Cobb Center 6

Actually, It Became A 6-Screener In March 1987. Prior To That, It Was Formerly Known As The Cobb Center 4.

The August 24, 1964 issue of Boxoffice said that the new Cobb Center Theatre was designed by Robert W. Kahn Associates, the firm that designed the shopping center itself.

This was where I saw movies when I was really young, in the early 80’s before the Litchfield theater opened on Austell Road. I remember seeing ET here. I remember being dragged out, crying, at the end of ET, screaming for ET to come back! One of my earliest memories. I was 4 years old.

Drove by yesterday and it looks like it has been stabilized and boarded up. No sign of the condemnation notice I saw a couple of years ago and a big “FOR LEASE” sign on the building. A Smyrna cop was sitting there so I didn’t spend too much time looking the place over, didn’t want to have to answer too many questions since I now have an out of state drivers license and was in a rental car.

Boxoffice of December 7, 1964, ran this brief item about the air conditioning system in the new Cobb Center Theatre. There is a photo of the auditorium. The caption places the theater in Marietta rather than Smyrna, but it must be this house.

Here a aerial photo.

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This is the first theater I can remember going to; I remember seeing Goldfinger there when I was 3 years old. I remember really wanting to see the Beatles' Let It Be when it was playing there in 1970, but my parents wouldn’t take me, darn it. I have lots of fond memories of this theater, so sorry to hear that its condemned now.

Write up on the 1964 single strip presentation of How The West Was Won at the Cobb with newspaper ad:

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The only movie that I remember seeing at Cobb Centre was “Beetlejuice” on opening night in 1988.

I saw my fair share of movies here in the 1980s, mostly because its location next to Rich’s made it easy to convince my grandmother to take us to the movies after shopping. Reading these comments helps to explain some of the weirdness of Cobb Center, like why you could hear the movie playing next door in most of the auditoriums.

Does anyone know why the movie theatre was built to look just like Rich’s, and not like the rest of the mall? It’s harder to see now, because someone painted it a particularly bad shade of blue in the 1990s, but it was built of the same white brick. It was really pretty, actually, from the outside. The last movie I saw there was “Clueless” and the movie theatre was a wreck. Smelly and dirty, and the print of the movie looked like it had been rolled in dirt before being played. That was 1995, and I think it closed soon after. I seem to remember it opening and closing many times during my childhood, was this because of changes in ownership?

I’ve often thought that because of changing demographics of the surrounding neighborhood a theatre playing Spanish language films would do well, but if its condemned I guess it is a moot point. I have a feeling that Rich’s, the theatre, and Rich’s auto are going to fall soon because of Smyrna’s redevelopment plan.

I saw a few films in this theatre, e.g., “Help”, “Dr No”, “From Russia with Love”, “Shot in the Dark”, “Yellow Submarine”, and to the best of my memory “A Hard Days Nite”. This was an extremly classy place in the 60’s with the time of opening not being to much longer after the Rich’s department store was opened. In fact South Cobb Drive south from the theatre had several nice restaurants and of course “Sandy’s (the place to be!) across from the theatre. Other theatres in the area were Belmont Hills, "The Strand”, and the Cobb. The later two were on the square in Marietta.

While the Belmont Hills, which is just down the road was a Martin Theatre later operated by Georgia Theatre Company, the Cobb Center was a GTC operation from the start. Although grossly overbuilt for the Cobb County of the mid 1960’s, there were a few occasions when I saw it full during the 70’s. It played a lot of United Artists product day and date with the Lenox although the length of the runs was usually shorter.

In the fall of 1974, the building, which sits in the north end of the Cobb Center parking lot, was expanded to the south and two small houses added. These houses held 256 and 194 seats. The 256 seater, designated as #2 had a very odd seating plan. Instead of having the seating area in the middle and asiles along the walls, it had a double wide asile running down the center. This left the middle part of the screen, the prime viewing area, occupied by a walkway and gave the impression of having the seats shoved over to each side.

In addition, and extra set of bathrooms was built in the new area between the old and new auditoriums. The old bathrooms which opened onto a small lobby and were located upstairs in those pre ADA days were closed and the upstairs lobby became the seating area for the nicest and most comfortable projection booth I ever worked in.

I lost touch with this place soon after, but by 1983 the old 1000 seat house had been split lengthwise into two 490 seaters and the concession stand relocated from near the front door to a spot which backed up to the new twin and faced the hallway leading to the 1974 expansion. By this time the booth had four Century projectors each with its own three tier Autowind 2 platter.

By the late 80’s the twin auditoriums had been split sideways and the place became a 6plex. Soon after that GTC sold it to Kings Cinemas, a which had once been known as Septum. I don’t recall when it was closed but I was by the place a year ago and it seems that it had been converted into a church at some point. On the front door were condemnation notices from the Cobb County Fire Marshall forbiding occupancy.