Lakeland Mall Twin

markp on April 19, 2010 at 1:27 pm

I wonder if this JLC twin was laid out like the one I worked at back in the mid to late 70’s. One theatre was blue, the other red, with the concession stand in the middle of the lobby, prohibiting people from crossing over.

Mike Rogers on August 14, 2010 at 6:04 pm

in Jerry Lewis'book,“DEAN and ME”,Jerry talks about his failed cinemas,one of the few times I recall him ever writing about them.

dallasmovietheaters on September 25, 2022 at 8:07 pm

If those dates work in the entry above by Andy, that’s probably close enough. If I were writing the entry based on my research, it might be a bit closer to the venue’s history to say that:

The Jerry Lewis Twin Cinema 1 & 2 opened March 1, 1972 with “Dollars” and “Song of Norway” in Lake Parker Mall (it was not called Lakeland Mall in 1972). The venue was supposed to have opened in December of 1971 and the three month delay was very likely due to the impending failure of Network Cinemas and Jerry Lewis Cinemas Circuit. Other operators were delayed similarly at the same time period when Network Cinemas was unable to provide all of the parts needed to make their one-button systems function.

Lake Parker Mall’s roots dated back to 1963 when the shopping center was announced and opened with a Montgomery Ward store as its first retailer in 1964. An expansion with a Woolco anchor store and an enclosed shopping mall, called the Lake Parker Mall, occurred in 1971 and included this Jerry Lewis Twin project.

The Lake Parker Mall’s grand opening was held on May 31, 1971. As noted, the Jerry Lewis Twin Cinema 1 & 2 opened about nine months later. The in-mall cinema got to watch the implosion in 1972 and bankruptcy of Network Cinemas and Jerry Lewis' departure from the project in 1973. But the venue kept the Jerry Lewis name until 1974. A Michigan-based firm acquired the Lake Parker Mall in 1974 and it was renamed as the Lakeland Mall on July 17, 1974. A month later, on August 23, 1974, the theater was renamed as the Lakeland Twin Cinema at Lakeland Mall which was quickly renamed as the simplified, Lakeland Mall Twin Cinema. It ran under multiple independent operators until its closure.

The Lakeland Mall Cinema’s greatest hit by far was 1982’s “E.T.” that played for some 25 weeks and moved a lot of concessions, as well. It was a true “popcorn film” hit for the theater. The viability of the entire mall teetered, however, when Lakeland Square / Lakeland Square Mall opened nearby in 1988. Within a year of that opening, the mall downtrended to “greyscale status” - a term akin to a dead mall with vacancies above 50 percent.

There was no correction for the Lakeland Mall’s death spiral. But like many mall cinemas - such as the Woodland Mall Fox in Toledo or the Festival / Forum Theatre in Arlington, Texas - the cinema just kept rolling out films for a cadre of patrons even as fewer people came to the dead / dying mall. 1990 was the Lakeland Mall Cinema’s low point as the mall was considered closed for the most part. And for many weeks of its operation in 1990, only one feature is listed and from November 2, 1990 to November 8, 1990, the feature listed is “Arachnophobia” with the explanation: “one screen only this week”.

There were no screens listed the next week or from that point further. And no ads or mentions are made of the theatre from that point forward. November 8, 1990 appears to be the date of permanent closure. The interior mall was was officially closed in 1994 and the exterior anchors had all gone by 1995 ending the Lake Parker Mall turned Lakeland Mall. In 1999, the First Baptist Church At The Mall was a project that converted a former retail anchor for its main facility and used the former Lakeland Mall Cinema Twin’s spot for youth gatherings and programming. That facility was still in use in the 2020s.