Palace Cinema
5117 Old Summer Road,
Memphis,
TN
38122
5117 Old Summer Road,
Memphis,
TN
38122
1 person
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This opened as the Fare 4 by Cobb Theatres on May 26th, 1971. In 1987, Ambarish Keshani, the director of real estate for Cobb theatres buys this theatre and starts Ajay theatres. It was expanded to 8 screens on September 18th, 1992 and renamed Cinema Showcase, which expanded to 12 screens in 1994. It was renamed Star Cinema 12 on October 22nd, 1999 and closed in 2002. It reopened as the Palace Cinema with 10 screens on June 27th, 2003. Grand opening ads posted.
I visited this theater once in late November 1999. I can only hope that the current operators (Covid19 pandemic) aside, have greatly improved this old movie house. At that time, it was a second-run aka discount theater. I took my sister to see a discounted running of The Sixth Sense, shortly before its release on home video. I just remember how dilapidated, uninspiring and dirty the building was. It seems from the photos, the owners have at least tried to remedy the dated décor with a a castle themed façade. I recall only a simple ticket window leading into a cramped 1970’s era concessions lobby. Has anyone visited this theater in recent times and is a first-run theater?
Palace cinema is 10 screens not 12.
New Photo: Architects rendering of the proposed Fare Four Cinema which has become, after several alterations, the Palace Cinema.
I went to the Fare Four on an almost weekly basis in ‘81-'82 mainly to see the girls who worked in the ticket office (Ruth Ann and her friend) than to see the movies, but I very much appreciated its ¼th devotion to art films. I remember seeing Camille Claudel there.
Palace Cinema in November 2006
It has 12 screens, all with stadium seating. I remember going there when I was a sophomore in college (1978, I think) to see Sylvester Stallone in a pre-Rocky film called “The Italian Stallion.” It was re-released after Rocky became such a big hit. As I recall, it seemed like a soft-porn film to me, and I was horrified. My date, now my husband, told me he was shocked, too! Right….
I went to the Fare 4 many times from 1973 to 1983. It was expanded after I left Mempho in 83. They usually had a soft-core porn feature on at least one screen in those days—I remember David Friedman’s “The Erotic Adventures of Zorro,” Kristine DeBell in Bill Osco’s “Alice in Wonderland,” and Angel Tompkins and Jay “Dennis the Menace” North (!) in “Teacher.” The last film I saw there was about 1997 after it became a 10-plex: John “Revolting” Travolta, Nicholas Cage, John Bloom (Joe Bob Briggs), and Margaret Cho (!) in “Face-Off.” Took my wife, stepson, and mother-in-law to that one—you can tell I haven’t wasted MY life….
Spent many many happy evenings at the Fare Four and later the Fare Eight. It was built as a four plex as part of a larger entertainment and dining complex. There was a sort of food-court-sans-mall next door called “The World’s Fare” which didn’t fare well at went out of business fairly quick. The Fare Four showed art-house films in the 1980s and 1990s. The auditoriums kept getting smaller as they were cut down to make more screens. It was something of a mess when I last saw the hall in 1992. The original decor was completely forgettable.