Ocean Theatre

David_Schneider on January 27, 2020 at 12:39 am

The ad that rivest266 posted says the Ocean Theatre was located “in Holiday Inn Bldg.” I looked up the address on Google Street View which shows a parking lot there, then searched for images of a Holiday Inn at that address which revealed some old postcards of a Holiday Inn Oceanside that had apparently been there beforehand.

Google Maps indicates the parking lot has now been replaced by the recently opened Las Olas Oceanside Park.

I believe sometime in the late 90’s or early 00’s I once parked in that parking lot, (having no idea there had ever been a hotel there or that there had been a cinema in it).

I remember stepping out of my car to notice that on what may have been a busy night I had found parking near the beach and across from the Elbo Room bar, which I had heard is famous in Spring Break lore.

The next day when I casually mentioned this to my late mother she suddenly said “Oh, ‘Where the Boys Are’!”, sang a few notes from that song, then was surprised I had never heard of it. She fondly explained: “That’s Connie Francis. She sang that”, from the movie of the same name, which she had seen when she was young (1960), whose story takes place during a Spring Break at that beach. … I described all this to a friend who pointed out some of the movie’s scenes had been filmed in the Elbo Room.

Years later I would see “Where the Boys Are” on television. Although the Ocean Theatre opened a decade after the movie was released, I wonder if it was ever screened there in honor of the location.