South City Cinema I & II
4491 Lemay Ferry Road,
St. Louis,
MO
63129
4491 Lemay Ferry Road,
St. Louis,
MO
63129
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The South City Cinema I & II opened on September 15, 1972 as part of Mid America Theatres (Komm Theatres) with each auditorium seating 300. The typical Mid America twin off the same floor plan as all the other twins that they built and the same mundane decor of a burgundy and brown with gold trim.
The South City had strong competition from the South County Cinema 2 and later the Lindbergh 8 and the Keller 8, which were all located around the South County Mall. The South City closed on March 30, 1989 and was gutted in 1990 and replaced by retail space.
Contributed by
Charles Van Bibber
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Recent comments (view all 10 comments)
The South City was not demolished. This rather nondescript theater was simply gutted and turned into retail space.
I worked at South County Cinema, and it was a sure bet that at least two or three times a month somebody would come in and be spitting mad because we were showing different movies than the paper listed, the times were wrong, and the tickets weren’t a dollar. We always politely directed them a mile down Lemay to the South City…
I loved South City. Going to a flick there was a unique experience, because for some reason people who’ve only paid a dollar to see a movie don’t realize they’re not supposed to stand up for 5 or 6 minutes at a time, yell to their friends on the other side of the auditorium, or generally behave…
So was this located in the plaza that is now Babies R Us/Sports Authority, etc? Or over by Old Navy?
Why would they call this the South City theater? The location sounds deep in south county. If anything, the South County Cinema was just a few blocks north on Lemay and that was closer to SOuth City than this theater.
I can see why Wehrenberg built Keller to compete with all of these Lemay/Lindbergh theaters.
Theatres were in the plaza now containing Babies R Us…in other words the north side of the street.
According to the Mid-America ads in the paper the address was 4491 Lemay Ferry Road.
Checked yesterday…the current tenant is Checkered Flag.
The theatre closed March 30, 1989 as a dollar-house. In one auditorium was “The Naked Gun”; the other with “The Accidental Tourist” and “Tap”.
The South City was a very reliable place to see second run films from the mid-70’s through the late 80’s.
A South City newspaper ad in December hyping “Jaws” read “King Kong (the 1976 remake) is here but Jaws is still the King.
"The Hindenburg” was actually fun there in 1976!
The last film I saw there was “Hairspray” in 1988 and by then it was clear that it was starting to run down and with the Keller and Lindbergh recently built nearby and VHS and home video on the rise, the South City would soon be only a memory.
An address of 4491 Lemay Ferry Road. Named “South City” after the shopping center, not the physical location.
September 15th, 1972 grand opening ad in photo section.
Can someone help me out with this? I have been looking at older newspapers and what I can’t figure out is that sometimes this was a second-run theater, and other times, especially when a new horror flick came out, it would always be showing at this theater. Why was this?