/06/64 Empty Canvas
05/20/64 Lilies of the Field (Ambassador ONLY)
05/27/64 The Pink Panther (day and date with Calvert)
06/03/64 The Longest Day (Ambassador ONLY)
06/10/64 South Pacific (day and date with Calvert)
06/17/64 Oklahoma (Ambassador ONLY)
06/24/64 Lawrence of Arabia (Ambassador ONLY)
07/01/64 El Cid (Ambassador ONLY)
07/08/64 Ensign Pulver
07/22/64 The Long Ships
08/12/64 Viva Las Vegas
08/26/64 Looking for Love
09/02/64 Honeymoon Hotel
09/09/64 The Thin Red Line
09/16/64 Stop Train 349
09/23/64 Station Six-Sahara
10/07/64 Kisses for My President
10/21/64 The Stripper/The Hustler
10/28/64 Rio Conchos
11/18/64 From Russia, With Love/The Defiant Ones (Ambassador ONLY)
11/25/64 Whatever Happend to Baby Jane/Days of Wine & Roses (A ONLY)
12/02/64 Seven Days in May/Hud (Ambassador ONLY)
12/09/64 Charade/To Kill a Mockingbird (Ambassador ONLY)
12/16/64 The Carpetbaggers/That Kind of Woman (Ambassador ONLY)
12/23/64 Sex and the Single Girl
01/20/65 First Men in the Moon
01/27/65 Peyton Place/Return to Peyton Place
02/03/65 36 Hours
02/24/65 Dear Brigitte
03/10/65 How the West Was Won
03/17/65 A Boy Ten Feet Tall
03/24/65 Love Has Many Faces
03/31/65 John Goldfarb, Please Come Home
05/12/65 Synanon
05/19/65 Die! Die! My Darling
05/26/65 A High Wind in Jamaica
06/09/65 Up From the Beach
06/16/65 The Battle of the Villa Fiorita
06/23/65 Genghis Khan
07/14/65 The Sons of Katie Elder
08/04/65 Morituri
08/25/65 The Third Day
09/01/65 Pardners/Living It Up
09/08/65 My Blood Runs Cold/Murieta
09/15/65 Brakfast at Tiffany’s/Sabrina
09/29/65 Marriage on the Rocks
10/27/65 Taboos of the World/The Conquered City
11/10/65 Village of the Giants/Seaside Swingers
11/17/65 The Bedford Incident
12/01/65 The Rounders/Zebra in the Kitchen
12/08/65 Gypsy/The Music Man
12/22/65 Boeing Boeing
After Boeing Boeing" completed its run, the Metropolitan in downtown Washington closed on January 3, 1966. The Ambassador stayed open as a second-run house for 16 more weeks.
01/05/66 Secret Agent Fireball/Spy in Your Eye
01/12/66 Requiem for a Gunfighter/Pussycat Alley
01/19/66 The Skull/The Mad Executioner
01/26/66 The Cincinnati Kid/Gunfighters of the Casa Grande
02/02/66 Zorba the Greek/Cat Ballou
02/09/66 Tom Jones/Irma La Douce
02/16/66 The Ipcress File/Ship of Fools
02/23/66 The Pawnbroker/The Collector
03/02/66 Darling
03/09/66 That Darn Cat/Kid Rodelo
03/16/66 The King and I/Agent from H. A. R. M.
03/23/66 The Ugly Dachshund
03/30/66 The Slender Thread/Bunny Lake is Missing
04/06/66 Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines
04/20/66 The Spy Who Came in From the Cold/Never Too Late
The Ambassador stayed standing until the fall of 1969 when it was demolished. Between 1966 and 1969 the theater served mostly as a rock concert hall with pyschedelic lights and patrons dancing where the seats used to be. There is now a bank located on the site.