Severance Theatre
3600 Mayfield Road,
Severance Town Center,
Cleveland Heights,
OH
44118
3600 Mayfield Road,
Severance Town Center,
Cleveland Heights,
OH
44118
2 people
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Todd-AO was a 70mm process. While a film may have been shot in 70mm, they made both 35mm and 70mm prints out of it.
So even if Hello Dolly played there, it wouldn’t have required 70mm equipment.
Funny Girl played there in roadshow but it was not in 70mm in most engagements. Dolly was in Todd-AO, if it played at the Severance (I can’t remember) it must have been in that format as a roadshow, so they must have had that capability.
When the Severance was a single theater it had Simplex XL 35mm projectors. The same projectors were used when it became a twin theater. Christie xenon lamps and platters were added at this time. They never had 70mm equipment. Also, the 5-plex theater described here actually was a 6-plex.
Two screens on April 5th, 1974. Grand opening ad posted.
The last day of business for Severance Movies was March 18,1999. The final films shown were The Corruptor, The Rage: Carrie 2, Cruel Intentions, Analyze This, 8MM, and Payback.
I’m betting it did, since they had both “Funny Girl” and “Hello, Dolly” in extended runs in 1968 & 1969, and those were likely roadshow engagements. Someone else will have the definitive answer, but to my memory, this was a high profile theater in those first years, and it’s hard to imagine they weren’t 70mm.
Do any Clevelanders know if the original Severance could run 70mm prints? (I know the 1980s expansion could; I’m asking about the original screen during the 1960s.)
I have information that suggests Regal closed this 4/21/1999. Was is possible that the 5-plex operated for another year after the original theatre closed?
series of grand opening ad uploaded in the photo section.
I woorked at the original theater from 1968 to 1970. The theater had 999 seats, 20 of them were on the second floor behind glass. We called it the penthouse. The seats were like living room chairs that could swivel, but were fixed to the floor. I was also their duing the Woodstock run. Funny Girl played in 1968 for 46 weeks. Hello Dolly played in 1969 for 25 weeks.
Just uploaded an old aerial shot of the mall. I saw “Funny Girl” but don’t recall if it was a roadshow presentation. Other films I think I saw here: “Alice’s Restaurant”, “The Priest’s Wife”, “Little Murders”, “The Touch”.
Severance was the first mall I knew. Some nice memories of those movie-going surroundings include:
The record store I remember as “Disc Records” (or “Discount Records” or “Disc Shop”). Their main store was downtown. If anyone can help with the name or anything else about the store, please speak up.
Eating before or after a movie at Diamond’s Deli in the lower section of the mall accessed from outside. My first deli food, and I loved it. To this day, you can set a plate of blueberry cheese blintzes in front of me and I’ll think of Diamond’s.
Eating inside the mall at Hot Shoppes Cafeteria, probably one of the nicest cafeteria style places ever, and a bit of luxury eating for a poor college student.
March 10th, 1965 grand opening ad is at
View link
and
View link
Great, thanks. I guess the Heights part threw me off.
It is here: /theaters/7410/
Does anyone recall a Loew’s Cedar Center twin in Cleveland Heights? I found a photo but I don’t see it listed on CT. Thanks.
I was there when it opened, with a reserved-seat enagagement of “Hello, Dolly”. I too remember it as smaller (my guess would about 750 seats). The seat count above probably includes the seats in the original theater (later twinned) and the later five-screen part that was not physically attached to the original theater.
It was a fairly typical new suburban house of the later 1960s; at the time a theater in a mall was somewhat of an innovation, and Severance was still a class act at the time. The walls, if memory serves, were patterned concrete block painted a chocolate brown. There were two light fixtures left and right of the screen above the emergency exits that were like a row of electric candles of different heights. The screen was just about wall-to-wall; I don’t remember if there was a screen curtain or just masking panels. The theater had no balcony but there was a VIP or party viewing room on one side of the projection portals.
What was the capacity of the original Severance? I’m sure it wasnt 1,600. I remember Funny Girl played there it its roadshow engagement…..Was there anything special about the original single screen theater?
FYI. I saw on a memoribila website today that the original Severance Theatre premiered the film “Woodstock” on April 20th, 1970.
The date was on an original ticket stub being sold among other Cleveland oriented rock & roll items.
So every payday the employee’s envelope says “Severance Pay”? Wouldn’t that be a little unsettling?
Found the ad for the opening of the adjacent 6-plex on April 5, 1986. If anyone is interested in seeing it, let me know!
Back when I lived in South Euclid, we had two choices of movie theaters, Severance and Loews East at Richmond Mall. During that time, whatever didn’t play at Severance would play at Richmond and whatever didn’t play at Richmond mall would play at Severance. In about 96 or 97, when Regal opened up a 10-screen theater behind Eastgate Plaza in Mayfield Heights (for the record, is in a terrible location and the new Richmond and Severance are so much nicer.), Both theaters, along with the new Mayfied 10, started to play the same movies as each other.