Cinema 70

Cinema 70 was a wide-format theater that opened adjacent to the new-build, Crossroads Malls in the mid-1960’s. Its 17-year run from thrilled moviegoers and decimating the business of downtown’s venues it vanquished in the Eastman Theater, Hays Theater and Paramount Theater. But Cinema 70, itself, would be demolished after being replaced by a newer cinema as the suburban luxury movement gave way to the multiplex era.

The St. Cloud / Waite Park Cinema 70 was an independent movie theater that represented a movement in film exhibition called the suburban luxury theatre era. It was a time when aging central business districts were under pressure from strip shopping centers and malls offering free parking and fresh facilities in the outer reaches of urban areas. Fort Dodge, Iowa, and Rochester, Minnesota had Crossroads Center shopping plazas. For St. Cloud, that same company built the covered, Crossroads Center Mall would allow downtown businesses to flourish in a heated interior mall.

While retailers including J.C. Penney’s had no problem leaving downtown St. Cloud and opening in the new mall, the local theater companies weren’t interested in Crossroads Center. This left a chance for Drive-In Theatres Inc. (operators of the 10-Hi Drive-In and Cloud Drive-In, as well as two Wahpeton, North Dakota and hardtops in Austin and Breckenridge) to compete against the aged downtown cinemas. By building the Cinema 70.

Owners Robert and David Ross’ Cinema 70 showed both 35mm and 70mm films and they very much preferred 70mm films with six-track stereo so that folks wouldn’t have to drive to Minneapolis for that format an hour away. Cinema 70 had 600 seats on the main floor with wide spacing and an elevated smokers loge seating another 150 patrons. The reserved-seated “It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World” opened the venue on November 3, 1965 with both the Cinema and the Mall’s Sears anchor getting a head start on the yet-to-be-completed center. Penny’s would open in January and the entire Mall opened officially in April of 1966.

On September 25, 1968, the Rosses would open Fargo, North Dakota’s Cinema 70 with Cinerama and announced a third Cinema 70 in Aberdeen, South Dakota (which appears not to have opened). In St. Cloud, the reserved-seated “Sound of Music” played for some four months. The venue played 70mm films including “2001:A Space Odyssey,” “Dr. Zhivago,” “Ben-Hur,” and “Hello, Dolly!” When “Thunderball” opened to sub-zero temperatures, audiences turned away for the sold out performances waited outside of the outparcel location for two hours until the next show not wanting to miss out.

In January of 1970, the Ross' renamed Cinema Entertainment Corporation (CEC) opened the Cinema Arts Theatre with its corporate offices on the second floor in St. Cloud. On February 6, 1974, the Cinema 70 became a two-screen facility with “The Sting” on what was called “Side One” and “40 Carats” showing on Side Two. Cinema Arts expanded from a single screen to two and then three screens.

“E.T.” would have taken the record for longest-running St. Cloud film had it not been for the construction of a new three-screen venue in 1982 just behind the Cinema 70 - and designed to be its replacement. “E.T.“ opened at the Cinema 70 on June 11, 1982 in the smaller Side Two auditorium with just 260 seats. Cinema 70 closed on June 30, 1982 with “Walt Disney’s Bambi and “E.T.” Both prints moved to the new Crossroads Cinema 1-2-3 the next for their July 1, 1982 relaunch. "E.T.” would go on to become the longest-running film in city history with most to its time spent in the new facility.

The Cinema 70 sat vacant for months and was offered for free by Ross’ renamed Cinema Entertainment Corporation (CEC) - to anyone who wanted to move the building to a new location. Finding no takers, the theater would be demolished in June of 1983 apparently offering all remaining items for free inside the theater. Crossroads Cinema would expand from 3 to 4 screens in March of 1983. And it would expand to six screens on June 24, 1983 killing off any resemblance to a suburban luxury venue and toward a poorly-designed multiplex. The Crossroads and Cinema Arts Cinemas would be supplanted by the Parkwood 18 megaplex. Cinema Arts was closed and Crossroads was downgraded to discount theater before closing on March 19, 2006.

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