Cameo Theatre
66 Pennsylvania Avenue,
Niantic,
CT
06357
66 Pennsylvania Avenue,
Niantic,
CT
06357
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The Cameo opened on August 19th, 1972, with “Dirty Harry”. Grand opening ad posted.
woops
I wrote the one sheet tag line backwards of course it read WHAT GOES IN HARD & COMES OUT SOFT (not the other way around as I wrote)
I wonder if all theaters named “Cameo” eventually showed porn…
I was a senior in high school in 1983 when I first went to the Cameo. I can still remember the one sheet poster for the feature Bubble Gum & the tag line which read: “What Goes In Soft & Comes out Hard?…..Bubble Gum!” It starred the great Honey Wilder who was 33 at the time. It struck me as odd that there was a snack bar there. I did buy a popcorn and candy bar and sat down to watch XXX gyrations on the big screen as if I were enjoying a regular feature.
Final screening at this theater was October 10, 1985, a double bill with Deep Throat and Taboo – http://whenporntheatersinvadedconnecticut.blogspot.com/
Correct on Niantic. http://www.cinematour.com/theatres/us/CT/4.html
Sorry, Niantic (a village) and East Lyme (town in which Niantic sits) are all the same place to us residents! Cameo address should be 66 Pennsylvania Avenue, Niantic. The PO that now occupies 58 Pennsylvania is at the far end of a strip mall building whose address/suite numbers have all been shuffled a bit since various businesses have come and gone, knocking out walls and changing the resident configurations. The addresses of the strip mall occupants used to span from number 56 to number 82.
The spot that used to be number 66 (the Cameo) now appears to be number 58, the PO (the large space that used to house a supermarket now holds several other smaller stores). The PO is a bit longer than the Cameo was, occupying the former Cameo locale PLUS an adjacent space that formerly held other businesses.
There are location issues with this theater. The introduction says there is now a post office where the Cameo Theatre used to be, but the U. S. Postal Service gives the address of the East Lyme branch post office as 225 Boston Post Road, not Pennsylvania Avenue. The building at that location doesn’t resemble the one in the photo at the top of this page.
Meanwhile, CinemaTour lists a Cameo Theatre at 66 Pennsylvania Avenue in Niantic, Connecticut, which is just down the road from East Lyme, but lists no theaters for East Lyme itself.
The Postal Service lists the Niantic branch post office as being at 58 Pennsylvania Avenue, Suite 2. That building does resemble the one in the photo above, so I’m guessing that’s the place and I’m updating Street View to it. I suppose the addresses shifted a bit after the theater closed. The location of the theater should be changed from East Lyme to Niantic, though. The Zip Code is already correct.
I interviewed a woman who co-managed the Cameo and then purchased it with her husband during its final two years, and she confirms the somewhat shady organization who previously owned the locale and who provided its adult movie prints. “We never saw anyone ever. Film was delivered and every night we called a phone number to give the voice on the other end the totals for the day.”
“The Cameo looked exactly like Waterford Cinema, down to the red carpet and the mirror tiles on the lobby wall. We had a small candy counter with a small popcorn machine, a few candy bars and a small fridge for cans of pop.”
“There was a rectangular marquee on the roof above the theater and poster displays outside. Bo would put up the movies titles and the little town pranksters would re-arrange the letters into cuss words on it all the time. At some point, he stopped, and I think he just had the show times on it: Monday through Saturday 7:00 & 9:00, Saturday matinee at 4:00, and closed Sunday…we hung the movie posters on the walls in the lobby.”