I worked at the Eastown in the mid 1980s just prior to the remodeling effort that Mr. Rodin and John Yoder undertook to make it the Eastown Bijou. Prior to that a much much smaller theatre nearby was used for small art and foreign films. It was hoped that those films plus an ambitious and eclectic selection of movies could be better served in the bigger theatre. I believe it was a long run of the movie “Caligula” that, in part, made the remodeling a possibility! Before that the big theatre was used for second run action and horror films, midnight movies and kung foo martial arts movies.
While, as Jenny recalls, it was hard to fill the house, the kids matinees we had on the weekends almost always filled the place up. I remember doing an introductory bit in front of a theatre full of kids and their parents and being surprised when they talked back to me, in unison, after I said ‘Hello’. I think the parents had as much fun as the kids. We started that series with a screening of a newly reconditioned copy of “The Wizard of Oz”. I had never seen it on a big screen. What a thrill.
The screen WAS huge and I feel extremely fortunate to have been able to see “Blade Runner” there dozens of times, as well as a Hitchcock series that included “Rear Window”, “Vertigo” and “Rope”. You’ve never seen “Rear Window” unless you’ve seen the kiss between James Stewart and Grace Kelly on a huge screen. Also of note on that big screen was the cult film “Koyaanisqatsi”, shown the way it was meant to be seen.
By the way, the air cooling system, which must have been state-of-the-art when it was built, was an amazing artifact of pre-air conditioning days, with a huge fan and a maze of tunnels you could walk through that exchanged and blew the air through the theatre. It worked very well on hot days.
I worked at the Eastown in the mid 1980s just prior to the remodeling effort that Mr. Rodin and John Yoder undertook to make it the Eastown Bijou. Prior to that a much much smaller theatre nearby was used for small art and foreign films. It was hoped that those films plus an ambitious and eclectic selection of movies could be better served in the bigger theatre. I believe it was a long run of the movie “Caligula” that, in part, made the remodeling a possibility! Before that the big theatre was used for second run action and horror films, midnight movies and kung foo martial arts movies.
While, as Jenny recalls, it was hard to fill the house, the kids matinees we had on the weekends almost always filled the place up. I remember doing an introductory bit in front of a theatre full of kids and their parents and being surprised when they talked back to me, in unison, after I said ‘Hello’. I think the parents had as much fun as the kids. We started that series with a screening of a newly reconditioned copy of “The Wizard of Oz”. I had never seen it on a big screen. What a thrill.
The screen WAS huge and I feel extremely fortunate to have been able to see “Blade Runner” there dozens of times, as well as a Hitchcock series that included “Rear Window”, “Vertigo” and “Rope”. You’ve never seen “Rear Window” unless you’ve seen the kiss between James Stewart and Grace Kelly on a huge screen. Also of note on that big screen was the cult film “Koyaanisqatsi”, shown the way it was meant to be seen.
By the way, the air cooling system, which must have been state-of-the-art when it was built, was an amazing artifact of pre-air conditioning days, with a huge fan and a maze of tunnels you could walk through that exchanged and blew the air through the theatre. It worked very well on hot days.