Village Cinema

Baker Amusement’s Joe and Harriet Baker opened the Village Cinema at the Havre Holiday Village Mall in November 1978. John and Ted Mitchell, operators of the Holiday Village Mall in Great Falls, conceived this small community mall in 1976, at the same time plans were being developed for downtown mall in Havre. With the new-build single-screener “land locked” in the new mall, the Bakers were bucking the trend of multiplexes being built all over the country in malls and retail strip centers.

The Village Theatre and Holiday Village Mall were designed by architects Miller & Fiedler aka William Fiedler Associates of Spokane. Havre Holiday Village Mall opened on November 8, 1978, with 41 retail spaces, anchored by JCPenney and a Woolworth variety store. The Village Theatre joined the Bakers other theaters: the Sunset Drive-In, and both downtown venues, the Havre Theatre and Cinema I & II. It was marketed as the Village Cinema by the mid-1980’s.

Jerry Mattern took over operations of these venues before they returned to the Bakers in 1988 under the Havre Theatres Inc. nameplate. Attendance at the Village Theatre declined, leading the Bakers to close it prior to leasing expiry on March 16, 1989. The theater portfolio appears to have been sold to Erin and Howard Pickerall later that same year. They chose not to reopen the Village Theatre. The Pickeralls later sold out to Polson Theatres, which converted Cinema I & II into a quad.

The Holiday Village Mall owners gave up on a new operator taking over the cinema. They reclaimed the theater space and leveled the floor. It was leased to The Classic Rattler, Horn, and Antler Museum with Wildlife Craft Shop in 1993. It has since housed multiple tenants, including a recreation center in the 2020’s. The Mall had also entered into grey field status, a term akin to a “dead mall” with vacancy rates at the Havre Holiday Village well above 50 percent. The Atrium Mall downtown was also still functioning in the 2020’s in the former Frank A. Buttrey-operated The Fair turned Buttrey’s.

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