Warwick Cinema

The Warwick Cinema first welcomed moviegoers on March 18th, 1964, under the management of Town & Country Theatres of Long Island, New York. However, the cinematic journey didn’t end there. On March 2nd, 1966, it was acquired by Fox Eastern Theatre, along with the entire T & C chain. Later, in July 1973, Mann Theatres took the reins. The inaugural film screened at the Warwick Cinema was “One Man’s Way

Warwick Cinema years: 1964-1983. Razed 1995. The Sound of Music ran here for 86 weeks, 1965-1966 in 70mm.

From what I can remember, the Warwick Cinema closed sometime between 1984 and 1989. It was most definitely closed and boarded up in 1990. Sometime in the early 90’s, my boy scout troop held a car wash at the McDonald’s in the plaza. A few of us wandered off to explore the building via the decomposing rear exit from the theater. The place, though ransacked, looked as though it had been closed for the night. Cups, popcorn buckets, straws and other trash littered the place. There were still items strewn around from the smashed glass candy case, and the sample popcorn buckets with prices on them were still lined up along the back of the counter. I took the large bucket with it’s little red plastic price numbers glued on, a few blank employee name tags, and a strip of connected tickets to a 1980’s showing of “Luther” (the 1973 version). We weren’t brave enough to venture upstairs to the storage, office or projection space. At one point the building was mostly gutted and a locked entry door installed through the boards over the front entrance. I can remember finding strips of degraded film on the ground outside in the years after it was gutted. I even remember watching as the building was being torn down. As the front of the building was peeled away, marquee letters organized in a rack on the upper level spilled out into the rubble. I saved a couple of random letters, though I never did anything with them. I’m pretty sure I lost all the taken objects when I moved out of my parent’s place. It’s amazing that the building existed until just under 20 years ago, and yet as vividly as I remember it, there are no pictures of the building to be found anywhere.

Article in Boxoffice magazine, April 20, 1964, reporting on the opening of the Warwick Cinema of Post Road on March 19, 1964:
View link

It is nice to see people who grew up in my neck of the woods..just a great part of R.I.
owl

ngtowl, The Meadowbrook is listed HERE on Cinema Treasures.

To Gabby , yes exactly but nothing to bad most of us were on a first name basis with Bill and were good customers (when we weren’t sneaking in lol)he knew and it was a wink and a nod anyway because most of the time it would be nights with concert films or movies that attracted a younger crowd.

To Party monster , I don’t remeber mel arts was that when the slot car track was next door? Anyway that was a weird story! The VanGogh’s sounds familiar though?

The restaurant was for a time (circa ‘67) called Mel-Arts. I think the owner was Greek. My band, The Van Goghs did a scene for a never completed movie here. We ordered something from the menu, and he brought us the head of a gorilla on a platter. We became offended, and so we proceeded to have a fight with strawberry shortcake. Big mistake, real cream. Took days to get the smell out of my hair. I have a bit more info above re: my Warwick Cinema experiences.

Tom, I sure do remember that store a lot of girls we knew worked there,also a lot of my friends worked in the resturant it was called Freddie’s resturant!It eventually becaume about a half dozen different nightclubs none lasting very long , we used to laugh about how long a new one would last.I agree about the cookie cutter cities I don’t live in warwick anymore but sometimes I will drive by there see the wallmart and think about how sad it is that kids today did not have a place like warwick cinema and some of the other small stores there with friendly people that owned them. nowadays if a place see’s more than 3 kids in a group they call the police!!

wow does this bring back memories! warwick cinema was at 780 post road in warwick RI in the warwick plaza not the warwick mall.This little shopping center was our second home in the late sixties through the mid seventies when I was a teenager we would hang out there from jr high which was aldrich across the street through high school ,we would park our cars near the entrance under the big oak tree (anyone remember seeing us?)The cinema was run by a gentleman named bill quarters and we would put him through the wringer sometimes but he was a nice guy he passed away whithin the last ten years , earlier in this thread someone mentioned the back door where they sold italian ices that was also the door we would sneak in when we were broke! I had my first movie date with my first girlfriend there we saw “see no evil” starring mia farrow.What made me find this site was seeing the concert for bangaledesh with george harrison on pbs recently and I remembered seeing it at warwick cinema it brought back all kinds of great memories.Not only was it a great movie theatre that whole little shopping center was great very teen friendly since it was close to 3 schools , aldrich across the street being one.all the stores except for the bank wt grant and big g market were mom and pop privately owned.there was a slot car track a fish store bobs aquarium bob barbosa was a great guy wonder if he is still around? There was also a head shop(this was early 70’s!)owned by 2 young enterpenuers, anyway now this site is a wallmart some things change but not always for the better! I cant even remember all the movies I saw at warwick cinema over the years but they were good years that I will never forget.

The Chateau de Ville is the dinner theatre/restaurant that you are thinking of. It had a striking, huge chandelier and a round, almost wraparound staircase all enclosed in glass. Many proms were held there, and often they took pictures right on that staircase. Today, the building holds medical offices and such, and if you look to the right side of the building, there is the rounded part that sticks out which used to hold the chandelier and staircase! This was across the parking lot from the Warwick Mall Cinema, where there is now a Longhorn Restaurant!

The Warwick Music Theatre was just like the Carousel in Framingham, the South Shore Music Theatre in Cohasset Mass, and the Northshore Music Theatre in Peabody. I think there was one in Hyannis also. Every summer there were touring musicals and groups that went from one place to the other. In the sixties, I remember many visits to the Carousel in Framingham (our projectionist was also their lighting tech and snuck in the ushers and candy girls for free shows) We saw groups like the Supremes, Temptations, Four Seasons, Lovin Spoonful, Jimi Hendrix, Brooklyn Bridge, and others there.

Damn. Do these threads bring back memories as I grew up in Warwick and moved in 1980. The last time I went to the Warwick Cinema must have been my freshman year in college (1976), Christmas break, because I remember bringing a date to see I believe a “Dirty Harry” movie there.

I remember that plaza where the Warwick Cinema was located well. There was a W.T. Grant’s in the same shopping plaza as the cinema and that is a long defunct chain. Aldrich Jr. High, if memory serves me correctly, is across the street.

And I remember the Warwick Musical Theatre well. I think the guy who ran it had the mellifluous name of Buster Bonoff. And he might have been bald like Yul Brynner, but I may be imagining that. I never went to a show at the WMT, but did go to a friend’s high school graduation held there in 1977. That was the only time I was in the building.

I remember right next to the theatre was a restaurant on the corner of Bald Hill Road and Route 2 (which I believe is the road the WMT was on) that they moved; they moved the whole building. And WMT is/was right around the corner from “The Station” that nightclub that burned and so many lives were lost.