Damaged and closed by a fire circa 1960; the Rialto was repaired and it was an “art house” from 1962 to 1970. Among its hits: Tom Jones, A Man and a Woman, I Am Curious—Yellow. Truffaut, Fellini, and Bergman films played here, as did some Hollywood product like Finian’s Rainbow. Darn that urban renewal.
For the record: the Carolina played all the Bond films first run, from “Dr. No” thru “The Man with the Golden Gun”, because it was the United Artists outlet in Durham. (Film booking practices changed in the mid-‘70s and all chaos broke loose.) And, since the Bond pics were huge box office, of course UA re-released them on double bills and the Carolina had those too.
Next to next to last, AlA!
The next to next to last feature at Loew’s Capitol was “Far from the Madding Crowd”. It had a hard ticket run of several months in ‘67-'68.
The marquee appears in the background of a shot in the 1989 film Driving Miss Daisy!
The 1955 film The Virgin Queen world premiered here! (Does anybody know why?)
Spent its last decade or so as a porn house.
Damaged and closed by a fire circa 1960; the Rialto was repaired and it was an “art house” from 1962 to 1970. Among its hits: Tom Jones, A Man and a Woman, I Am Curious—Yellow. Truffaut, Fellini, and Bergman films played here, as did some Hollywood product like Finian’s Rainbow. Darn that urban renewal.
The second Center Theater (cleverly called the Center II) opened in the autumn of 1971.
For the record: the Carolina played all the Bond films first run, from “Dr. No” thru “The Man with the Golden Gun”, because it was the United Artists outlet in Durham. (Film booking practices changed in the mid-‘70s and all chaos broke loose.) And, since the Bond pics were huge box office, of course UA re-released them on double bills and the Carolina had those too.