Westgate Cinema

The Westgate Cinema opened its doors on December 2, 1971 with William Holden in “The Christmas Tree” along with an unnamed Disney cartoon, and was first owned by Tom Boswell who later operated the Tyson Theatre downtown.

The Westgate Theatre is the first Mississippi movie theatre to feature the installations of Norelco Non-Rewind Film System which consists of three large discs measured 47 inches in diameter, a splayfooted stand with guide rollers attached to its frame, a winding table for makeup and breakdown of program, and a control unit. The original projectionist of the theater is Tom’s brother Curtis Boswell, who is one out of two brothers who worked at the theatre.

Here’s how this machine goes as follows: One disc is feed to the projector and another takes the take-up ring. A plug-in speed control unit is inserted in the middle of the feeder and a plugin take-up ring is inserted into the take-up wheel. A spring-loaded arm is located below the middle support arm and controls the speed of the ring. The film to be screened is placed on the feeder and fed from the plugin speed control unit over the rollers on the frame of the stand, then goes to the projector. The film passes through the projector and is attached to the take-up ring via a roller on the stand and one of the rollers on the spindle of the spring-loaded arm. When the films are finished, the plugin take-up ring has only to be replaced by a plug-in speed control unit and the program can be instantly repeated.

The theatre continued running as a single-screener into the early-1980’s, but its closing date has not yet to be found at this time.

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