Sorry to hear about Mary Booth. I too managed the K-B Crystal for a few months in 1979. The last film I showed at the Crystal before K-B and I parted company was “Dracula,” with Frank Langella.
K-B had this great logo…I think it had a red and blue shield with the K and B letters in fancy gold caps. I also seem to remember small stars on the fields of red and blue.
Does anyone have a link to a file with the K-B logo? I’d love to see it.
I worked for K-B Theatres from 1973-1979, starting at the K-B Langley. I worked as an usher, a cashier, a concessionist, an assistant manager, and a manager. One of the great things that K-B Theatres did for years was to have adult and “junior” prices. “Juniors” were anyone under 17. This gave K-B a competitive edge over other theatres where children were considered 12 and under. After many years, I think the movie studios complained about the income difference between theatres with children’s prices, and K-B’s “junior” prices. K-B finally joined the mainstream and the “junior” price became a thing of the past.
My first night of work at the Langley was on December 21, 1973. “Benny and the Jets” played on my parents' car radio as I drove to work. The first movie I worked at the Langley was “Camelot,” followed by “Magnum Force.” When I worked at the Langley, we were told that the theatre was a “wedding present” when Marvin Goldman married into the Kogod family.
Two of the highlights (?) of working at the Langley were changing the marquee and changing light bulbs in the auditorium ceiling. The marquee at the Langley was huge. There was usually enough room to have a tag line, the film title, and the showtimes. The manager would give us the marquee copy, and then we would go out and look on the existing marquee, and check to see what letters were already on the marquee, and which letters we would need for the new copy. The marquee closet was to the left of the thick glass entrance doors to the theatre lobby. In the closet were the large 18" black letters for the movie titles, and the smaller 12" red letters for the tag lines and showtimes. We would gather the letters we needed and place them in a shopping cart that we had for that purpose. Then, we would get the huge ladder out of the closet and set it up to start changing the marquee. It was part art, part mathematical accuracy to get all of the letters off the marquee, clip on the new letters and be sure they were all centered properly. It was especially fun to change the marquee in the rain or snow.
We would access the ceiling lights in the theatre auditorium by climbing a ladder with bulbs in our hands to get into the ceiling. Then, we would carefully walk on the ceiling catwalks to access each burned-out bulb. The bulbs were housed in a barrel-sized light fixture. Each light fixture contained two bulbs: a mogul-based bulb that was probably about 500 watts, and a regular-sized yellow bulb of less than 100 watts that stayed on throughout the movie so people could find their way in the dark theatre. Most of the staff just left the burned-out bulbs in the ceiling rafters, but I would always bring out the old bulbs and throw them away. The ceiling was hot, dusty, and just a bit creepy. I often wondered if anyone had ever fallen through the ceiling. I made sure that I did not.
Throughout my almost six years with K-B Theatres, I worked in many of the theatres: the Langley, the Flower, the Silver, the Bethesda, Georgetown Square, the Cinema, the Studio, the Takoma, the Fine Arts, the MacArthur, the Janus, the Cerberus, and the Crystal. As a high school/college student, I was able to learn about some of the best and the worst aspects of the working world, and I was able to see almost every movie free that came out during the time I worked for
K-B. Over thirty years later, I still remember lines from some of them, such as “The Sting” or “The Towering Inferno.”
While the theatres of today may have better sound equipment, and the capability to create special effects has improved dramatically, none of the new humongous cinemultiplexopolises can compare with the elegance of the MacArthur or the simple sophistication of the Langley.
Sorry to hear about Mary Booth. I too managed the K-B Crystal for a few months in 1979. The last film I showed at the Crystal before K-B and I parted company was “Dracula,” with Frank Langella.
K-B had this great logo…I think it had a red and blue shield with the K and B letters in fancy gold caps. I also seem to remember small stars on the fields of red and blue.
Does anyone have a link to a file with the K-B logo? I’d love to see it.
I worked for K-B Theatres from 1973-1979, starting at the K-B Langley. I worked as an usher, a cashier, a concessionist, an assistant manager, and a manager. One of the great things that K-B Theatres did for years was to have adult and “junior” prices. “Juniors” were anyone under 17. This gave K-B a competitive edge over other theatres where children were considered 12 and under. After many years, I think the movie studios complained about the income difference between theatres with children’s prices, and K-B’s “junior” prices. K-B finally joined the mainstream and the “junior” price became a thing of the past.
My first night of work at the Langley was on December 21, 1973. “Benny and the Jets” played on my parents' car radio as I drove to work. The first movie I worked at the Langley was “Camelot,” followed by “Magnum Force.” When I worked at the Langley, we were told that the theatre was a “wedding present” when Marvin Goldman married into the Kogod family.
There were 971 seats in the Langley Theatre…920 in the main auditorium, 26 in the Nursery, and 25 in the Langley Room. While we did use the Nursery for families with young children and babies, the Langley Room was mostly used for storage. When I worked at the Langley, the theatre had been redecorated from the original 1952 décor, and everything was painted red and blue, with red and blue carpeting, and a black ceiling in the auditorium. The mirror behind the water fountain had been painted over with red paint, but occasionally someone would scratch off some of the paint to reveal the mirrors underneath. Under the water fountain, a wooden box was covered with carpeting. Small children could pull out the box so they could reach the water fountain and get a drink.
Two of the highlights (?) of working at the Langley were changing the marquee and changing light bulbs in the auditorium ceiling. The marquee at the Langley was huge. There was usually enough room to have a tag line, the film title, and the showtimes. The manager would give us the marquee copy, and then we would go out and look on the existing marquee, and check to see what letters were already on the marquee, and which letters we would need for the new copy. The marquee closet was to the left of the thick glass entrance doors to the theatre lobby. In the closet were the large 18" black letters for the movie titles, and the smaller 12" red letters for the tag lines and showtimes. We would gather the letters we needed and place them in a shopping cart that we had for that purpose. Then, we would get the huge ladder out of the closet and set it up to start changing the marquee. It was part art, part mathematical accuracy to get all of the letters off the marquee, clip on the new letters and be sure they were all centered properly. It was especially fun to change the marquee in the rain or snow.
We would access the ceiling lights in the theatre auditorium by climbing a ladder with bulbs in our hands to get into the ceiling. Then, we would carefully walk on the ceiling catwalks to access each burned-out bulb. The bulbs were housed in a barrel-sized light fixture. Each light fixture contained two bulbs: a mogul-based bulb that was probably about 500 watts, and a regular-sized yellow bulb of less than 100 watts that stayed on throughout the movie so people could find their way in the dark theatre. Most of the staff just left the burned-out bulbs in the ceiling rafters, but I would always bring out the old bulbs and throw them away. The ceiling was hot, dusty, and just a bit creepy. I often wondered if anyone had ever fallen through the ceiling. I made sure that I did not.
Throughout my almost six years with K-B Theatres, I worked in many of the theatres: the Langley, the Flower, the Silver, the Bethesda, Georgetown Square, the Cinema, the Studio, the Takoma, the Fine Arts, the MacArthur, the Janus, the Cerberus, and the Crystal. As a high school/college student, I was able to learn about some of the best and the worst aspects of the working world, and I was able to see almost every movie free that came out during the time I worked for
K-B. Over thirty years later, I still remember lines from some of them, such as “The Sting” or “The Towering Inferno.”
While the theatres of today may have better sound equipment, and the capability to create special effects has improved dramatically, none of the new humongous cinemultiplexopolises can compare with the elegance of the MacArthur or the simple sophistication of the Langley.