Viers Mill Theater

In its heyday, Viers Mill was the only movie house from downtown Rockville to Downtown Silver Spring, an area crawling with thousands and thousands of little baby boomers, so it was THE place to be on a Saturday afternoon. I, too, was there when the manager came out onstage and told us that our parents would have to pay $50,000 for a new screen if we got caught pelting it with candy (or cups full of soda!). As newer theaters sprung up from Randolph Hills to Wheaton Plaza to Aspen Hill, Viers Mill was forced to go porno around 1968. I was working at Rodman’s when they took over in 1976, and by that time, the place was really gross. Rodman’s owners called an employees' meeting in the theater to explain their plans, and I can tell you nobody wanted to sit in those seats! I still have a mint condition National Bohemian can that we found during the demolition, inside a wall where some worker had entombed it during the original construction back in 1949. The stage became the pharmacy, and the old theater lobby now housed the optical department. The rest rooms were retained in their same location, but were updated for the employees. The marquee was kept for awhile and displayed store specials, until it caught fire a couple of times and had to be demolished. I believe the old poster frame shown in the photos was actually installed later for the drug store’s weekly ad, but it is possible that it was salvaged from an original location next to the box office. If you stand on the sales floor and look up, you can see perhaps the last remaining vestige of the original theater: the projection booth became the manager’s office, allowing them to watch for shoplifters using the same projection window through which such classics as Old Yeller and The Shaggy Dog once shone onto the silver screen (well, silver accented by orange Nehi and assorted colors of Jujubes!).

Another Randolph Hills kid here! Spent a good portion of my 50s/60s youth at the Viers Mill Theater on Saturdays. Yes there was always a double feature, and if you walked in after the movie had started, you would just stay until it started again—I think that was allowable in most area theaters at the time. We would also go to Rexall and buy candy—Bonomo’s Turkish Taffy was a fave because it lasted a long time—remember the ad campaigns, urging you to slam it on a surface to crack it? The theater seat armrest was just perfect for doing so. I remember lots of Vincent Price movie double features being advertised, although we were usually there for kiddie fare: Disney films and other family fare—I remember seeing “Snow White Meets the 3 Stooges” there-yikes. Our parents would just drop us off, no adults in attendance, and I remember the place just teeming with nothing but kids whose parents had done the same—can you imagine that happening today? The floors were quite sticky. I also remember the soda machine in the lobby—it was the kind where the cup came down and then the soda & syrup came in two streams to fill it and magically stop at the right place. Of course, there were lots of times when the cup failed to appear and you watched your soda going down the drain.

Just a side comment about unchaperoned kids:
We all grew up in a time when our moms threw us out of the house and told us not to come back till the streetlights came on!
The times were not simpler, or safer back then. Just the fear mongering kid-snatcher-on-every-corner reporting of the 24 hour news channels today. It saddens me to see such a societal regression where an ederly man in a park dare not help a child who’s fallen down for fear of being accused of attempted molestation .

Wow you guys. I remember the monster double features, sticky floors, and someone mentioned the soda machine. No one mentioned the silver dollar prize between horror movies. I do remember the guy coming out on stage warning us about throwing food at the screen and that they were getting a new one. Memories

August 3rd, 1950 grand opening ad in photo section