Cinema 3
101 N. Copper Street,
Deming,
NM
88030
101 N. Copper Street,
Deming,
NM
88030
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The Cinema 3 was a “recent” theatre venture in Deming. It was in the “Pepsi Building” which was bought by the city for use as a youth center. The building has since been torn down (pity.. It was kinda cute…) and the property is now a govt subsidised “Walgreens”.
It looks like we’ve got two different theaters conflated on this page. Mr50s said the Cinema 3 was in the former Pepsi-Cola bottling plant. If that’s the case then El Rancho was not an aka for Cinema 3. The address of 113 E. Pine Street given for this theater was indeed the address of R.E. Griffith’s El Rancho Theatre, which was the original name of the house currently listed at Cinema Treasures as the Sunn Cinema. It was the El Rancho from opening in 1942 until the late 1970s.
A .pdf of the minutes of a 2009 Luna County Board of Commissioners meeting includes a reference to a proposal for a Luna County Youth Arts Center, to be located in the former Pepsi-Cola bottling plant at 101 N. Copper Street, Deming. It doesn’t mention the building having been used as a theater, but if Mr50s is correct, that must have been the address of the Cinema 3.
If the Albuquerque Journal article cited in the intro was correct and the Cinema 3 was in the former El Rancho (Albuquerque is 233 miles from Deming, and I’m more inclined to trust Mr50s, who actually lived in Deming) then the pages for the two theaters need to be combined. Otherwise, the address on this page and the aka’s on both pages need to be changed.
I wa.s the projectionist over at the Sierra Theatre in Alamogordo from 1967 to 1969. The El Rancho and The Mimbres Drive in was operated by Frontier Theatres as we were. Frontier was bought out by Commonwealth Theatres and they were then bought out by UA Theatres. UA dumped all the small town theatres in NM. Some were taken over by Cinemark out of Dallas but eventually most went independent or were assumed by Allen Theatres of Las Cruces
I grew up in Deming in the late 60’s early 70’s. El Rancho was managed by Mr. Bob Dudley. A nice man who constantly gave away free movie passes to kids he saw around town. They would usually have a Saturday matinee with a Disney type film (That Darn Cat, The Boatniks, etx). Tuesday night was for MExican movies (Cantinflas!). The El Rancho would close in the summer and that is when the Mimbres Drive In would open, always featuring classic B films of the time (Walking Tall, Bruce Lee)
Cinema 3 was located in the former PepsiCola bottling building, a building still extant, but for which the clock is ticking, I understand. The photo posted by Lost Memory is actually what remains of the El Rancho Theatre, which had the most amazing marquee and blade sign you’ve ever seen…all split timbers, and a multi-color New Mexico “zia” symbol in neon underneath. (Lost, I have a black-and-white [poor] picture of it if you’d care to post it.) The Luna was located directly across the street from the El Rancho. It was torn down in the 70s. The Mimbres Drive-In was on the east side of town, and nothing to write home about. :–)
I wish I could remember the name of the theatre chain. It was quite prominent in New Mexico, but I just can’t recall it.
The only reason I know this much is because I grew up in Deming and still go back every year.
It looks like the El Rancho and the Luna may have been part of the same chain at that time.
The photo posted on 12/1/06 states that the Cinema 3 was formerly the El Rancho Theater.
This is a 1951 ad from the Deming Headlight. Perhaps the Cinema 3 opened in the 80s, but the building was used as a theater years before:
http://tinyurl.com/2glraz
aka El Rancho theater.