It would be cool to get more of them back here in the Bay State, also. The only drive-in here in the Bay State is in Mendon, MA, which is way west of us, out in the central part of the state, really.
During the summer of 1962, when I was due to enter the sixth grade in the fall, my sister and I attended day camp out west for six weeks, where weekly trips to see movies were a regular thing. I remember seeing films such as “The Music Man”, Merril’s Marauders, Bon Voyage, and a number of others. This was also the summer that I got introduced to the great musical West Side Story. One girl in the group that I was in received a copy of the LP album soundtrack of the original Broadway stage production of West Side Story for her birthday, brought it in and played it for the rest of the group. The kids would be singing all the songs from WSS on the bus, both to and from camp every day, and it was cool. I immediately fell in love with the music of WSS, although I didn’t see the movie
until it was several years out of date, and shortly before it went on TV; around Christmaastime of 1968, as a high school senior. I fell in love with the film instantly, and have been hooked on it since. heh.
Probably the best thing to do then, is to bring an extra sweater in case the auditorium is really, really cold. At the ( no longer existing) 733 Theatre on Boston’s Boylston Street, I heard a wierd story from my parents who’d gone there at one point. It was a hot sultry summer’s day, the box-office person had sold more tickets than there were seats available in that theatre, and the A/C was malfunctioning, to boot. It was so hot that people were taking their shirts off—in a public movie theatre yet!
North by Northwest is a cool film. Although I first saw it when it was first out of date, I enjoyed it immensely also. I also enjoyed “The Birds”, despite warnings by the theatre box-office person that, since I own a small green macaw, that my attitudes towards birds would be adversely changed forever. Not so!! I’ve seen “the Birds” a couple of times and still love my McGee (the Noble Macaw). I’ve seen “The Birds” in the Brattle Theatre, as well as North by Northwest, which I also saw in college at the B. U. Theatre when they still showed movies.
It seems to me that pretty much all movies were theatre movies before going on TV, being videoized, or made into DVD’s, no?
MPol
commented about
MobMovon
Jul 12, 2008 at 5:20 pm
Here’s a question, though, TheaterBuff1: Wouldn’t the MobMov idea eventually help to kill off the movie theater business? DVD and video have helped do just that. Also, the disadvantage of such an idea as MobMov is that it seems like it can only be done during the warm weather, so how well it would work here in the northeast during the colder winter months, when people don’t go outdoors at night much, if at all. Also, if it’s raining, or an electrical storm is happening, outdoor movies have to be cancelled.
Looks like a cute little theatre. The sad thing about movie theaters is that most all of the movie theatres here in the United States, and even throughout the world are either closed or have been demolished. I still remember when pretty much every town and/or neighborhood used to have its own movie theatre, and, in towns like the one that I grew up in, there were movie theatres in at least two of the towns that abutted ours that we ended up going to, and, sometimes, for both good and awful, seeing other kids that we knew at those theatres, particularly on a Saturday afternoon or evening. Now, with rare exceptions, movie palaces don’t exist anymore, and, for the most part, there are the antiseptic, sterile-looking multiplex box theatres that’re just off various highway exits, where people from various towns go to, and there’s no intimacy to anymore. I still remember waiting to get into a movie and waiting in a line that wound all the way around the block. Sometimes we’d get in and other times not. I guess people don’t want to wait outside anymore, either.
There were a number of classic revival/repertory movie art houses in our area too, as late as the 1980’s, but most of them too, either went the way of Cinema heaven, or were bought out by the big cinema franchise/chains, such as AMC, Showcase, etc.
Since I recently resumed posting here on CinemaTreasures after not having posted here for sometime, I realize that I’m sort of late to the party, but I still remember that awful day. 9/11/01 started out as an ordinary day for me, and when I heard about the horrific attacks on NYC’s World Trade Center Towers, and later, the Pentagon, I thought it was all a hoax. However, when I turned on my little TV and saw the horrible footage of the WTC Towers being hit by planes and collapsing, I knew differently. To get to the subject at hand, however; back in mid-August of 2001, shortly before 9/11, I’d just gotten back from an eye-dilation exam when I received a call from some friends of mine who’d lived in Boston but moved down to NYC years ago (and who knew that West Side Story is my favorite film), telling me that there was going to be a special 40th-year anniversary screening of the film West Side Story at Radio City Music Hall in early October, and that many members of the cast would be present. Enthusiastically, and from the bottom of my heart, I said yes when they asked me if I wanted them to send off for some tickets for me. After some snafus, the tickets were obtained.
Saturday, October 6th, 2001, was the big day. Since West Side Story is my alltime favorite film, I drove down from Boston to the Big Apple specially to see it, and to see old friends and relatives. What a Saturday night out that was! Radio City Music Hall was packed with an exuberant, friendly, fingersnappling, applauding crowd (of about 5-6, 000, to be exact), and there was a beautifully remastered, cleaned-up and restored print of WSS. My friends and I enjoyed ourselves immensely, and it was fantastic that several thousand people could get together for such a wonderful evening less than a month after the horrific 9/11 attacks. This, imo, is another great example of how to bring people together.
They sure are, Iris. It’s very sad that all these elegant, baroque-looking movie palaces, for the most part, have gone the way of cinema heaven, and been replaced by very sterile-looking and antiseptic multiplex cinemas that show a lot of the schlock that passes these days for art.
It’s true that the previews have become a way of movie life, so to speak. They can be boring, but they’re often used to lure people to the movies. One advantage to the previews,, however, is that if you end up being afew minutes late to a film, the chances are just as good as not, possibly better, that you’ll end up missing some of the previews rather than the feature film itself.
MPol
commented about
MobMovon
Jul 12, 2008 at 11:22 am
The MobMov idea has caught up a little bit here in our area too, and it seems like such a cool idea. I remember reading/hearing about a couple of experiments like that not too far from where I live—and it seemed to work. Unfortunately, howver, I haven’t heard or read anymore about this neat idea. Outdoor movie programs, however, that’re free to the public, and amount to the same thing, seem to be taking hold more and more, which is good. The Movies by Moonlight program, where there’s a movie every Friday night at the Rowes Wharf Boston Harbor Hotel during the summer months, Friday Night Flicks at the Hatchshell, the Comcast-sponsored outdoor movies program in Somerville, and, more recently, an outdoor film program in at the Devotion School Park in Brookline, have become more popular. Wonderful movies, including WSS, have been shown at the other outdoor theatre programs, although I haven’t been to the outdoor movies program in Brookline yet. If you go to an outdoor film program, where it’s very woodsy, or near the water, or anywhere, it’s good to bring bug-dope, especially because mosquito bites today can be more than just a bit of an irritating annoyance, if one gets the drift. One big disadvantage to outdoor movie or MobMov programs is that if it rains or whatever, they have to cancel the film.
I’ve also seen the film West Side Story outdoors on at least 3 occasions—and it’s really cool. The sounds of the city in the background seem to add a whole new dimension to an already-great classic film.
I first saw the film; “2001: A Space Odyssey” 40 years ago, when it first came out. I was a high school kid and, like lots of other films of that era, it had a powerful impact on my imagination. I enjoyed it immensely, seeing it on the great big screen of the now non-existent Charles Cinema in Boston. Afew years later, I saw it again, at the same theatre, also having a wonderful time. Just afew years ago, I saw “2001: A Space Odysssey ” again, this time at Brookline’s Coolidge Corner Theatre. It was a tad or so more frayed at the edges, if one gets the drift, and I’d forgotten how freaky it was, and I still enjoyed it. I sometimes think about how ‘2001" was more a “back to the future” type of film, and, now that the year 2001 has come and gone, where are we? (lol). However, I admit to one thing: As much as I enjoyed “2001: A Space Odyssey” and have seen it afew times, it doesn’t hold the same special place in my heart regarding movies as the film West Side Story.
That film “Movie Pests” sounds like a nightmare come to life, if one gets the drift. They DO exist in real life. Generally, unless a “movie pest” is really super obnoxious, I tend to ignore him or her the best I can and just concentrate on watching the movie. I remember at least a few incidents when I went to the movies that sort of threw me off, however: Back in the mid-1970’s, at the now-non-existant Orson Welles Cinema, I went to see the movie “The Harder They Come” with my family. It was a wonderful movie, and we all enjoyed it. However, in the back of the theatre, there were a bunch of people in the audience, who, obviously quite stoned, were laughing hysterically at all the sadistic parts of the film. Not pleasant to listen to at all.
Another instance of a “movie pest”, who sort of threw me off was one that I encountered when I went to see a Friday night midnight screening of the film “The Warriors” at Brookline’s Coolidge Corner Theatre. There was a good crowd of people, many college kids, many who were also just really drunk off their butts. Just behind me was a fairly tall woman, who was clearly drunk and kept kicking the back of my chair. It took some doing, but I managed to finally get her to stop after telling her several times that I didn’t like her kicking m chair. Still more recently, when my sister-in-law and I attended the evening screening of the film “West Side Story” at the Brattle Threatre, there was a woman in the row right behind us (we were on the balcony), who was giggling her fool head off pretty much the whole time, until one of her companions told her to shut up. Since she was from another country and spoke a different language, neither my sister-in-law or I could turn around and tell this woman to be quiet. But, happily, as I said before, her companions finally told the giggling woman to shut up, and she did.
MPol
commented about
Cinestudioon
Jul 12, 2008 at 2:07 am
Although I live roughly 2 hours east of Hartford, CT (just outside Boston, MA), and have never been there, I looked at the website and it looks like a beautiful theatre. I’m planning to drive down there sometime during the 2nd weekend of August, to take in a screening of West Side Story, because I always like to see that one on a great big, wide movie theatre screen, with the lights down low.
Although, as I said before, that this sounds like a sad story, it’s also a very interesting one, because the fact that unions have been pretty much spurned here in the United States for almost 40 years (the decline of unions in this country actually began in the late 1960’s, when Nixon took power, and then continued to snowball, and, for the past 25 years, we’ve really begun to see the consequences) imo, clearly helps explain why the movie theatre experience isn’t what it used to be, and why there are so many non-professionals working the projectors who don’t know what they’re doing due to improper training. This, I believe, has all but killed the movie business, which is really unfortunate, because, imho, there’s nothing greater than taking an opportunity to be out of the house in the evenings or whatever and seeing movies on a great big, wide screen, in a real movie theatre, with the lights down low, and sharing the experience with lots of other people, whether one knows them or not.
The Orson Welles Cinema was a real keeper. As a student during the 1970’s, and through the miod-1980’s, after I’d gotten out of school, I’d go to movies pretty regularly there. Back in the seventies, an evening would be made of it, by having dinner at the nearby Orson Welles Restaurant before it burned down, and then attending a movie at the Cinema. For several years after I finished school, I lived right around the corner from Orson Welles Cinema, and I’d still go to movies pretty regularly there. Among the movies that I saw at Orson Welles cinema were Bonnie & Clyde, Performance, Road Warrior, The Harder They Come, Pink Floyd’s “The Wall”, and, not to mention some others, last but not least, West Side Story.
The Opera House is beautifully renovated and is very baroque-looking inside. I had the opportunity to see a production of “NutCracker Suite” in the Opera House, which was a wonderful experience through and through.
Since the Embassy Theatre was located in Walthem, which was one of the towns that abutted my old home town, we used to go there frequently as kids, and, often enough, we’d often see other kids that we knew from my old hometown there at the theatre, on a Saturday afternoon, for both good and bad. Since Grover Cronin’s Department Store (which has since been converted into condos) was pretty much right across the street, some times a whole day would be made of it; shopping at Grover Cronin’s, and a movie at the Embassy Theatre. I remember that the Embassy Theatre was very baroque-looking inside, so going to the theatre itself was an artistic experience. Alas, the Embassy was torn down, making way for the more sterile and antiseptic-looking multiplex cinema(s) that now exist.
The Providence Performing Arts Center is also another beautiful old theatre palace that’s perfect for showing old classics, etc., and alsoi has a balcony. Up until several years ago, they, too had classic film series. I saw my alltime favorite movie, West Side Story, which played as part of the film series that year, in 2000, which was also coincided with a big promotion of Wurlitzer Organ that they were having. Before the movie started, however, the audience was treated to rather schmaltzy organ renditions of several prominent WSS songs, which resembled the kind of music that’s frequently heard on a skating rink or a ballpark during a baseball game. The organist went on just a bit too long, and I thought he would never get off, especially since the movie had started. Finally, the organist and organ, both of which and who had been sitting on a small piece of the floor that was automatically pulled down below the stage was whisked down below the platform by some sort of motor and pulleys, or whatever, and, we all enjoyed the film. Although there were only 600 people in a 3500-seat theatre, we all enjoyed the film. Just going to the PPAC and even looking at the outside was a wonderfully artistic experience in itself. Since I had a parttime job at a nearby piano dealer shop as a floor tuner, I drove down to Providence, RI, from the Bay State quite frequently. It was only an hour and a half south of where I live—no big deal.
A couple of years later, I got to see a wonderful stage production of WSS, which was an equally wonderful experience. On several occasions, I tuned the piano backstage of the theatre, which was kind of neat, also.
What a sweet story, Ian-AdoraKiaOra!! Thanks for sharing it with us.
It would be cool to get more of them back here in the Bay State, also. The only drive-in here in the Bay State is in Mendon, MA, which is way west of us, out in the central part of the state, really.
During the summer of 1962, when I was due to enter the sixth grade in the fall, my sister and I attended day camp out west for six weeks, where weekly trips to see movies were a regular thing. I remember seeing films such as “The Music Man”, Merril’s Marauders, Bon Voyage, and a number of others. This was also the summer that I got introduced to the great musical West Side Story. One girl in the group that I was in received a copy of the LP album soundtrack of the original Broadway stage production of West Side Story for her birthday, brought it in and played it for the rest of the group. The kids would be singing all the songs from WSS on the bus, both to and from camp every day, and it was cool. I immediately fell in love with the music of WSS, although I didn’t see the movie
until it was several years out of date, and shortly before it went on TV; around Christmaastime of 1968, as a high school senior. I fell in love with the film instantly, and have been hooked on it since. heh.
Probably the best thing to do then, is to bring an extra sweater in case the auditorium is really, really cold. At the ( no longer existing) 733 Theatre on Boston’s Boylston Street, I heard a wierd story from my parents who’d gone there at one point. It was a hot sultry summer’s day, the box-office person had sold more tickets than there were seats available in that theatre, and the A/C was malfunctioning, to boot. It was so hot that people were taking their shirts off—in a public movie theatre yet!
I love this site too. Heh.
North by Northwest is a cool film. Although I first saw it when it was first out of date, I enjoyed it immensely also. I also enjoyed “The Birds”, despite warnings by the theatre box-office person that, since I own a small green macaw, that my attitudes towards birds would be adversely changed forever. Not so!! I’ve seen “the Birds” a couple of times and still love my McGee (the Noble Macaw). I’ve seen “The Birds” in the Brattle Theatre, as well as North by Northwest, which I also saw in college at the B. U. Theatre when they still showed movies.
It seems to me that pretty much all movies were theatre movies before going on TV, being videoized, or made into DVD’s, no?
Here’s a question, though, TheaterBuff1: Wouldn’t the MobMov idea eventually help to kill off the movie theater business? DVD and video have helped do just that. Also, the disadvantage of such an idea as MobMov is that it seems like it can only be done during the warm weather, so how well it would work here in the northeast during the colder winter months, when people don’t go outdoors at night much, if at all. Also, if it’s raining, or an electrical storm is happening, outdoor movies have to be cancelled.
Looks like a cute little theatre. The sad thing about movie theaters is that most all of the movie theatres here in the United States, and even throughout the world are either closed or have been demolished. I still remember when pretty much every town and/or neighborhood used to have its own movie theatre, and, in towns like the one that I grew up in, there were movie theatres in at least two of the towns that abutted ours that we ended up going to, and, sometimes, for both good and awful, seeing other kids that we knew at those theatres, particularly on a Saturday afternoon or evening. Now, with rare exceptions, movie palaces don’t exist anymore, and, for the most part, there are the antiseptic, sterile-looking multiplex box theatres that’re just off various highway exits, where people from various towns go to, and there’s no intimacy to anymore. I still remember waiting to get into a movie and waiting in a line that wound all the way around the block. Sometimes we’d get in and other times not. I guess people don’t want to wait outside anymore, either.
There were a number of classic revival/repertory movie art houses in our area too, as late as the 1980’s, but most of them too, either went the way of Cinema heaven, or were bought out by the big cinema franchise/chains, such as AMC, Showcase, etc.
Since I recently resumed posting here on CinemaTreasures after not having posted here for sometime, I realize that I’m sort of late to the party, but I still remember that awful day. 9/11/01 started out as an ordinary day for me, and when I heard about the horrific attacks on NYC’s World Trade Center Towers, and later, the Pentagon, I thought it was all a hoax. However, when I turned on my little TV and saw the horrible footage of the WTC Towers being hit by planes and collapsing, I knew differently. To get to the subject at hand, however; back in mid-August of 2001, shortly before 9/11, I’d just gotten back from an eye-dilation exam when I received a call from some friends of mine who’d lived in Boston but moved down to NYC years ago (and who knew that West Side Story is my favorite film), telling me that there was going to be a special 40th-year anniversary screening of the film West Side Story at Radio City Music Hall in early October, and that many members of the cast would be present. Enthusiastically, and from the bottom of my heart, I said yes when they asked me if I wanted them to send off for some tickets for me. After some snafus, the tickets were obtained.
Saturday, October 6th, 2001, was the big day. Since West Side Story is my alltime favorite film, I drove down from Boston to the Big Apple specially to see it, and to see old friends and relatives. What a Saturday night out that was! Radio City Music Hall was packed with an exuberant, friendly, fingersnappling, applauding crowd (of about 5-6, 000, to be exact), and there was a beautifully remastered, cleaned-up and restored print of WSS. My friends and I enjoyed ourselves immensely, and it was fantastic that several thousand people could get together for such a wonderful evening less than a month after the horrific 9/11 attacks. This, imo, is another great example of how to bring people together.
They sure are, Iris. It’s very sad that all these elegant, baroque-looking movie palaces, for the most part, have gone the way of cinema heaven, and been replaced by very sterile-looking and antiseptic multiplex cinemas that show a lot of the schlock that passes these days for art.
It’s true that the previews have become a way of movie life, so to speak. They can be boring, but they’re often used to lure people to the movies. One advantage to the previews,, however, is that if you end up being afew minutes late to a film, the chances are just as good as not, possibly better, that you’ll end up missing some of the previews rather than the feature film itself.
The MobMov idea has caught up a little bit here in our area too, and it seems like such a cool idea. I remember reading/hearing about a couple of experiments like that not too far from where I live—and it seemed to work. Unfortunately, howver, I haven’t heard or read anymore about this neat idea. Outdoor movie programs, however, that’re free to the public, and amount to the same thing, seem to be taking hold more and more, which is good. The Movies by Moonlight program, where there’s a movie every Friday night at the Rowes Wharf Boston Harbor Hotel during the summer months, Friday Night Flicks at the Hatchshell, the Comcast-sponsored outdoor movies program in Somerville, and, more recently, an outdoor film program in at the Devotion School Park in Brookline, have become more popular. Wonderful movies, including WSS, have been shown at the other outdoor theatre programs, although I haven’t been to the outdoor movies program in Brookline yet. If you go to an outdoor film program, where it’s very woodsy, or near the water, or anywhere, it’s good to bring bug-dope, especially because mosquito bites today can be more than just a bit of an irritating annoyance, if one gets the drift. One big disadvantage to outdoor movie or MobMov programs is that if it rains or whatever, they have to cancel the film.
I’ve also seen the film West Side Story outdoors on at least 3 occasions—and it’s really cool. The sounds of the city in the background seem to add a whole new dimension to an already-great classic film.
I remember watching “The Day After” on television back in 1983, too, and my co-workers and I agreed about one thing: It wasn’t scary enough.
Brookline’s Coolidge Corner Theatre, too has some Operas on screen. Cool.
I first saw the film; “2001: A Space Odyssey” 40 years ago, when it first came out. I was a high school kid and, like lots of other films of that era, it had a powerful impact on my imagination. I enjoyed it immensely, seeing it on the great big screen of the now non-existent Charles Cinema in Boston. Afew years later, I saw it again, at the same theatre, also having a wonderful time. Just afew years ago, I saw “2001: A Space Odysssey ” again, this time at Brookline’s Coolidge Corner Theatre. It was a tad or so more frayed at the edges, if one gets the drift, and I’d forgotten how freaky it was, and I still enjoyed it. I sometimes think about how ‘2001" was more a “back to the future” type of film, and, now that the year 2001 has come and gone, where are we? (lol). However, I admit to one thing: As much as I enjoyed “2001: A Space Odyssey” and have seen it afew times, it doesn’t hold the same special place in my heart regarding movies as the film West Side Story.
That film “Movie Pests” sounds like a nightmare come to life, if one gets the drift. They DO exist in real life. Generally, unless a “movie pest” is really super obnoxious, I tend to ignore him or her the best I can and just concentrate on watching the movie. I remember at least a few incidents when I went to the movies that sort of threw me off, however: Back in the mid-1970’s, at the now-non-existant Orson Welles Cinema, I went to see the movie “The Harder They Come” with my family. It was a wonderful movie, and we all enjoyed it. However, in the back of the theatre, there were a bunch of people in the audience, who, obviously quite stoned, were laughing hysterically at all the sadistic parts of the film. Not pleasant to listen to at all.
Another instance of a “movie pest”, who sort of threw me off was one that I encountered when I went to see a Friday night midnight screening of the film “The Warriors” at Brookline’s Coolidge Corner Theatre. There was a good crowd of people, many college kids, many who were also just really drunk off their butts. Just behind me was a fairly tall woman, who was clearly drunk and kept kicking the back of my chair. It took some doing, but I managed to finally get her to stop after telling her several times that I didn’t like her kicking m chair. Still more recently, when my sister-in-law and I attended the evening screening of the film “West Side Story” at the Brattle Threatre, there was a woman in the row right behind us (we were on the balcony), who was giggling her fool head off pretty much the whole time, until one of her companions told her to shut up. Since she was from another country and spoke a different language, neither my sister-in-law or I could turn around and tell this woman to be quiet. But, happily, as I said before, her companions finally told the giggling woman to shut up, and she did.
Although I live roughly 2 hours east of Hartford, CT (just outside Boston, MA), and have never been there, I looked at the website and it looks like a beautiful theatre. I’m planning to drive down there sometime during the 2nd weekend of August, to take in a screening of West Side Story, because I always like to see that one on a great big, wide movie theatre screen, with the lights down low.
Although I’m not saavy enough to moderate and/or organize a message board, I think it would be cool to have one on here.
Although, as I said before, that this sounds like a sad story, it’s also a very interesting one, because the fact that unions have been pretty much spurned here in the United States for almost 40 years (the decline of unions in this country actually began in the late 1960’s, when Nixon took power, and then continued to snowball, and, for the past 25 years, we’ve really begun to see the consequences) imo, clearly helps explain why the movie theatre experience isn’t what it used to be, and why there are so many non-professionals working the projectors who don’t know what they’re doing due to improper training. This, I believe, has all but killed the movie business, which is really unfortunate, because, imho, there’s nothing greater than taking an opportunity to be out of the house in the evenings or whatever and seeing movies on a great big, wide screen, in a real movie theatre, with the lights down low, and sharing the experience with lots of other people, whether one knows them or not.
I remember seeing the movie “Popeye” with a friend of mine, back in 1980. It was a cool theatre.
The Orson Welles Cinema was a real keeper. As a student during the 1970’s, and through the miod-1980’s, after I’d gotten out of school, I’d go to movies pretty regularly there. Back in the seventies, an evening would be made of it, by having dinner at the nearby Orson Welles Restaurant before it burned down, and then attending a movie at the Cinema. For several years after I finished school, I lived right around the corner from Orson Welles Cinema, and I’d still go to movies pretty regularly there. Among the movies that I saw at Orson Welles cinema were Bonnie & Clyde, Performance, Road Warrior, The Harder They Come, Pink Floyd’s “The Wall”, and, not to mention some others, last but not least, West Side Story.
The Opera House is beautifully renovated and is very baroque-looking inside. I had the opportunity to see a production of “NutCracker Suite” in the Opera House, which was a wonderful experience through and through.
That sounds like a sad story, bigred.
Since the Embassy Theatre was located in Walthem, which was one of the towns that abutted my old home town, we used to go there frequently as kids, and, often enough, we’d often see other kids that we knew from my old hometown there at the theatre, on a Saturday afternoon, for both good and bad. Since Grover Cronin’s Department Store (which has since been converted into condos) was pretty much right across the street, some times a whole day would be made of it; shopping at Grover Cronin’s, and a movie at the Embassy Theatre. I remember that the Embassy Theatre was very baroque-looking inside, so going to the theatre itself was an artistic experience. Alas, the Embassy was torn down, making way for the more sterile and antiseptic-looking multiplex cinema(s) that now exist.
The Providence Performing Arts Center is also another beautiful old theatre palace that’s perfect for showing old classics, etc., and alsoi has a balcony. Up until several years ago, they, too had classic film series. I saw my alltime favorite movie, West Side Story, which played as part of the film series that year, in 2000, which was also coincided with a big promotion of Wurlitzer Organ that they were having. Before the movie started, however, the audience was treated to rather schmaltzy organ renditions of several prominent WSS songs, which resembled the kind of music that’s frequently heard on a skating rink or a ballpark during a baseball game. The organist went on just a bit too long, and I thought he would never get off, especially since the movie had started. Finally, the organist and organ, both of which and who had been sitting on a small piece of the floor that was automatically pulled down below the stage was whisked down below the platform by some sort of motor and pulleys, or whatever, and, we all enjoyed the film. Although there were only 600 people in a 3500-seat theatre, we all enjoyed the film. Just going to the PPAC and even looking at the outside was a wonderfully artistic experience in itself. Since I had a parttime job at a nearby piano dealer shop as a floor tuner, I drove down to Providence, RI, from the Bay State quite frequently. It was only an hour and a half south of where I live—no big deal.
A couple of years later, I got to see a wonderful stage production of WSS, which was an equally wonderful experience. On several occasions, I tuned the piano backstage of the theatre, which was kind of neat, also.