Northland Cinema I & II
1865 Morse Road,
Columbus,
OH
43229
1865 Morse Road,
Columbus,
OH
43229
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Showing 1 - 25 of 26 comments
Rebuilt and reopened in a new building on December 11th, 1985 with 8 screens
Two screens on October 24th, 1975. Another ad posted.
Boxoffice of August 24, 1964, said that the Northland Cinema in Columbus had held its public opening on August 13. Originally a single-screen house operated by Cincinnati Theatres Co., the Northland featured a screen 60x25 feet and planned to show first-run movies.
It was 50 years ago today that “The Sound of Music” premiered at Northland. With a reserved-seat run of 84 weeks, it’s almost certainly the long-run record holder for this venue. (Anyone know of something that ran longer?) It was one of more than 70 engagements in North America that ran the movie longer than one year.
“The Sound of Music” also was the second of two consecutive long-running Julie Andrews movies to play this venue during 1965-66. That two-year period must’ve been bliss or hell for local moviegoers depending on whether or not they were a fan of Julie!
Northland Cinema closed on 4/21/1985 with showings of Girls Just Want to Have Fun, Porky’s and Care Bears. The ad noted that this theatre was closing and that a new 8-plex would be opened later in the year.
Canibfrankwithyou, are you mixing up Northland and Cinema North? I know there was a Sword system at Cinema North, and it was just east of Northland.
This cinema was among the first to have installed the “EPRAD” Sword System which was designed to run movies completely unatended. The film would be equally divided between two projectors on large reels then threaded onto the two projectors. After an automated changeover from projector 1 to projector 2, projector 1 remains threaded to reverse and stop at the begining of the feature and waits for the next timed restart cue from the program timer. Projectors are modified to release film tension in the film gate during reverse function. Also a 10% increased speed in reverse is available in case film is not equally biased. The automation had other capabilities outside the booth such as theatre lighting, popcorn warmers, sound systems, etc.
Dennis, my introduction to the new NORTHLAND 8 was also at COLOR PURPLE. First time in a THX theatre and first time hearing DEEP NOTE. I’ll try to get that location up on Cinema Treasures soon.
Northland Cinema (1964-c.early ‘80s) was not only Columbus’s first suburban first-run theater, it was also Central Ohio’s first mall cinema. It opened with the mall, which was enclosed in the early '70s. Its first attraction was GOOD NEIGHBOR SAM, a Columbia comedy starring Jack Lemmon. It got into the roadshow business in Jan. 1965 with MARY POPPINS, followed in April by THE SOUND OF MUSIC, which played Northland until Nov. 1966. The first film I saw at Northland, which for my family involved a trip far across town, was THOROUGHLY MODERN MILLIE in July 1967. I was 13.
These first suburban theaters were transitional—somewhere between a downtown movie palace and the multiplexes that would be everywhere ten years after these single-auditorium places were built The cinema was twinned in the mid-‘70s, around the same time it was bought from its local owners by General Cinema. GCC closed it in the '80s to open a free-standing eight-cinema multiplex in Dec. '85. The first film I saw there was THE COLOR PURPLE.
Opening this April, according to the article.
One 800 seat room, able to accomodate 1,500 standing
Can be configured in almost any way
1 – 50 seat room, possibly for children’s theatre
Article here:
View link
How many separate stage auditoriums will they have in the JC Penney building?
An update on the Northland space:
According the THIS WEEK COMMUNITY NEWSPAPERS, the Vaud-VIllities group (Now called the Northland Performing Arts Center) traded the old 8-plex theatre for space in the old JC Penney building. This gave the theatre group a larger and more open space. The Franklin County Animal Shelter is being built on the site of the theatre.
The Vaud-Villities website has conflicting information. One page says they are working to build their facility in the old GCC Northland 8 building. Another page says they are working now in the old JC Penney building which is about 200 yards from the theater.
Any news on Vaud-Villities plans to reuse this theatre?
Here is a January 1969 ad from the Columbus Dispatch:
http://tinyurl.com/2t36ur
I went to a movie at Northland Cinema on Thursday July 18, 1968 at 2pm and saw “Doctor Dolittle”. I was 12 years old and my brother drove me there to see it. He bought me the movie program which I still have today and I wrote the date and day that I saw it inside. At that time I believe the mall had not been enclosed with a ceiling like Eastland Mall was.
Here are some architects' drawings of the future NorthlandPark Arts Center. The page also has links to recent newspaper articles about the project.
(The 8-plex doesn’t have its own listing at CinemaTreasures, so I may as well post news about it here.)
Also from the Dispatch archives: General Cinema’s Northland 8 multiplex opened on Wednesday, December 11, 1985, and closed on Thursday, September 28, 2000.
The reconstruction of the Northland theatre by Vaud-Villities refers to the parking lot 8-plex, not the one in the mall. Aside from the old Lazarus store, the mall was demolished.
According to the online Columbus Dispatch archives at Dispatch.com, Vaud-Villities announced plans in April 2005 to rebuild the Northland Mall 8-plex cinema. It will become a live entertainment and rehearsal complex named ‘NorthlandPark Arts Center’.
Here’s Vaud-Villities' press release about the project. They are having an open house this Saturday, August 20.
Ron, I may be completely mistaken about this, but I think Eastland and Northland used that hexagonal logo as an interior decoration.
Northland Mall cinema was located at the East end of the mall toward Sears. It had a very small lobby area. Room was simply cut in half for twinning.
Northland was originally an open mall.
The chain that owned this before General Cinema used a very distinctive hexagonal logo in its newspaper advertisements.
Their single screen cinema in the Eastland Mall is also long gone, although at least that mall remains open.
Ran Norelco AA-II style projectors. Did have 70mm capability, and played many in early days. Played a mag-stereo version of Tommy. Split in two with a wall right down the center. Seemed very dated when it closed, replaced by 8-plex with one THX room.