I just did some Internet searching and, guess what, it appears the South Shore Music Circus in Cohasset, MA is still open ….. it never was a cinema, but rather a tent or theatre in the round that used to have Broadway musicals performed in it outdoors, but now caters to singers and music groups only. It is owned by the same company that operates the Cape Cod Melody Tent in Hyannis, MA, which is also still open and catering to music acts only. The North Shore Music Theatre in Beverly, MA, is also open …. and it has both Broadway shows and concerts. These theatres opened in the 1950’s and have all been improved over the years with state-of-the-art equipment, better seats, stronger ceilings and walls, and air-conditioning systems.
Richard, thanks for your reply and information. I wish my aunt and uncle were alive so that I could question them about the time they saw “Gigi” on the Cape. It must have been in this particular cinema, the Center Theater in Hyannis, where they saw it. All I know is that they loved Maurice Chevalier starring in it. It is a great film, deserving of the Best Picture Oscar.
There used to be one of those outdoor theaters in the round in Cohasset, MA on the South Shore of Boston. It had lots of live Broadway and Hollywood talent performing and singing there. I am not sure if it closed and cannot find it listed among Massachusetts theaters.
Our family visiting from Boston were lucky to come here in the summer of 1968 to see The Beatles in their cartoon, “Yellow Submarine,” only a few days after its world premiere. The cinema had a nice big screen and a good sound system. I agree that it was preferable when the building had bright neon lights on it, like Times Square in New York. There is a time and place for everything, and restoring this building to its original look is not worth the effort since Piccadilly Circus is known for its neon lights around the world and as the original center of entertainment in London. That area has now moved to Leicester Square.
I enjoyed seeing “2001: A Space Odyssey” in 70mm here at the Royalty during the summer of 1969. It had a huge screen and a good sound system for a cinema in the basement of a building. We had to take a taxi to the address on Portugal Street, as we had no idea where it was. Actually, it is right off the Kingsway below High Holborn. I hope it will continue to be successful as a live stage for Sadler’s Wells and the Peacock Theater.
After the musical “Oliver!” won the Academy Award for Best Picture (of 1968) in the spring of 1969, I made a point of going to see it at The Cheri. I guess it must have been one of the 70mm blow-up prints (since the original negative was 35mm), as it certainly looked nice on the screen. However, I do not remember getting an assigned seat at all. So wouldn’t that be just a general admission run by then? Or were the reserved-seat roadshow releases in 1969 just congregating people in certain general sections of the cinema according to price, such as everyone in the center orchestra paying the highest ticket price but grabbing whatever seats were available in that section? When we saw “The Sound of Music” at the Gary Theater in the summer of 1965, it was definitely with assigned reserved seats, like a live theatrical show. Any thoughts on this issue?
I pleasantly remember seeing “The Graduate” at the Paris sometime in late 1967 or early 1968. The audience loved the film. I got the impression that the height of the auditorium was relatively low and I believe there was no balcony. Yet, the screen was a good size width-wise and the sound system seemed decent. It was a perfect location in the Back Bay, with huge pedestrian traffic going by it all day and night. Having the Prudential Center across the street was an asset. If a cinema like that cannot succeed in today’s market, it tells you that either the quality of the films has gone down or that Hollywood is catering more to a youth audience — and I firmly believe that both instances are true. I am now 55 years old, and I remember the days when you could see beautifully photographed movies in 70mm on big screens. The smaller cinemas and 35mm formats of today are big steps down in quality.
I was glad to hear the cinema is still there, even if it is being used merely as a supply closet by the building’s maintenance people. I was wondering if other viewers of this website remember the way the projection booth sat in the middle of the theater. When I was there in 1958, 1967, and 1968, there seemed to be one large booth sitting right in the center of the lower level of the theater — or perhaps a little bit more to the rear of the main floor. During the Cinerama and Cinemiracle showings in the 1950’s before 70mm was created, three projectors were combined in this one booth. In Cinemiracle’s case for the 1958 film “Windjammer,” the outer projectors used mirrors to project the image across to the opposite side of the screen and the center projector merely projected straight ahead. The “Windjammer” souvenir book explains this very clearly. I still remember being able to easily discern the lines between the three images on the screen created by the three projectors. 70mm of course improved everything by only needing one projector. But I do think that the original large projection booth hurt the theater in the sense that fewer seats were available for the viewing public. In both 1967 and 1968 there were some seats for sale to the left and right and slightly back from the projection booth on either side, but the large area directly behind it was roped off. I do not remember how big the balcony was in this theater, but that must have been a compensating factor. I wish I could go back in time to 1958.
I fondly remember seeing “Modern Times” and “City Lights” here when my father insisted I go. I had never seen a Charlie Chaplin film in its entirety until then, and what a wonderful moment it was to see the genius he possessed. The audience was roaring with laughter, all those years later. It seemed to be a nice theater with a big screen.
One of my pleasant memories of this great cinema was seeing the 1968 re-release of “West Side Story” in its original 70mm widescreen format. The lobby was magnificent and I liked the long passageway that connected to the Boston Common. I saw a number of other films here and I think this was my second favorite theater in Boston after the Music Hall (now the Wang Center). It is good to know the old Savoy has been saved.
I guess “2001” was promoted through the Howard Johnson restaurant chain because in the film the revolving space station has a Howard Johnson Earthlight Room, as well as a Hilton Hotel. Stanley Kubrick also believed that Pan American World Airways would be flying people to the Moon and to the space station in 2001. So much for predicting the future!
Wollaston has always been a vibrant little shopping district, with some well maintained shops and good delicatessans. It is a safe and pleasant neighborhood with a convenient subway station. I went to the Wollaston Theatre several times as a kid, as I lived in nearby Milton. I vividly remember going here about 1957 (while six years of age) to see Disney’s “Old Yeller” and all the seats were taken except for the first two rows. Quite a good memory, don’t you think? I also liked seeing The Beatles in “Help!” about 1966, a year after it was first released downtown. It would be nice for this cinema to reopen in some fashion. Places like this in older neighborhoods deserve some kind of tax abatement or preservation funds, as they are assets to the community that help to keep the streets from being deserted at night.
Does anyone remember if there was a theater or cinema in Hyannis (or nearby) called the “Melody Tent” or “Music Tent”? Maybe it was one of those outdoor theaters-in-the-round that opened only during the warm summer months. I never went there, but my aunt and uncle summered in West Dennis on Cape Cod and they said they saw the film “Gigi” there in 1958 or 1959 when it was new and packing them in. I’m trying to imagine how a first-run movie could be shown in an outdoor facility where wind might be blowing the screen.
During the summer this theater would be packed with vacationers. It seemed to me that the film would change every few days. In 1966 we saw “Born Free” here. It wasn’t too big. No balcony. The screen was not very big, but the projection equipment seemed good.
Because of its central location in the elegant Back Bay neighborhood, this theater was able to attract sophisticated audiences for many years. People could easily walk to it from many points or take the Green Line subway to the Copley Place station on Boylston Street. It did indeed show many British and foreign-language films. On one of their early dates together, my parents came here in 1948 or soon after to see the British film, “I Know Where I’m Going,” starring Wendy Hiller. They always told me (much later, of course) that the theater was packed that night and the audience loved the picture, which had nice location photography in Scotland. Eventually I saw that movie on TV and could easily see why they liked it. When I was a B.U. student in the 1970’s, I came here a few times. I remember seeing a rare re-release of “The Hound of the Baskervilles” (a made-in-Hollywood classic) at a time when you could not rent those old movies on a VCR or DVD. It is a shame that a cinema like this could not survive in such a vibrant and upscale part of Boston.
This was a really magnificent place to see a movie in the 1960’s. In fact, it was one of the first downtown cinemas that I ever visited with my parents. In 1957 or early 1958 we saw “Around the World in 80 Days.” I was only six at the time, but I can still remember being impressed with the sweep of the film on the wide screen. In 1962 we had reserved seats here for Marlon Brando’s version of “Mutiny on the Bounty.” In 1966 we saw “Doctor Zhivago,” which was a 70mm blow-up from the 35mm original negative. The cinematography and sound in that film were superb in this theater. I remember noting that “Midnight Cowboy” opened here in 1969. For an X-rated film, it was not showing in a porn theater on Lower Washington, but in a very respectable venue indeed. I’m glad that the theater has been saved by Emerson College.
I grew up in Milton in the 1950’s and 1960’s. At that time we knew the place as the “Milton Art Theater” and not the State Theater. I think it changed to the “Milton Cinema” about 1968 or so. I saw “Ben-Hur” here during a general release, probably in 1960 a year after it first came out. In 1962 “West Side Story” was likewise playing here a year after its first release. The cinema was unusually long and narrow, not like other suburban theaters of its time. There was no balcony. Compared to the ornate Oriental Theater in Mattapan or the Strand in Quincy, we felt our little movie emporium in Milton was somewhat laughable and plain. The screen was relatively small and the sound system was limited. I doubt it had stereo sound. Because the screen was small, I always wondered why people would sit way in the back, unless they liked the feel of watching a television. If I remember correctly, the lavatories were strangely located on either side of the back and accessed by little staircases that were actually in the theater itself (not the lobby).
Just two summers ago I was visiting my mother, who still lives in Milton, and spent some time exploring my old haunts in East Milton Square. I walked around the back of the theater and was surprised to see it still there. A door is located on the right side (from the front of the street) and it appears that the place is being used for storage purposes of some kind.
“2001: A Space Odyssey” had a brief 70mm run at the Astor after it became a cult film and I remember seeing it there with my father in 1971 or 1972. I remember it vividly because we had a delicious dinner at Locke-Ober that evening, the male enclave that apparently still only permitted women to dine in the upper section and not in the wood-panelled lower floor. It was the only time I ever went to the Astor Theater. The screen was truly magnificent and the sound system was superb, but the theater’s seats and floor seemed to be pretty beat up by then. It was the second time I had seen “2001” and the first for my father, who liked it immensely. As I understand it, “2001” first opened in 1968 at the Boston Theater (also known as the Boston Cinerama) on Lower Washington Street (now closed).
This twin-screen drive-in was wonderful during the 1960’s and 1970’s. It was clean and family friendly, with a nice children’s playground and a sizable snack bar in the center being shared by the viewers of each huge screen. I remember seeing “Cleopatra” here during its general release in the summer of 1964, a year or so after it first came out. I was surprised when it closed.
This theater has always been mind-boggling with its beauty. I always thought of it as Boston’s equivalent to New York’s Radio City Music Hall. I fondly remember being there on the day of the 1966 film premiere of “Torn Curtain,” with the famous director in attendance, even though the audience seemed to be hoping that Julie Andrews would temporarily depart from her sombre character and break into a spirited rendition of “My Favorite Things.” Years later, after its restoration, I saw an opera here on the big stage. Boston can be proud of its theater history.
There are some snobs who look down on motion pictures and conveniently forget that these great movie palaces were originally financed by the genre of cinema and the Hollywood system. They were part of an industry based on profit, not run as non-profit organizations dependent on grants and tax relief. Hollywood gave us national treasures apart from the films themselves, and the Wang Center is just one of them.
I do believe that this was where our parents took us in 1958 or 1959 to see “Gigi” starring Maurice Chevalier. I was only 7 in 1958, so don’t blame me if I am wrong. But I do remember exactly that in the autumn of 1968 “Yellow Submarine” arrived here. We had seen that movie in London in July 1968, just days after The Beatles had come to the world premiere in Piccadilly Circus. But when we saw it in Boston again we were shocked that the song “Hey, Bulldog” had been cut. This was apparently done for the entire U.S. release and it was not the individual theater’s responsibility.
We loved this drive-in theater when our parents took us here in the 1960’s. It had a long entrance driveway that passed under the expressway, and the neon lights were nice. Years later, after I bought my first car in 1973, I came back here and was dismayed that the sound speakers had been removed and you were expected to listen to the sound on your car radio. This was terrible, because you had to waste the power of your car’s battery for two hours. I never returned, even when it was a flea market.
The Oriental in Mattapan was a special place indeed. Our family lived in Milton, just over the Boston border, so it was nearby. I loved the atmosphere inside the theater, as did everyone. We saw The Beatles in “A Hard Day’s Night” in 1964, “Georgy Girl” in 1966, and “Bonnie and Clyde” in 1967, among many others. I remember being terribly surprised and saddened when the place closed and became a store for lighting. The Mattapan Square neighborhood went through a white flight period in the 1970’s and I think the shopping district is finally coming back to a more stable situation.
Yes, this cinema seemed to always have double features. It would get the first-run movies after they had been playing in downtown Boston. For example, we saw “My Fair Lady” here in what must have been a general release across the nation after it won the Best Picture (of 1964) Academy Award in the spring of 1965. It had a big screen and the sound was good. I remember seeing “Midnight Cowboy” here in the spring of 1970, again after it won the Best Picture of 1969 Oscar. It was paired with “The Heart is a Lonely Hunter.” I never went back to the Strand and I guess it closed soon afterward.
I was only 7 when my parents took me here to see “Windjammer” and we still have the souvenir book that was sold in the theater. I also remember coming back to it about 1967 to see “Grand Prix” in 70mm and at that time I noticed that the projection equipment seemed to block a huge number of rear seats from being able to view the screen. Those seats were roped off and not for sale. It was the strangest sight in a cinema. In late 1968, I came to this place to see “2001: A Space Odyssey”, as billboards around town were still saying that it was at the Boston Cinerama, but when we arrived it turned out that “Ice Station Zebra” had suddenly been rushed in to capture the pre-Christmas viewing market. We stayed and watched it, thrilled by the visual beauty of the curving screen and the surround sound quality of the theater. The film itself, however, was silly. I always regretted that I missed seeing “2001” at this fine cinema.
The odd thing is that years later I got the impression that a parking lot had been created where the theater once existed. I guess my memories of exactly where the theater was located were wrong.
I distinctly remember trying to see “Romeo and Juliet” here in the autumn of 1968, yet it was sold out and we decided to go to another movie downtown. However, in the early winter of 1969 I did manage to get into a matinee showing of “Romeo and Juliet” here and even then the seats were difficult to obtain. It was not a very big theater at all. It also had a strange design for an auditorium, with sections heading off to the left and right of the screen. If you sat in one of the side sections, I think the view would have been warped. The sound quality in the cinema and the screen size were not the best, either. Yet, “Romeo and Juliet” was such a blockbuster that it continued here for ages. I was later a student at B.U. from 1970 on and I saw a few other showings here.
I just did some Internet searching and, guess what, it appears the South Shore Music Circus in Cohasset, MA is still open ….. it never was a cinema, but rather a tent or theatre in the round that used to have Broadway musicals performed in it outdoors, but now caters to singers and music groups only. It is owned by the same company that operates the Cape Cod Melody Tent in Hyannis, MA, which is also still open and catering to music acts only. The North Shore Music Theatre in Beverly, MA, is also open …. and it has both Broadway shows and concerts. These theatres opened in the 1950’s and have all been improved over the years with state-of-the-art equipment, better seats, stronger ceilings and walls, and air-conditioning systems.
Richard, thanks for your reply and information. I wish my aunt and uncle were alive so that I could question them about the time they saw “Gigi” on the Cape. It must have been in this particular cinema, the Center Theater in Hyannis, where they saw it. All I know is that they loved Maurice Chevalier starring in it. It is a great film, deserving of the Best Picture Oscar.
There used to be one of those outdoor theaters in the round in Cohasset, MA on the South Shore of Boston. It had lots of live Broadway and Hollywood talent performing and singing there. I am not sure if it closed and cannot find it listed among Massachusetts theaters.
Our family visiting from Boston were lucky to come here in the summer of 1968 to see The Beatles in their cartoon, “Yellow Submarine,” only a few days after its world premiere. The cinema had a nice big screen and a good sound system. I agree that it was preferable when the building had bright neon lights on it, like Times Square in New York. There is a time and place for everything, and restoring this building to its original look is not worth the effort since Piccadilly Circus is known for its neon lights around the world and as the original center of entertainment in London. That area has now moved to Leicester Square.
I enjoyed seeing “2001: A Space Odyssey” in 70mm here at the Royalty during the summer of 1969. It had a huge screen and a good sound system for a cinema in the basement of a building. We had to take a taxi to the address on Portugal Street, as we had no idea where it was. Actually, it is right off the Kingsway below High Holborn. I hope it will continue to be successful as a live stage for Sadler’s Wells and the Peacock Theater.
After the musical “Oliver!” won the Academy Award for Best Picture (of 1968) in the spring of 1969, I made a point of going to see it at The Cheri. I guess it must have been one of the 70mm blow-up prints (since the original negative was 35mm), as it certainly looked nice on the screen. However, I do not remember getting an assigned seat at all. So wouldn’t that be just a general admission run by then? Or were the reserved-seat roadshow releases in 1969 just congregating people in certain general sections of the cinema according to price, such as everyone in the center orchestra paying the highest ticket price but grabbing whatever seats were available in that section? When we saw “The Sound of Music” at the Gary Theater in the summer of 1965, it was definitely with assigned reserved seats, like a live theatrical show. Any thoughts on this issue?
I pleasantly remember seeing “The Graduate” at the Paris sometime in late 1967 or early 1968. The audience loved the film. I got the impression that the height of the auditorium was relatively low and I believe there was no balcony. Yet, the screen was a good size width-wise and the sound system seemed decent. It was a perfect location in the Back Bay, with huge pedestrian traffic going by it all day and night. Having the Prudential Center across the street was an asset. If a cinema like that cannot succeed in today’s market, it tells you that either the quality of the films has gone down or that Hollywood is catering more to a youth audience — and I firmly believe that both instances are true. I am now 55 years old, and I remember the days when you could see beautifully photographed movies in 70mm on big screens. The smaller cinemas and 35mm formats of today are big steps down in quality.
I was glad to hear the cinema is still there, even if it is being used merely as a supply closet by the building’s maintenance people. I was wondering if other viewers of this website remember the way the projection booth sat in the middle of the theater. When I was there in 1958, 1967, and 1968, there seemed to be one large booth sitting right in the center of the lower level of the theater — or perhaps a little bit more to the rear of the main floor. During the Cinerama and Cinemiracle showings in the 1950’s before 70mm was created, three projectors were combined in this one booth. In Cinemiracle’s case for the 1958 film “Windjammer,” the outer projectors used mirrors to project the image across to the opposite side of the screen and the center projector merely projected straight ahead. The “Windjammer” souvenir book explains this very clearly. I still remember being able to easily discern the lines between the three images on the screen created by the three projectors. 70mm of course improved everything by only needing one projector. But I do think that the original large projection booth hurt the theater in the sense that fewer seats were available for the viewing public. In both 1967 and 1968 there were some seats for sale to the left and right and slightly back from the projection booth on either side, but the large area directly behind it was roped off. I do not remember how big the balcony was in this theater, but that must have been a compensating factor. I wish I could go back in time to 1958.
I fondly remember seeing “Modern Times” and “City Lights” here when my father insisted I go. I had never seen a Charlie Chaplin film in its entirety until then, and what a wonderful moment it was to see the genius he possessed. The audience was roaring with laughter, all those years later. It seemed to be a nice theater with a big screen.
One of my pleasant memories of this great cinema was seeing the 1968 re-release of “West Side Story” in its original 70mm widescreen format. The lobby was magnificent and I liked the long passageway that connected to the Boston Common. I saw a number of other films here and I think this was my second favorite theater in Boston after the Music Hall (now the Wang Center). It is good to know the old Savoy has been saved.
I guess “2001” was promoted through the Howard Johnson restaurant chain because in the film the revolving space station has a Howard Johnson Earthlight Room, as well as a Hilton Hotel. Stanley Kubrick also believed that Pan American World Airways would be flying people to the Moon and to the space station in 2001. So much for predicting the future!
Wollaston has always been a vibrant little shopping district, with some well maintained shops and good delicatessans. It is a safe and pleasant neighborhood with a convenient subway station. I went to the Wollaston Theatre several times as a kid, as I lived in nearby Milton. I vividly remember going here about 1957 (while six years of age) to see Disney’s “Old Yeller” and all the seats were taken except for the first two rows. Quite a good memory, don’t you think? I also liked seeing The Beatles in “Help!” about 1966, a year after it was first released downtown. It would be nice for this cinema to reopen in some fashion. Places like this in older neighborhoods deserve some kind of tax abatement or preservation funds, as they are assets to the community that help to keep the streets from being deserted at night.
Does anyone remember if there was a theater or cinema in Hyannis (or nearby) called the “Melody Tent” or “Music Tent”? Maybe it was one of those outdoor theaters-in-the-round that opened only during the warm summer months. I never went there, but my aunt and uncle summered in West Dennis on Cape Cod and they said they saw the film “Gigi” there in 1958 or 1959 when it was new and packing them in. I’m trying to imagine how a first-run movie could be shown in an outdoor facility where wind might be blowing the screen.
During the summer this theater would be packed with vacationers. It seemed to me that the film would change every few days. In 1966 we saw “Born Free” here. It wasn’t too big. No balcony. The screen was not very big, but the projection equipment seemed good.
Because of its central location in the elegant Back Bay neighborhood, this theater was able to attract sophisticated audiences for many years. People could easily walk to it from many points or take the Green Line subway to the Copley Place station on Boylston Street. It did indeed show many British and foreign-language films. On one of their early dates together, my parents came here in 1948 or soon after to see the British film, “I Know Where I’m Going,” starring Wendy Hiller. They always told me (much later, of course) that the theater was packed that night and the audience loved the picture, which had nice location photography in Scotland. Eventually I saw that movie on TV and could easily see why they liked it. When I was a B.U. student in the 1970’s, I came here a few times. I remember seeing a rare re-release of “The Hound of the Baskervilles” (a made-in-Hollywood classic) at a time when you could not rent those old movies on a VCR or DVD. It is a shame that a cinema like this could not survive in such a vibrant and upscale part of Boston.
This was a really magnificent place to see a movie in the 1960’s. In fact, it was one of the first downtown cinemas that I ever visited with my parents. In 1957 or early 1958 we saw “Around the World in 80 Days.” I was only six at the time, but I can still remember being impressed with the sweep of the film on the wide screen. In 1962 we had reserved seats here for Marlon Brando’s version of “Mutiny on the Bounty.” In 1966 we saw “Doctor Zhivago,” which was a 70mm blow-up from the 35mm original negative. The cinematography and sound in that film were superb in this theater. I remember noting that “Midnight Cowboy” opened here in 1969. For an X-rated film, it was not showing in a porn theater on Lower Washington, but in a very respectable venue indeed. I’m glad that the theater has been saved by Emerson College.
I grew up in Milton in the 1950’s and 1960’s. At that time we knew the place as the “Milton Art Theater” and not the State Theater. I think it changed to the “Milton Cinema” about 1968 or so. I saw “Ben-Hur” here during a general release, probably in 1960 a year after it first came out. In 1962 “West Side Story” was likewise playing here a year after its first release. The cinema was unusually long and narrow, not like other suburban theaters of its time. There was no balcony. Compared to the ornate Oriental Theater in Mattapan or the Strand in Quincy, we felt our little movie emporium in Milton was somewhat laughable and plain. The screen was relatively small and the sound system was limited. I doubt it had stereo sound. Because the screen was small, I always wondered why people would sit way in the back, unless they liked the feel of watching a television. If I remember correctly, the lavatories were strangely located on either side of the back and accessed by little staircases that were actually in the theater itself (not the lobby).
Just two summers ago I was visiting my mother, who still lives in Milton, and spent some time exploring my old haunts in East Milton Square. I walked around the back of the theater and was surprised to see it still there. A door is located on the right side (from the front of the street) and it appears that the place is being used for storage purposes of some kind.
“2001: A Space Odyssey” had a brief 70mm run at the Astor after it became a cult film and I remember seeing it there with my father in 1971 or 1972. I remember it vividly because we had a delicious dinner at Locke-Ober that evening, the male enclave that apparently still only permitted women to dine in the upper section and not in the wood-panelled lower floor. It was the only time I ever went to the Astor Theater. The screen was truly magnificent and the sound system was superb, but the theater’s seats and floor seemed to be pretty beat up by then. It was the second time I had seen “2001” and the first for my father, who liked it immensely. As I understand it, “2001” first opened in 1968 at the Boston Theater (also known as the Boston Cinerama) on Lower Washington Street (now closed).
This twin-screen drive-in was wonderful during the 1960’s and 1970’s. It was clean and family friendly, with a nice children’s playground and a sizable snack bar in the center being shared by the viewers of each huge screen. I remember seeing “Cleopatra” here during its general release in the summer of 1964, a year or so after it first came out. I was surprised when it closed.
This theater has always been mind-boggling with its beauty. I always thought of it as Boston’s equivalent to New York’s Radio City Music Hall. I fondly remember being there on the day of the 1966 film premiere of “Torn Curtain,” with the famous director in attendance, even though the audience seemed to be hoping that Julie Andrews would temporarily depart from her sombre character and break into a spirited rendition of “My Favorite Things.” Years later, after its restoration, I saw an opera here on the big stage. Boston can be proud of its theater history.
There are some snobs who look down on motion pictures and conveniently forget that these great movie palaces were originally financed by the genre of cinema and the Hollywood system. They were part of an industry based on profit, not run as non-profit organizations dependent on grants and tax relief. Hollywood gave us national treasures apart from the films themselves, and the Wang Center is just one of them.
I do believe that this was where our parents took us in 1958 or 1959 to see “Gigi” starring Maurice Chevalier. I was only 7 in 1958, so don’t blame me if I am wrong. But I do remember exactly that in the autumn of 1968 “Yellow Submarine” arrived here. We had seen that movie in London in July 1968, just days after The Beatles had come to the world premiere in Piccadilly Circus. But when we saw it in Boston again we were shocked that the song “Hey, Bulldog” had been cut. This was apparently done for the entire U.S. release and it was not the individual theater’s responsibility.
We loved this drive-in theater when our parents took us here in the 1960’s. It had a long entrance driveway that passed under the expressway, and the neon lights were nice. Years later, after I bought my first car in 1973, I came back here and was dismayed that the sound speakers had been removed and you were expected to listen to the sound on your car radio. This was terrible, because you had to waste the power of your car’s battery for two hours. I never returned, even when it was a flea market.
The Oriental in Mattapan was a special place indeed. Our family lived in Milton, just over the Boston border, so it was nearby. I loved the atmosphere inside the theater, as did everyone. We saw The Beatles in “A Hard Day’s Night” in 1964, “Georgy Girl” in 1966, and “Bonnie and Clyde” in 1967, among many others. I remember being terribly surprised and saddened when the place closed and became a store for lighting. The Mattapan Square neighborhood went through a white flight period in the 1970’s and I think the shopping district is finally coming back to a more stable situation.
Yes, this cinema seemed to always have double features. It would get the first-run movies after they had been playing in downtown Boston. For example, we saw “My Fair Lady” here in what must have been a general release across the nation after it won the Best Picture (of 1964) Academy Award in the spring of 1965. It had a big screen and the sound was good. I remember seeing “Midnight Cowboy” here in the spring of 1970, again after it won the Best Picture of 1969 Oscar. It was paired with “The Heart is a Lonely Hunter.” I never went back to the Strand and I guess it closed soon afterward.
I was only 7 when my parents took me here to see “Windjammer” and we still have the souvenir book that was sold in the theater. I also remember coming back to it about 1967 to see “Grand Prix” in 70mm and at that time I noticed that the projection equipment seemed to block a huge number of rear seats from being able to view the screen. Those seats were roped off and not for sale. It was the strangest sight in a cinema. In late 1968, I came to this place to see “2001: A Space Odyssey”, as billboards around town were still saying that it was at the Boston Cinerama, but when we arrived it turned out that “Ice Station Zebra” had suddenly been rushed in to capture the pre-Christmas viewing market. We stayed and watched it, thrilled by the visual beauty of the curving screen and the surround sound quality of the theater. The film itself, however, was silly. I always regretted that I missed seeing “2001” at this fine cinema.
The odd thing is that years later I got the impression that a parking lot had been created where the theater once existed. I guess my memories of exactly where the theater was located were wrong.
I distinctly remember trying to see “Romeo and Juliet” here in the autumn of 1968, yet it was sold out and we decided to go to another movie downtown. However, in the early winter of 1969 I did manage to get into a matinee showing of “Romeo and Juliet” here and even then the seats were difficult to obtain. It was not a very big theater at all. It also had a strange design for an auditorium, with sections heading off to the left and right of the screen. If you sat in one of the side sections, I think the view would have been warped. The sound quality in the cinema and the screen size were not the best, either. Yet, “Romeo and Juliet” was such a blockbuster that it continued here for ages. I was later a student at B.U. from 1970 on and I saw a few other showings here.