I was going here all the time between March 1972 and May 1973, when I made the colossal mistake of relocating to California. Got out of there decades ago, fortunately. This drive-in was indeed easy to miss off of southbound U.S. Route 1. It was rather easy to sneak into when the need for this arose, we usually had one person drive the car in, the other two were going through the back fence.
During this period, I was there weekly, so maybe 60-70 times. Even in the dead of winter. Many times I went back to see the show twice. One of the most memorable movies I saw here was the Alistair MacLean spectacular actioner “Fear Is the Key” starring Barry Newman. This must have been in early 1973.
I was able to get a DVD of this great movie from the U.K. Film has one of the longest car chases ever in a movie, over 20-minutes uninterrupted. It was filmed entirely in Louisiana, but it was a British production. Highly recommended. The chase almost in its entirety is viewable on YouTube.
Lot of reminiscing folklore posted here about this one, that’s good. Let’s keep these amazing memories alive for the next generations.
The stretched aluminum roof was mind-bendingly novel back in 1965, perfected the year before at the NY World’s Fair.
First movie i saw here was “Earthquake” back in 1974. I lived in Hollywood, CA back then, where the film actually takes place, came up to Vegas for a few days and saw the flick there. They hauled in those giant subwoofers and placed them up front and in the rear of the auditorium. Two or three times during the movie, the low-frequency effects started, it was really something to experience that for the first time. I swear a couple of my tooth fillings got loosened in the mayhem.
Interesting that this theater was called “Cinerama,” of course it was built for Cinerama Corp, it’s just they never really showed any Cinerama movies here, the projector was 70mm. So, they showed Todd-AO, Super Panavision 70, and Ultra Panavision 70 type of 70mm movies mostly with 6-channel surround sound.
According to the article linked here, the screen was 90-ft x 43-ft in size, that makes its aspect ratio 2.091. A bit strange, considering that the Todd-AO and similar presentations were shot with spherical lenses in the 2.20:1 aspect ratio.
By 1976 I moved to Las Vegas to attend UNLV, and I was a production assistant on Clint Eastwood/Sandra Locke flick “The Gauntlet” the day they blew up that ambulance parked on the drive off of Paradise leading to the Cinerama. The whole movie crew incl. Eastwood stayed at the Jockey Club on the Strip (just south of Flamingo).
Altogether, this was a heckuva wonderful cinema, world class and cutting edge. My heart broke when it was “turned over” to a Korean church. So, it’s perhaps better now that it’s demolished, we will always have its memories from the glory days.
Saw “Star Wars” here as well in 1977. It was easy to sneak into from one screen to another later on, after they “multiplex” was set up.
Unrelated to this one but nearby, what was the name of the huge Cinerama Dome theater on Paradise Road near East Flamingo? The 1977 Clint Eastwood actioner “The Gauntlet” had a car explosion scene filmed right front of that Cinerama Dome style theater on Paradise. After it stopped being a theater, it became a church. But I don’t see the bldg any more on Google.
Lots of comments here re. how much the admission charge was at the World. I was a regular there from 1972 to 1986, so I can only speak for those 14 years or so.
During most of the 1970’s, admission was 99 cents or $.99. Then I remember $1.50 and finally, $2.50.
I do not recall any $1.00 and $2.00 admission charges during this period at the World Theater.
Also, parking was always free and readily available. Try that today anywhere in America.
Okay, I used to go here from 1972 to 1986. They always had free parking just west of the theater itself in the back, and admission prices for the three movies were 99 cents, i.e. 33 cents per film!
I am reading comments here how “cheap” the admission prices were in the early 1980s, when you could get in for $2.50. Well, maybe, but I tell you, after prices jumped from 99 cents to $1.50, I went there less often, and when it went up to $2.50, I went there even less frequently. I went there EVER WEEK while prices were 99 cents, and never had any bad experience there at the World for the 14 years I was going there. The place was always well run, after a while you began to recognize the other regulars. I used to take a sandwich and an apple with me, as you could easily spend six hours or more in there for the 3 back-to-back flicks. It was really the cheapest place to stay out of trouble (and out of the rain or sun) in Hollywood.
Remember seeing Roger Moore in “Gold” here in 1973, and I also believe I saw “Fear is the Key” (Alistar Maclean actioner) with Barry Newman here in the previous year.
Last time I was there was just before they closed in the summer of 1986, I believe. I moved out of California in September of that year, and have only been back there occasionally on short visits. We thought Hollywood was “bad” then, but nothing prepared me for the total economic melt-down in Tinseltown, in fact in most of once high-flying California. Seems like every bldg on Hollywood Blvd has a FOR SALE or FOR LEASE sign on it these days, wow.
I am glad that even though it is no longer a functioning public cinema, the core of the structure itself survives to this day as a music club/concert venue. The “X” theater that used to show triple porno fare, situated just east of the Hollywood World is boarded-up for a loooong time, however. One would think that someone could put that one to some good use.
Amazing architecture, although since it is 100% Moorish/Moroccan, one cannot begin to fathom how come the Urania is the one that became the Hungarian National Film Theater. Anybody knows?
Beats circles around most other Budapest old-school film theaters, especially that God-awful, kitschy multiplex, the Corvin.
I had one of the worst cinematic film presentations at the Urania Filnmszinhaz, however. As a child, my mother took me there to see “The Wizard of Oz.” Well, this was in the summer of 1958 or 1959, and the Urania had recently been equipped with a wide screen and projector capable of showing CinemaScope films. It also had some sort of a “cooling system” installed for the auditorium. Although “The Wizard of Oz” was not a CinemaScope production, somehow the Urania projectionist had left the anamorphic lens on the projector. I guess he must have figured that since the movie was American and shot in color, it must have been in the CinemaScope format and therefore needed the anamorphic lens attachment.
So, we were perhaps the only movie audience in history who have watched “The Wizard of Oz” theatrically in the then prevalent 2.55:1 aspect ratio CinemaScope, instead of in 1.37:1 normal frame. I remember really getting a mega-headache looking at the distorted human shapes on-screen.
I did not know all the technical details of why the picture looked as funky as it did back then, but in the intervening years figured it out. :~))
Another classic BP cinema, but when I started going there in the 1960s, it only had one auditorium, not two. I am not sure when the 2nd screen was added, that is a very small, narrow auditorium, however. Old style design and seating arrangements, definitely. Very classy still, love the attached cafe.
Used to visit this one in the 1960s and 1970s when it was called “Filmmuzeum.” Yes indeed, they showed mostly French cinema, almost no Hungarian fare.
One of the few subterranean cinemas, yet once you got down to the auditorium, you certainly did not feel cramped. Very easy to get to, one short block north from the Astoria M2 metro stop.
Stunko
commented about
Bem Kinoon
Jun 19, 2011 at 2:15 pm
During the 1960s and early 1970s, this small, long but narrow cinema was called “Budai Hirado.” It was one of the two film theaters in the Hungarian capital where they showed the weekly newsreel (about 10 minutes long), followed by all sorts of animated and live action shorts & documentaries. The program cycled through in about 75 minutes, but one could purchase a ticket and enter the theater at any time, and stay as long as one wanted, even all day. There was the newsreel, followed by 3, 4, or 5 shorts.
The other Budapest theater dedicated to the newsreel and shorts was the “Hirado” cinema on the Grand Booulevard, present day NE corner of Erzsebet Korut & Dohany utca. Here you could even get seats in private booths in the back, very cozy for lovebirds.
I seem to recall the uniform ticket price being 4 forints, but it could have been 6 Ft. Certainly a far cry from the 1200 forint and even higher admission prices of today. You could also buy passes, and receive further discounts for students and seniors.
After the Hungarian weekly newsreel was killed-off, the theater was re-named from “Budai Hirado” to “Bem.” It is still a classic little art house. One of the few remaining venues from the classic era of Hungarian film theaters.
Well, “Kino” is the German name for “cinema” or “movie theater” or “filmszinhaz” or “mozi,” who even knows why this theater was re-christened as such?
I used to go there from the early 1960s through the late 1980s, during all of this time is was called “Majus 1 Filmszinhaz,” May 1st being the International Day of Labor and a national holiday in most countries of the world. No idea who re-named it into “Atrium Kino” and when, let alone why.
It was one of the first ones in the capital, and certainly the first one on the Buda side, that showed CinemaScope widescreen movies. Remember seeing Disney’s 1953 “Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea” here in glorious 2.55:1 aspect ratio CinemaScope, wow!!
Too bad it is now closed, alas it’s just a reflection of the current sad state of the country as a whole.
This one has got to have one of the gaudiest, kitschiest exteriors of any mulptiplex presently operating in Central Europe. Looks like an outdoor museum and amusement park movie house combined into one large mess. The eye-hurting yellow pain does not help a bit.
This used to be a majestic cinema with a a single, huge auditorium, and a large, curved screen with 4-way motorized masking, specifically installed for Todd-AO and other 70mm showings. They showed CinemasCope films here since 1957, and 70mm films from 1967 through the mid-1990s, when the single auditorium was chopped up into 6 tiny rooms.
Some of these rooms now are hardly larger than private use screening rooms. They all have fancy Hungarian names, named after some person who have excelled in the film biz. Too bad that all the Corvin ever shows these days are American commercial popcorn movies. Maybe they show one Hungarian film in a year on one of their screens, that is about it. This is about as fake Hungarian as anything can be.
You can safely skip this one, the Corvin of today has got nothing over your run-of-the-mill hideous multiplexes. Fortunately, there are still plenty of single-screen and twin-screen elegant cinemas in Budapest and elsewhere in this region, might as well patronize those if you care a bit about history and aestehtics.
I was going here all the time between March 1972 and May 1973, when I made the colossal mistake of relocating to California. Got out of there decades ago, fortunately. This drive-in was indeed easy to miss off of southbound U.S. Route 1. It was rather easy to sneak into when the need for this arose, we usually had one person drive the car in, the other two were going through the back fence.
During this period, I was there weekly, so maybe 60-70 times. Even in the dead of winter. Many times I went back to see the show twice. One of the most memorable movies I saw here was the Alistair MacLean spectacular actioner “Fear Is the Key” starring Barry Newman. This must have been in early 1973.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear_Is_the_Key_(film)
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0068576/
I was able to get a DVD of this great movie from the U.K. Film has one of the longest car chases ever in a movie, over 20-minutes uninterrupted. It was filmed entirely in Louisiana, but it was a British production. Highly recommended. The chase almost in its entirety is viewable on YouTube.
Lot of reminiscing folklore posted here about this one, that’s good. Let’s keep these amazing memories alive for the next generations.
The stretched aluminum roof was mind-bendingly novel back in 1965, perfected the year before at the NY World’s Fair.
First movie i saw here was “Earthquake” back in 1974. I lived in Hollywood, CA back then, where the film actually takes place, came up to Vegas for a few days and saw the flick there. They hauled in those giant subwoofers and placed them up front and in the rear of the auditorium. Two or three times during the movie, the low-frequency effects started, it was really something to experience that for the first time. I swear a couple of my tooth fillings got loosened in the mayhem.
Interesting that this theater was called “Cinerama,” of course it was built for Cinerama Corp, it’s just they never really showed any Cinerama movies here, the projector was 70mm. So, they showed Todd-AO, Super Panavision 70, and Ultra Panavision 70 type of 70mm movies mostly with 6-channel surround sound.
According to the article linked here, the screen was 90-ft x 43-ft in size, that makes its aspect ratio 2.091. A bit strange, considering that the Todd-AO and similar presentations were shot with spherical lenses in the 2.20:1 aspect ratio.
By 1976 I moved to Las Vegas to attend UNLV, and I was a production assistant on Clint Eastwood/Sandra Locke flick “The Gauntlet” the day they blew up that ambulance parked on the drive off of Paradise leading to the Cinerama. The whole movie crew incl. Eastwood stayed at the Jockey Club on the Strip (just south of Flamingo).
Altogether, this was a heckuva wonderful cinema, world class and cutting edge. My heart broke when it was “turned over” to a Korean church. So, it’s perhaps better now that it’s demolished, we will always have its memories from the glory days.
Saw “Star Wars” here as well in 1977. It was easy to sneak into from one screen to another later on, after they “multiplex” was set up.
Unrelated to this one but nearby, what was the name of the huge Cinerama Dome theater on Paradise Road near East Flamingo? The 1977 Clint Eastwood actioner “The Gauntlet” had a car explosion scene filmed right front of that Cinerama Dome style theater on Paradise. After it stopped being a theater, it became a church. But I don’t see the bldg any more on Google.
Lots of comments here re. how much the admission charge was at the World. I was a regular there from 1972 to 1986, so I can only speak for those 14 years or so.
During most of the 1970’s, admission was 99 cents or $.99. Then I remember $1.50 and finally, $2.50.
I do not recall any $1.00 and $2.00 admission charges during this period at the World Theater.
Also, parking was always free and readily available. Try that today anywhere in America.
Okay, I used to go here from 1972 to 1986. They always had free parking just west of the theater itself in the back, and admission prices for the three movies were 99 cents, i.e. 33 cents per film!
I am reading comments here how “cheap” the admission prices were in the early 1980s, when you could get in for $2.50. Well, maybe, but I tell you, after prices jumped from 99 cents to $1.50, I went there less often, and when it went up to $2.50, I went there even less frequently. I went there EVER WEEK while prices were 99 cents, and never had any bad experience there at the World for the 14 years I was going there. The place was always well run, after a while you began to recognize the other regulars. I used to take a sandwich and an apple with me, as you could easily spend six hours or more in there for the 3 back-to-back flicks. It was really the cheapest place to stay out of trouble (and out of the rain or sun) in Hollywood.
Remember seeing Roger Moore in “Gold” here in 1973, and I also believe I saw “Fear is the Key” (Alistar Maclean actioner) with Barry Newman here in the previous year.
Last time I was there was just before they closed in the summer of 1986, I believe. I moved out of California in September of that year, and have only been back there occasionally on short visits. We thought Hollywood was “bad” then, but nothing prepared me for the total economic melt-down in Tinseltown, in fact in most of once high-flying California. Seems like every bldg on Hollywood Blvd has a FOR SALE or FOR LEASE sign on it these days, wow.
I am glad that even though it is no longer a functioning public cinema, the core of the structure itself survives to this day as a music club/concert venue. The “X” theater that used to show triple porno fare, situated just east of the Hollywood World is boarded-up for a loooong time, however. One would think that someone could put that one to some good use.
Amazing architecture, although since it is 100% Moorish/Moroccan, one cannot begin to fathom how come the Urania is the one that became the Hungarian National Film Theater. Anybody knows?
Beats circles around most other Budapest old-school film theaters, especially that God-awful, kitschy multiplex, the Corvin.
I had one of the worst cinematic film presentations at the Urania Filnmszinhaz, however. As a child, my mother took me there to see “The Wizard of Oz.” Well, this was in the summer of 1958 or 1959, and the Urania had recently been equipped with a wide screen and projector capable of showing CinemaScope films. It also had some sort of a “cooling system” installed for the auditorium. Although “The Wizard of Oz” was not a CinemaScope production, somehow the Urania projectionist had left the anamorphic lens on the projector. I guess he must have figured that since the movie was American and shot in color, it must have been in the CinemaScope format and therefore needed the anamorphic lens attachment.
So, we were perhaps the only movie audience in history who have watched “The Wizard of Oz” theatrically in the then prevalent 2.55:1 aspect ratio CinemaScope, instead of in 1.37:1 normal frame. I remember really getting a mega-headache looking at the distorted human shapes on-screen.
I did not know all the technical details of why the picture looked as funky as it did back then, but in the intervening years figured it out. :~))
Another classic BP cinema, but when I started going there in the 1960s, it only had one auditorium, not two. I am not sure when the 2nd screen was added, that is a very small, narrow auditorium, however. Old style design and seating arrangements, definitely. Very classy still, love the attached cafe.
Used to visit this one in the 1960s and 1970s when it was called “Filmmuzeum.” Yes indeed, they showed mostly French cinema, almost no Hungarian fare.
One of the few subterranean cinemas, yet once you got down to the auditorium, you certainly did not feel cramped. Very easy to get to, one short block north from the Astoria M2 metro stop.
During the 1960s and early 1970s, this small, long but narrow cinema was called “Budai Hirado.” It was one of the two film theaters in the Hungarian capital where they showed the weekly newsreel (about 10 minutes long), followed by all sorts of animated and live action shorts & documentaries. The program cycled through in about 75 minutes, but one could purchase a ticket and enter the theater at any time, and stay as long as one wanted, even all day. There was the newsreel, followed by 3, 4, or 5 shorts.
The other Budapest theater dedicated to the newsreel and shorts was the “Hirado” cinema on the Grand Booulevard, present day NE corner of Erzsebet Korut & Dohany utca. Here you could even get seats in private booths in the back, very cozy for lovebirds.
I seem to recall the uniform ticket price being 4 forints, but it could have been 6 Ft. Certainly a far cry from the 1200 forint and even higher admission prices of today. You could also buy passes, and receive further discounts for students and seniors.
After the Hungarian weekly newsreel was killed-off, the theater was re-named from “Budai Hirado” to “Bem.” It is still a classic little art house. One of the few remaining venues from the classic era of Hungarian film theaters.
Well, “Kino” is the German name for “cinema” or “movie theater” or “filmszinhaz” or “mozi,” who even knows why this theater was re-christened as such?
I used to go there from the early 1960s through the late 1980s, during all of this time is was called “Majus 1 Filmszinhaz,” May 1st being the International Day of Labor and a national holiday in most countries of the world. No idea who re-named it into “Atrium Kino” and when, let alone why.
It was one of the first ones in the capital, and certainly the first one on the Buda side, that showed CinemaScope widescreen movies. Remember seeing Disney’s 1953 “Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea” here in glorious 2.55:1 aspect ratio CinemaScope, wow!!
Too bad it is now closed, alas it’s just a reflection of the current sad state of the country as a whole.
This one has got to have one of the gaudiest, kitschiest exteriors of any mulptiplex presently operating in Central Europe. Looks like an outdoor museum and amusement park movie house combined into one large mess. The eye-hurting yellow pain does not help a bit.
This used to be a majestic cinema with a a single, huge auditorium, and a large, curved screen with 4-way motorized masking, specifically installed for Todd-AO and other 70mm showings. They showed CinemasCope films here since 1957, and 70mm films from 1967 through the mid-1990s, when the single auditorium was chopped up into 6 tiny rooms.
Some of these rooms now are hardly larger than private use screening rooms. They all have fancy Hungarian names, named after some person who have excelled in the film biz. Too bad that all the Corvin ever shows these days are American commercial popcorn movies. Maybe they show one Hungarian film in a year on one of their screens, that is about it. This is about as fake Hungarian as anything can be.
You can safely skip this one, the Corvin of today has got nothing over your run-of-the-mill hideous multiplexes. Fortunately, there are still plenty of single-screen and twin-screen elegant cinemas in Budapest and elsewhere in this region, might as well patronize those if you care a bit about history and aestehtics.