Worked there as an usher in the mid 70s. The theater itself sure was beautiful, but that was before it was twinned. Seen so many movies there from old Disney films like Herbie the Love Bug, Old Yeller and such. When I was working there, we had very popular movies, typically shortly after they opened. The Excorsit was one to remember, we had folks walking out during various parts of the movie praying, cursing, vomitting, you name it. The theatre was always a break-even on ticket prices with profit coming from the candy counter. Shortly after Close Encounters played there, many of the staff left en masse to open The Cine Capri in Old Bethpage, me among them. Enough disparaging remarks about Post Ave already, I prefer to remember it like it was when I was a kid from Donahue’s Funeral Home and the Methodist Church all the way to Jay’s Stationary, right across from the RR and on to St Bridgid’s. Van Cleef & Rofield Realty, Bohack’s, Proschels Flowers, Gray’s Saddlery, The Village Deli right next to the theatre, Franks Pizza, Smilies?, Tear and Gershon’s, Cavallaro Sporting Goods in that little alley, Abete’s? lol been too long. Good old Westbury, what a great place to grow up. Used to get quite a bit of making out action in those loge seats!!
Cine Capri was owned by GG Theatres and was staffed by a bunch of former employees of the Westbury Theatre as a repetoire theatre running an average of 30-40 films per month. Formerly the Old Bethpage Theatre, we featured midnight shows, old cult movies and lots of concert movies once we upgraded from the carbon-arc projectors to the new state-of-the-art platter system with a quadraphonic audio setup to run The Grateful Dead Movie. Paraphenalia at the candy counter, absolutely. Concert movies, cult classics and a whole lotta fun older movies that hadn’t been seen in theatres in years. Similar in attitude to Uniondale’s famed Mini Cinema, the Cine Capri changed films more often and didn’t run Rocky Horror for 134 consecutive years. The manager was Randy Warren, his wife SueEllen helped out, John Sheifer of Hicksville was the Asst. Mgr. and along with myself, Tony, Sandy, Lew and a few others, we made the Cine Capri a rockin little theatre. Thanks for the memories, makes me want to go dig out my old Cine Capri T-Shirts… JVC
Worked there as an usher in the mid 70s. The theater itself sure was beautiful, but that was before it was twinned. Seen so many movies there from old Disney films like Herbie the Love Bug, Old Yeller and such. When I was working there, we had very popular movies, typically shortly after they opened. The Excorsit was one to remember, we had folks walking out during various parts of the movie praying, cursing, vomitting, you name it. The theatre was always a break-even on ticket prices with profit coming from the candy counter. Shortly after Close Encounters played there, many of the staff left en masse to open The Cine Capri in Old Bethpage, me among them. Enough disparaging remarks about Post Ave already, I prefer to remember it like it was when I was a kid from Donahue’s Funeral Home and the Methodist Church all the way to Jay’s Stationary, right across from the RR and on to St Bridgid’s. Van Cleef & Rofield Realty, Bohack’s, Proschels Flowers, Gray’s Saddlery, The Village Deli right next to the theatre, Franks Pizza, Smilies?, Tear and Gershon’s, Cavallaro Sporting Goods in that little alley, Abete’s? lol been too long. Good old Westbury, what a great place to grow up. Used to get quite a bit of making out action in those loge seats!!
Cine Capri was owned by GG Theatres and was staffed by a bunch of former employees of the Westbury Theatre as a repetoire theatre running an average of 30-40 films per month. Formerly the Old Bethpage Theatre, we featured midnight shows, old cult movies and lots of concert movies once we upgraded from the carbon-arc projectors to the new state-of-the-art platter system with a quadraphonic audio setup to run The Grateful Dead Movie. Paraphenalia at the candy counter, absolutely. Concert movies, cult classics and a whole lotta fun older movies that hadn’t been seen in theatres in years. Similar in attitude to Uniondale’s famed Mini Cinema, the Cine Capri changed films more often and didn’t run Rocky Horror for 134 consecutive years. The manager was Randy Warren, his wife SueEllen helped out, John Sheifer of Hicksville was the Asst. Mgr. and along with myself, Tony, Sandy, Lew and a few others, we made the Cine Capri a rockin little theatre. Thanks for the memories, makes me want to go dig out my old Cine Capri T-Shirts… JVC