Loft Cinema
3233 E. Speedway Boulevard,
Tucson,
AZ
85716
3233 E. Speedway Boulevard,
Tucson,
AZ
85716
7 people favorited this theater
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Circa 1977 photo added credit Tucson Citizen, from below link. Courtesy Save the Signs Facebook page.
https://tucson.com/news/local/speedways-label-as-ugliest-street-in-the-us-can-be-traced-back-to-tucsons-1962/article_1f190f1e-98c1-5b21-90ec-db3f5a6b0802.html?fbclid=IwAR0zWCWn9dd1jh3I3wzIvulkAr2ZZLueUrh6SsYgZzTKwBZPjlyMc3El7i8
According to this advertisement, TM operated it before AMC did. https://www.newspapers.com/image/163766994/
Here’s the link to a new historical article about large format and roadshow presentations at this and other Tucson cinemas.
I’ve been to the Loft twice for their 70mm showings. Saw Tron and West Side Story. Both prints were in great shape. Hopefully they will add a better sound system to their main auditorium after the redo the seating. Hope they play The Sound of Music, Patton, and Brainstorm in 70mm.
Lived in Tucson for 3 years and went to see their midnight showing of “The Big Lebowski.” Loved the whole experience.
B-movie producer Robert L. Lippert was a widescreen expert having produced low-budget Regalscope films during his movie producing days. So it was little surprise that when he started Tucson’s Showcase Luxury Cinema, it was a single-screen roadhouse theatre. Lippert’s Transcontinental Theatres Circuit would hit 120 theaters but the Showcase was his first in Tucson and #67 in the San Francisco based chain. The $350,000 Showcase launched May 29, 1969 with “The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie.” Its curved 22x55' screen seated 600 patrons in continental loge seating and was going to make every effort to book 70mm films. The theater appears to be architected by Tucson’s Terry Atkinson though similar to other Transcontinental theaters around the country of this period has some differences likely incorporated by Atkinson. It featured a beautiful double-storied glass front leading into a spacious high-ceiling and open lobby area. Well prior to the opening, the Showcase was advertising a road show of “Oliver” that was two months away from opening.
“Oliver’s” road show run was 2.5 months and replaced with the popular, “Easy Rider” and would have the road show of “Dr. Zhivago” and a three-month run of “Hello, Dolly” during its first year of exhibition. In the battle for clearances, Lippert had to bid $50,000 for “Dolly” and said he would never fight / bid that much for a clearance again despite the film’s success.
As the booking of a single-screen film was high risk, the theatre had some losers in 1970 and opted to add a second screen called the Penthouse. This was the circuit’s practice all over the country as they would transform their high-ceiling entryway lobbies into a lobby housing a 175-seat auditorium above which was reachable by stairway. Similar setups with in Lawton, OK, Chattanooga, TN, and Richmond, VA were placed in those luxury roadshow houses. To make life easier, the theater used an automated Cinemeccanica Victoria 18 projector that could handle 2.5 hours of film on a single reel.
On July 28, 1972, the Penthouse was renamed and the theater marketed as the Showcase Cinema 1 & 2. The Penthouse/Cinema 2 concept paid dividends. Among the theater’s most successful runs was “Fiddler on the Roof.” It ran as a road show for 13 weeks and would have left the theater were it not for the renamed Cinema 2. “Fiddler” switched to the Showcase 2 running 17 more weeks for a profitable 30-week run. “The Sting” beat that playing 40 weeks between 1973 and 1974. “Earthquake” in Sensurround was a revelation. But beginning in 1975 with new competition and other chains more eager to pay high for clearances for “Jaws,” “Star Wars,” and other films, the Showcase drifted as “the place” for big films.
Under AMC, the theater would become the Showcase 2 moving to art house fare much of the time. The New Loft closed on Fremont and would move here in 1992. Ten years later, it would become a non-profit membership art house still called The Loft adding a third screen in 2014.
Here’s an old promo for the Penthouse:http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:SpXuO81XZ2QJ:newspaperarchive.com/us/arizona/tucson/tucson-daily-citizen/1970/11-20/page-24+&cd=27&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=ca&lr=lang_en
The upstairs screen was originally a separate theater known as the Penthouse Cinema.
I think this might be it’s grand opening:http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:aeXBu8lUl8YJ:newspaperarchive.com/us/arizona/tucson/tucson-daily-citizen/1969/05-02/page-25+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us
Here’s a link to one of its early newspaper ads:http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:EVb0mBS4ntwJ:newspaperarchive.com/us/arizona/tucson/tucson-daily-citizen/1970/08-22/page-50+&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us
Lippert Theatres also ran this theatre, prior to AMC.
AMC operated this theatre as the “Showcase 2” when I last lived in Tucson (1988).
Updated and edited on June 26, 2011 I worked for a small chain of Art Theatres from 1963-1973. The company was Art Theatre Guild, Inc. Founded by Louis K.Sher in Bexley, Ohio in 1955. The company moved its HQ to Scottsdale, Arizona in 1963. I was promoted to manager in 1964 and sent to Tucson to operate the original Loft Theatre located at 6th & Fremont, which I also lived in. I also managed the Fine Art in Fresno, The Rockhill in Kansas City, Missouri. The Cinema in Hollywood, the Art Theatre in Dayton along with the Little Art in Yellow Springs, Ohio and The Bexley (then first twin theatre in America) in Bexley, Ohio along with the World Theatre in Columbus and the Opera House in Granville, Ohio. I was the manager of the Bexley and World theatres from 1969 – 1973.
The Loft is alive and well and still showing Rocky Horror!
Wonder if “ROCKY HORROR” is still playing.
Nice photos.
I was the manager of of the original Loft Theatre at 6th & Fremont between 1964 and 1966. I also lived above the theatre.