Copley Place Cinemas
100 Huntington Avenue,
Boston,
MA
02116
100 Huntington Avenue,
Boston,
MA
02116
8 people
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On a separate note does anyone remember another art house in Copley Square called Famous Classics Cinema or something similar. It was very short lived but had an interesting history. Location was between the Paris and the fire station. It was supposed to have a full service bar inside it. Theatre as an art house lasted only a few months but before that it was a porn house regularly shut down for showing Deep Throat.
Yes, Sack built it. Sack later changed its name to ‘USACinemas’ and a few years afterwards was gobbled up by Loews.
I moved this rant from the listings for The Paris Cinema.
The Copley Place Cinema closing?
Couldn’t happen to a more deserving theatre.
Badly designed and done strictly so Sack Theatres (or whatever they were called at the time) could control the art house movies. When it opened it was widly reported that they had raised the price for art house films. distributors could get paid more for running there than traditional art houses in Boston. All part of the chain attempting to control the city. They all ready had the only regular theatres in town, so it was only art films & revival houses as alternatives.
Anyone remember the Beacon Hill triplex as an art house?
Last film I saw there (Copley Place) was Polanski’s ‘Pirates’ w/Walter Matthau, circa 1986. It was screened in a tiny place no larger than a classroom, and the seats in that one pointed up toward the screen, so you felt as if you were in an airplane taking off. It was so disappointing to see a premium release in that space, I never have returned. Good riddance, if they abandon that complex!
One curiosity about this cinema: it has NO marquee or advertising sign of any kind visible from the surrounding streets. You can walk all the way around the Copley Place mall-office-hotel complex without ever learning that it contains movie theatres.
Even when you’re inside the mall, the cinema entrance and marquee are at the end of a side corridor, not visible from the main flow of pedestrian traffic.
The last few times I’ve walked by this theatre, the ticket window (which faces out to the mall) was not open. Instead, a sign told people to go inside and buy tickets at the concession stand.
I stopped by the theatre last night to ask how long it was likely to remain open. The employees told me they expect it to close at the end of March next year.
The ICA only offers scattered film screenings these days, perhaps due to cost reasons. I saw a Chantal Akerman documentary on Mexican migrant workers there back in March of this year when I was in town visiting family for a few days and second Gerald’s assessment of the ICA Cinema’s nearly non-existant seating rake; if I wasn’t sitting in the front row, reading the accompanying subtitles would have proven to be near-impossible. Stadium-seating (or some reasonable fascimile of it) at the new ICA Cinema on Fan Pier would be a great addition (as would be the return of a consistent film program, one on par with those offered by the Harvard Film Archive and Museum of Fine Arts).
Yeah, that brings back bad memories. Hopefully the new ICA on Fan Pier will have a better theatre!
Ron, the ICA Cinema on Boylston Street, which probably merits its own listing, had the worst sight lines imaginable. Unless you sat in the very first row, you were doomed to having your view of the screen, and inevitably any subtitles, partially blocked by heads. This was a bad feature of their otherwise fantastic complete Pasolini retrospective.
For the first year and a half, one of the nine Copley Place screens belonged to Boston’s Institute of Contemporary Art, which programmed it as the ICA Cinema.
In the fall of 1985, this programming moved out of Copley, to a small theatre within the ICA itself. The ICA seems to have stopped presenting film in recent years; I can’t recall the last time I saw a notice about the ICA Cinema.
Later in the 1980s, I recall one of the screens being dedicated to the “Where’s Boston” multimedia slide show, which introduced the city to tourists.
Thank you very much, Ian!
I know that Ben and Casey Affleck and Matt Damon worked for the Harvard Square Theatre and Janus Cinema, because when I worked there we found their pay stubs in the basement, and when they were at the Harvard Square for the “Good Will Hunting” premiere, they joked about working there.
Does anyone know what famous Bostonian ushered at a Loews Theatre in Boston? Thanks.
Ron: Thanks for the comprehensive listing of the fate of Boston movie theaters past and present. I’ve archived it. I hope they can save the Gayety, though it sounds like the mayor has dug in his heels on that one. They’ll eventually destroy the city in their attempts to save it.
Ron—Interesting they had one for each station. The names are so neutral. They don’t sound like porn theaters. I’m an urban planner and have observed the fringe location phenomenon for these theaters. The South End of Boston did and may still have a high gay population which might account for the South Station Cinemas bookings I’d guess the North Station Cinema had straight porn, though the North Station area has had several gay bars over the years, which also gravitate to fringe locations. There’s a journal article in all this somewhere.
Besides the ‘South Station Cinema’ there was another porno house under the same ownership called the ‘North Station Cinemas’. This was not the same venue as the West End/Pussycat and was located on one of the north-south streets (probably Friend or Portland).
Gerald. Thanks for the reply. It must have been the West End, because I remember (at a distance) the Pussycat in that same location. They did indeed have good programming. “The Shop on Main Street” was great then and now. I don’t know why I recall the theater being small—my faulty memory. The South Station Cinema is a fascinating bit of Boston film history. Was it somewhere between S. Station and Chinatown? Another quick question: How long was the Charles a Walter Reade theater? How did Sack get such control in Boston? Your knowledge is encyclopedic.
Tom, the theatre near North Station must have been the West End Cinema, later the Pussycat, but I don’t remember it being particularly small. When they were an art house, they had super programming. It is listed on Cinema Treasures. There was a hole-in-the-wall place near SOUTH Station, called the South Station Cinema. It showed (gay) porno in the late 60s, early ‘70s.
Many thanks to everyone who posted here for so much good information. I must confess, I never found the Copley to have the charm or appeal of some venues in Boston. But at least it’s a venue. So many have been lost. I saw TITANIC here in one of the auditoriums that slopes uphill toward the screen. I felt seasick (honest!). I also saw EVITA in another venue here that had almost no rake to the seating at all. Does anyone recall a small theater near the old North Station/Boston Garden that showed art house films in the sixties? I saw THE SHOP ON MAIN STREET there around 1965, one of my first trips in to the BiG City as a teenager. My impression was that the theater was quite small, almost a store front operation. Given its size, it was a likely candidate for conversion to a porn house.
As far as the Boston Film Festival, they already split it between the Copley and Boston Common, so I’d imagine that any closing of the Copley would mean it would be all at Boston Common.
I attended a meeting as a Loews manager in 2001 just as Boston Common was about to open where the president of the company told us that they were considering a renovation of Copley Place into less and better screens, to highlight art-house fare. Obviously, that plan did not come to fruition.
The Copley used to do incredible kids-show business on weekends, but all the popular stuff went to B.C.
As far as the Boston Film Festival, they already split it between the Copley and Boston Common, so I’d imagine that any closing of the Copley would mean it would be all at Boston Common.
I attended a meeting as a Loews manager in 2001 just as Boston Common was about to open where the president of the company told us that they were considering a renovation of Copley Place into less and better screens, to highlight art-house fare. Obviously, that plan did not come to fruition.
The Copley used to do incredible kids-show business on weekends, but all the popular stuff went to B.C.
To me, it’s sad (but not surprising) that the Copley Place is the last of the theaters inside city limits that I knew from living in Boston from 1986 (as a college student) to 1999. From the mid-90s on, all Boston had was the Copley Place, the Cheri, and the Nickelodeon. If it wasn’t enough of a potential action blockbuster to play the Cheri, or arty enough for the Nickelodeon, the Copley Place is where it went. Which is why I saw most of my movies in Brighton and Chestnut Hill.
I know it’s a harsh thing to say, but IMHO good riddance when the Copley Place closes. I can’t believe that Loews played art films there after they closed the Nickelodeon.
I am happy that the Cheri has found new life :)
I wish Boston had a true art theatre to call its own.
I remember the Kendall Square Cinema co-hosted the Boston Film Festival for two, maybe three, years in the mid-‘90s, Gerald. Perhaps with the closing of the Copley Place that will resume or maybe the Boston Common (which has served as festival co-host since 2001) will become the festival’s lone home. (I long thought the BFF should emulate the NY Film Festival by screening a handful of prestige films at one or two prime venues – i.e., the Wang Center and, now that it’s been restored, the Opera House – but that’s another topic for another day… )
Oops, I left out at least three
demolished:
Gary (Plymouth) – torn down to make way for State Transportation Building
Astor (Tremont) – site now occupied by Loews Boston Common multiplex cinema
converted to live stage:
Fenway – now Berklee Performance Center. (On Mass. Ave., not to be confused with the current AMC Fenway multiplex)
also, some tiny little Back Bay venues like the Pru Cinema, Cinema 733, and Garden Cinema simply disappeared and were replaced by restaurants or retail stores