Comments from JimPerry

JimPerry commented about Frank Theatres Towne Stadium 16 on Jan 16, 2022 at 4:02 pm

Can we get some kind of update on what’s going on here? The last thing I heard, several years ago, was that Al Frank passed away. I’m a former film projectionist & worked here between the end of 1986 to (probably) late 1990. Just curious - whatever happened to Eric Horn, huh?

JimPerry commented about Tropicana Cinemas on Jan 16, 2022 at 1:05 pm

I was the original film projectionist for this theatre/multiplex. The above ad is/was accurate on what we showed the first week or 2. Theatre 1 was the James Dean double bill (also shown - a reel of Dean’s screen tests), theatre 2 was “Remo Williams” (a print “move over” from the Huntridge), theatre 3 (“The Big House”, which was also able to show/run movies in the old 70mm format) was “Target”, theatre 4 was “Howling II” (originally advertised as “Unrated, but NO ONE under 18 admitted!” - it eventually got an ‘R’ rating), theatre 5 was “That Was Then, This Is Now”, and theatre 6 (The DINKY house) was “The Ninth Configuration”. Trivia: Right before that X-mas, we ran a 70mm print of “Amadeus”. HOWEVER, because the film played for weeks on end, earlier that year, at the Mountain View 3, the 70mm engagement here pretty much ended after 4 days. Apparently, the only other feature to be shown here in the 70mm format was “Lawrence Of Arabia”, a few years later, but by that particular time, I was long gone.

JimPerry commented about Flick Theatre on Oct 19, 2021 at 7:51 pm

Several years back, I did some research - it was a project of mine on past Vegas movie theatres - particularly in the ‘60s & '70’s. As posted above, the Flick opened in (“69, DUDE!” - Bill & Ted). And for the first month or so, it started showing independent features - the first one being a return engagement of the Bob Dylan documentary “Dont Look Back” {NO - that’s NOT a typo on the word Dont}. (“Dont Look Back” originally had it’s 1st-run engagement in either '67 or '68 at the Guild Theatre.) And the Flick was originally a single screen theatre. After it’s 1st-run engagement at the Cinema Arts (a porno house “down the street” from McCarran Airport), the Flick became the permanent Vegas home for Linda Lovelace & “DEEP THROAT” - for literally years, it was shown with that other porn “classic” “The Devil & Miss Jones” - I guess that was theatre 1. (There was “a Vegas tradition” as well - being when one turned 18, you went to the Flick to see your first porno flick{s} - namely “DEEP THROAT” & “The Devil & Miss Jones”). And for years in theatre 2 was either “Insatiable” with Marilyn Chambers, or “Debbie Does Dallas” - at one point in time, the Flick ended up running both of these together. So, in the long run, these were your choices - “DEEP THOAT” & The Devil & Miss Jones", or “Insatiable”& “Debbie Does Dallas” - rarely anything else. Ok - question here - how many of you actually saw “DEEP THOAT” more than once? Me - at least twice. But let’s be honest here - Linda Lovelace wasn’t that good-looking and she couldn’t act herself outta a paper bag. But I’m guessing that it did its business because of what Linda actually did. (Hence the title… . . And the guys were probably going - “SHEESH, I wish my wife / girlfriend could/would do that to me!”

JimPerry commented about Remembering Cinerama (Part 45: Las Vegas) on Aug 5, 2018 at 3:24 pm

A comment on my earlier reply above: The films that were shot in Ultra Panavision (70mm – Aspect Ratio, 2.76:1), like “Khartoum” for example, “filled” the whole screen while the others, like “2001” (Super Panavision 70 – Aspect Ratio, 2.20:1) did not. What was odd about the Vegas Cinerama was that, unlike the Cinerama Dome in Hollywood, it didn’t have proper masking (both sides of the screen for non 2.76:1 films, as well as “Flat” ones, and top masking for 35mm scope films.) It’s more than likely that some patrons used to bitch to management / personnel about certain movies (you know – “Why isn’t this movie filling the whole screen, huh? I WANT MY MONEY BACK!!!” – that sort of thing.)

JimPerry commented about Las Vegas Cinerama on Jun 28, 2018 at 5:15 pm

After reading the above comments, here’s what actually happened to the Las Vegas Cinerama: After the first run engagement of the 3rd “Dirty Harry” movie, “The Enforcer”, manager Art Bailey decides “enough is enough” & closes the theatre. (This happened around January of 1977.) A month later, the building reopens as “The Las Vegas CENtERAMA” (with the ’t' looking like a cross). The building was taken over by a reverend / preacher / pastor / whatever named Sharp. (Sharp “suckered” celeberties, like Elvis Presley, to donate “big bucks” for him to buy the building. Sharp’s original plans, along with turning the theatre into a christian church {and NOT a Korean one, as previous stated above}, included additions, like a non-gaming hotel & a christian school / pre-school. Sharp, through some kind of deal / negotiation with Bailey, starts running Sunday Morning sermons at the theatre in early 1976.) Sharp, keeps running movies – although the majority of them are either religious-based or family-type ones. Because Sharp isn’t charging admission prices and/or asking for donations (to keep his “future dreams alive”), the CENtERAMA eventually closes as well (unknown on when this happens).

In 1983, I was the non-union film projectionist for the Huntridge Twin theatre. Not long after I started working there, there was talk about “Roberts Theatres” “expanding operations” (Roberts, along with running the Huntridge, also ran The Mountain View triplex)– “Bob Roberts” (real name: Bob Garganese) wanted to reopen the Cinerama (as a 2nd / sub-run house, just like what he was doing with both the Huntridge & the Mountain View). Unfortunately, the Hughes Corp.(owners of the property that the Cinerama was sitting on)“wanted TOO MUCH money for a monthly rental”. I believe it was sometime in 1984 that the building was demolished to make way for what is there now – A STUPID MONEY-LOSING “MINI-MALL” (if you can call it that).

In regards to David Reed’s comments on “Last Summer” – Yeah, it was kinda disturbing towards the end (I saw it, as a co-feature to “Easy Rider” at the long-gone Skyway Drive-In. And yes, you are right about “Last Summer” originally getting an ‘X’ rating. However, believe it or not, it wasn’t so much about the rape scene (maybe) – the film originally got an ‘X’ due to a couple of scenes with Barbara Hershey (an early film for her) – in this one, she was either nude or, at least, topless. Hershey' character, “Sandy”, was also a bitch & “a prick tease” – hence the nude / topless scenes, which the M.P.A.A. thought was a “bit too much” at the time. As for the rape scene, “Sandy” couldn’t stand “Rhoda” (played by Cathy Burns, who also got an Academy Award nomination for “Best Supporting Actress), so she "eggs” the 2 guys (played by Richard Thomas & Bruce Davison – this was their first movie)with cries of “DO IT!”

Trivia: The Las Vegas Cinerama, 2 years later (1971) shows, as a first run feature, “Red Sky At Morning”, a reunion film for Richard Thomas & Cathy Burns. In 1972, the Cinerama also runs, as a first run feature, “Ben” – a sequel to 1971’s “Willard”. Although the Cinerama doesn’t run “Willard”, the beginning of “Ben”, shows flashbacks, during the opening credits, of Bruce Davison as “Willard”.

More trivia: the Cinerama shows as a co-feature to “Ben” – a ‘PG’ rated movie about murderous rats – “Night Of The Living Dead”. And yet when this happened, the theatre gets complaints – not so much about “Ben” but about “THAT GROSS, ZOMBIE FLICK!” (By today’s standards – it’s the summer of 2018 as I write this – “Night Of The Living Dead” is practically “tame”, compared to TV’s “The Walking Dead”.)

JimPerry commented about Bonanza Movie Palace on Jun 23, 2018 at 9:40 pm

Unless you are a native of Las Vegas and/or lived here between 1967 & 1971, nobody really remembers this particular Vegas movie house. Here’s some info / corrections about it (and its owner / operator): The Bonanza Movie Palace was NOT located inside the Bonanza Hotel & Casino. However, to gain access to the theatre, originally, you had to go through the hotel’s main entrance.
If you look at the picture above, at the bottom of the marquee, it says “BONANZA MOVIE PALACE – Now Playing – ‘James Joyce’s ULYSSES’”, which was the theatre’s opening feature. (Sorry, David Coppock (above), but “Funny Girl” wasn’t – more on this, below.) “Ulysses” was a controversial film at the time – one of 3 films, in 1967, to feature a certain ‘F’ word. (You know, the one that rhymes with duck – the other 2 films were the Bob Dylan documentary, “Dont Look Back”, which had a first run engagement at the old Guild theatre, and “I’ll Never Forget What’s'isname”, which never played here {Vegas}.) Another thing – because of the surrounding controversy of this film, the theatre not only deemed it “off limits” to those under 18 (a.k.a. “ADULTS ONLY!”), but they were also charging something like $5.00 for admission. ($5.00 might not seem like much these days, BUT back then, that was “PRETTY OUTRAGEOUS!” (And more than what the Las Vegas Cinerama & The Fox Theatre was charging for their “roadshow” attractions, like “Dr. Zhivago” & “The Sound Of Music”, to name a couple of these.) The theatre, in the newspaper ads, also promised patrons “a roll of nickels” – the idea that, after the movie, they’ll go to the casino & “do some gambling”. But back to Walter Reade – this company, based on the east coast, really didn’t have a clue how to run this theatre, at first – after the success of “Ulysses”, they ran a “2nd run” engagement of another “ADULTS ONLY!” feature, “I, A Woman” (One of “those Swedish Sex Films!”), which wasn’t. (It already played at the Guild & did its business there.) In other words, as a “Art House” theatre, the Bonanza was, pretty much “hit or miss”. (A first run engagement of Mel Brooks' first movie, “The Producers”, was a hit, while the next attraction, “The Queen”, about drag queens, wasn’t.) It wasn’t until Columbia Pictures threw the theatre “a bone”, the Sidney Poitier hit “TO Sir, With Love” (NOT “From Sir, With Love”!) that the theatre became a somewhat “success story”. (Towards the end of “Sir’s” engagement, Walter Reade closes the theatre for a couple of days to do a remodeling job – because of the hotel’s money problem & expectation that it was eventually gonna close (which it did), a new entrance way was build. Walter Reade (the company)also had its share of controversities: In 1953, Twentieth Century-Fox came up with CinemaScope AND 4-track stereophonic sound – Walter Reade (the company)loved the widescreen process but wasn’t crazy about stereo – they “balked” at Fox’s insistence that “you needed both”. (The early Fox C'scope movies, like “The Robe”, were strictly “mag only” (film prints only had magnetic strips on them to playback the film’s soundtrack). It’s been said that Walter Reade was one of these companies that, while forced to buy penthouses (to playback the sound on these “mag only” prints, what they did was have their techs {the people who installed the equipment) “rewire” these penthouses, so that all the sound, on these mag tracks, came out of one speaker (behind a theatre’s screen). Because of this “B.S.”, Fox came up with a solution the following year (1954) – “The Mag/Optical Print”. Basically – if theatres had 4-track Stereo, no problem. But if theatres didn’t have that (Monophonic, in other words), no problem, with a catch – these theatres still had to replace their old sprockets (on their old film projectors) with new ones designed for, what Fox called “Fox-hole” sprockets on these “Mag-Optical” prints. And “what does this have to do with the Bonanza Movie Palace?”, you may be asking. Well, Walter Reade didn’t install any kind of stereo playback for this theatre – no 4-track, no 70mm,6-track Stereo – NOTHING. The theatre was strictly a mono house. For the theatre to run long engagements of “Funny Girl” & “Oliver!”, back-to-back in 1969, in mono sound AND charging “roadshow” admission prices to patrons for the privilege of seeing these films? RIP OFF! (An example: Around the time/engagement of “Oliver!”, my mother & I were gonna see it during one weekend day. (I was still a young child – about 7, at the time.) When we got to the theatre & the boxoffice, my mother got pissed off at what they were charging, admission price-wise, on the matinee. So my mom tells me “Let get outta here!” It was also the same weekend that “Chitty Chitty, Bang Bang”, with Dick Van Dyke, opened at the Huntridge theatre. Though that wasn’t a “roadshow” engagement, the Huntridge was charging special admission prices for it. HOWEVER,compared to what the Bonanza was charging for “Oliver!”, “Chitty Chitty” was a bargain. (Plus the fact that the Huntridge had & showed their film /engagement in 4-track stereo.)) Another controversy with Walter Reade: The company was totally against the Motion Picture Association Of America’s (or M.P.A.A., for short) new (at the time)“ratings system”. (Between Nov. 1st,1968 & Feb. 1st, 1970, the ratings were ‘G’ – for General Audiences. ’M' – for Mature (Parental Discretion Advised.), ‘R’ – for Restricted (No One Under 16 Admitted Without A Parent Or Adult Guardian.) And ‘X’ – NO ONE UNDER 16 ADMITTED (PERIOD). (On Feb.1st,1970, the M.P.A.A. dumped the ’M' & changed it to ‘G.P.’ – ‘G’ still meaning General Audiences, but ‘P’ meaning Parental Guidance Suggested (some folks were lead to believe that ‘G.P.’ stood for “General Patronage”.), and the age limits on both ‘R’ & ‘X’ features was moved up from 16 to 17 (and in some cities, if a film got an ‘X’, theatres wouldn’t allow anyone under 18 admittance.) But back to the point about Walter Reade – the company wouldn’t advertise a film’s M.P.A.A. rating in newspapers, including here {Vegas}, at their theatres.(Walter Reade also had its own film distribution company called “Continental”, which also refused to submit their movies to get an M.P.A.A. rating and/or its “seal of approval”. 2 examples: {1.}When “Night Of The Living Dead” had its first run engagement here {Vegas}at the Las Vegas Drive-In, back in Dec. of 1968, Walter Reade/Continental was the film’s distributor, and it was shown without a rating. (Had the film gotten a rating, it, more than likely, would’ve gotten an ‘R’.)

And

{2.} The last film to be shown at the Bonanza Movie Palace was the ‘R’-rated, “Ultra-Violent” (at the time – 1971) western “Soldier Blue”. But instead of advertising its rating, Walter Reade promotes it with the generic “No One Under 17 Admitted Without A Parent Or Adult Guardian.”

Without any special announcement, the Bonanza Movie Palace closes after the “Soldier Blue” engagement. I believe the Bonanza Hotel & Casino was also closed by this time as well.

Another “tidbit”: According to a reliable source of mine (from years ago – said source passed away (died) back in the early 90s), when Kirk Kerkorian came up with the idea to create the original MGM Grand Hotel & Casino, his original plans included reopening the Bonanza Movie Palace as the MGM Grand (Movie) Theatre. But somewhere along the lines, he either changed his mind, or someone close to him suggested that he have a new theatre built within the hotel, which he had done. According to said source, Kerkorian had the 2 35mm film projectors, that were used for the Bonanza Movie Palace (German-made – unknown on the brand)removed from there & placed in the new theatre. Kerkorian, at the time, was also “head honcho” of MGM Studios, so during the time that the hotel was “The MGM Grand”, the theatre showed strictly movies from the studio – the prints were pristine & came from the studio’s vaults. As for The Bonanza Movie Palace, it never reopened – it lay dormant for a few years before it, along with the storefronts around the building, was finally demolished to make way for “a 2nd wing” of the hotel (more rooms, in other words). As for the MGM Grand (Movie)Theatre, after Kerkorian sold the hotel to Ballys, they tried keeping it open for a couple more years – the theatre’s name was changed to Bally’s Grand Theatre. But Ballys eventually “threw in the towel” on it – after Kerkorian sold the hotel to them, the supply of pristine MGM movie prints also went “bye bye”. (Ironically, when Kerkorian created the new (current) MGM Grand Hotel, he didn’t build a new theatre within it.)Bally’s started playing movies from the other studios – a few of them I did see, including Paramount’s “The Ten Commandments”, Twentieth Century-Fox’s 1986 remake of “The Fly”, another Fox film, “The Girl Can’t Help It”, and United Artists sequel to “The Pink Panther”, “A Shot In The Dark” with Peter Sellers. The last film to be shown at Ballys Grand Theatre was “Diamonds Are Forever” with Sean Connery as James Bond. Sometime afterwards, Ballys had the theatre demolished, and in its place is the hotel’s “Race & Sports Book”.