Joy Adult Theatre

This location opened rather late for a Trans-Lux Inflight Cine'; five years after the other North Carolina Inflight Cine’s had opened and a year after they closed their first NC theater (Kinston). The Trans-Lux Kannapolis opened about the same time as Stewart & Everett was reopening the theater (renamed Plaza Cinema) Trans-Lux had closed the previous year. I would be surprised if Trans-Lux used 16mm projection in the Kannapolis theater if it opened in 1975; 16mm flopped miserably elsewhere in 1970 (why watch 16mm projection when there was a real cinema downtown, the Gem?). Trans-Lux was out of North Carolina by 1976; all of the former Inflight Cine’s in the Piedmont (Burlington, Greensboro, High Point, Kannapolis, Charlotte) were turned into pornhouses.

I have the original ads to the Trans-Lux Inflight Cinema grand opening from March 28,1975. I can be contacted at