I got to tour the Broadway in Spring 2024 as a new redevelopment plan was emerging. Here’s an article vaguely explaining their plan: https://loutoday.6amcity.com/city/east-broadway-theater-louisville-ky
I saw Seven Brides for Seven Brothers here maybe about 10 years ago. Enjoyed the experience, but the similar atmosphere-style Louisville Palace about 150 miles south is a much better theater.
On a solo road trip during my unemployment phase in 2000 shortly after my mother died, I saw All About My Mother here and loved it. I hope it re-opens soon.
The Strand Theatre was a single-screen downtown cinema that operated without interruption until fire destroyed it in the late 1990s. My mom took me to see my first-ever movie there: Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory at a special Saturday daytime screening during the Easter season. I also saw my first R-rated movie there (The Blues Brothers). When I was a frequent patron in the mid-1970s through the mid-1980s, it ran one new movie every week on Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday nights. Soda was served in small cups without ice, and one could order a “suicide” mixture of all the flavors combined into one.
Saw a revival of Yellow Submarine here in 1999 and loved it, although the lady behind me interfered with my enjoyment of hearing the Beatles in first-ever surround sound by rustling her candy wrappers the entire time…
Rocky Horror and other midnight movies eventually came back, though many of the foreign and independents went away. If they had started out with a mostly mainstream lineup when they opened in 1996, then our beloved Vogue Theatre might not have shut down. Louisville now shows fewer smart-people movies than Lexington, Indianapolis, and even Columbus, Indiana. A decade ago, it was the other way around. For a cinema lover like me, this is actually something to make me seriously consider moving away.
I enjoyed the Vogue many times during its last eight years of operation, but my memories are soured by that last year or so… Management’s brilliant decision to compete against a new arthouse multiplex by showing only that mediocre “The Full Monty” movie for seven months straight, and by refusing to dismiss an employee who didn’t know how to make change (sometimes he gave me several dollars less than I was owed, but once in a while he gave me several dollars more than I was owed — never the correct amount!) Now the arthouse multiplex is mostly mainstream, and we have to drive to Lexington, Indianapolis, or even nearby small town Columbus, Indiana to see some of the movies that would be playing to big crowds if the Vogue were still here…
I love the Palace so much, but this breaks my heart: classic movies are still shown during summers, but in 2005 they started projecting them from consumer grade standard def DVDs rather than film. One exception: during the Hitchcock series in 2005, they had to show Lifeboat from VHS tape because the DVD hadn’t been released yet! Surely a low point for this beautiful cinema…
I got to tour the Broadway in Spring 2024 as a new redevelopment plan was emerging. Here’s an article vaguely explaining their plan: https://loutoday.6amcity.com/city/east-broadway-theater-louisville-ky
I saw Seven Brides for Seven Brothers here maybe about 10 years ago. Enjoyed the experience, but the similar atmosphere-style Louisville Palace about 150 miles south is a much better theater.
On a solo road trip during my unemployment phase in 2000 shortly after my mother died, I saw All About My Mother here and loved it. I hope it re-opens soon.
The Strand Theatre was a single-screen downtown cinema that operated without interruption until fire destroyed it in the late 1990s. My mom took me to see my first-ever movie there: Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory at a special Saturday daytime screening during the Easter season. I also saw my first R-rated movie there (The Blues Brothers). When I was a frequent patron in the mid-1970s through the mid-1980s, it ran one new movie every week on Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday nights. Soda was served in small cups without ice, and one could order a “suicide” mixture of all the flavors combined into one.
Saw a revival of Yellow Submarine here in 1999 and loved it, although the lady behind me interfered with my enjoyment of hearing the Beatles in first-ever surround sound by rustling her candy wrappers the entire time…
Rocky Horror and other midnight movies eventually came back, though many of the foreign and independents went away. If they had started out with a mostly mainstream lineup when they opened in 1996, then our beloved Vogue Theatre might not have shut down. Louisville now shows fewer smart-people movies than Lexington, Indianapolis, and even Columbus, Indiana. A decade ago, it was the other way around. For a cinema lover like me, this is actually something to make me seriously consider moving away.
I enjoyed the Vogue many times during its last eight years of operation, but my memories are soured by that last year or so… Management’s brilliant decision to compete against a new arthouse multiplex by showing only that mediocre “The Full Monty” movie for seven months straight, and by refusing to dismiss an employee who didn’t know how to make change (sometimes he gave me several dollars less than I was owed, but once in a while he gave me several dollars more than I was owed — never the correct amount!) Now the arthouse multiplex is mostly mainstream, and we have to drive to Lexington, Indianapolis, or even nearby small town Columbus, Indiana to see some of the movies that would be playing to big crowds if the Vogue were still here…
I love the Palace so much, but this breaks my heart: classic movies are still shown during summers, but in 2005 they started projecting them from consumer grade standard def DVDs rather than film. One exception: during the Hitchcock series in 2005, they had to show Lifeboat from VHS tape because the DVD hadn’t been released yet! Surely a low point for this beautiful cinema…