Comments from vp81955

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vp81955
vp81955 commented about Roth's Parkway 1-2-3 on Aug 10, 2011 at 6:29 am

Some more on the Milo/Villa: It opened in October 1935 as the Milo, and the first film to be shown there was “Anna Karenina” with Greta Garbo and Fredric March. Original admission prices were 25 cents for adults, 15 for children. The lower seating area had a capacity of 600, while the balcony (restricted to black customers for many years in those segregated times) sat 150 and had a separate entrance.

In 1955, the Milo was closed for renovations and reopened that December under a new name, the Villa. Its new owners believed the Rockville Drive-In was getting preferential treatment from film companies, and sued Loew’s (parent of MGM) in December 1957; have no idea how the lawsuit ultimately turned out. In addition to movies, occasional stage shows were held there; one of them, on Dec. 21, 1958, had later country legend Patsy Cline as the headliner.

The Villa was closed sometime in the second half of the 1960s as part of the ill-fated Rockville urban renewal project, but I don’t have a precise date or what was its final movie. Anyone care to do some research?

vp81955
vp81955 commented about Roth's Parkway 1-2-3 on Aug 8, 2011 at 4:51 pm

This is an incorrect location. Roth’s was on Randolph Road, south of central Rockville, not far from the White Flint mall and Metro station. This part of Rockville is downtown.

However, there were two movie venues, both closed, before the current multiplex nearby. First, there was the Villa Theater, also later known as the Milo, on East Montgomery Avenue, across the street from the Montgomery County Courthouse. It was a single-screen theater that showed films into the mid-1960s, when it (and much of downtown) was razed as part of an urban renewal project.

What was built was something called the Rockville Mall, which opened in early 1972, never gained much traction (its main tenant, a department store, folded, as did its successor) and it shut about a decade later. However, for several years it featured a twinplex movie theater which, to be honest, was nothing special. I saw a revival of “Doctor Zhivago” there, and I remember that when “Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland” premiered, Fiona Fullerton, who played Alice (and was a Bond girl in the ‘80s), appeared to promote the movie.