Rae Twin Cinema
5500 Sunrise Highway,
Massapequa,
NY
11758
5500 Sunrise Highway,
Massapequa,
NY
11758
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Opened with “The sword in the stone” and “The biscuit eater”.
I saw “The Longest Yard”, Burt Reynolds was on a roll then,featuring ex-Tarzan Mike Henry who would later appear in Burt’s other movie"Smoky and the Bandit".Poor Jerry Lewis and his cinema chain,he at one time been an usher in a theater Suzanne Pleshette’s father managed.Jerry got her a part in her first movie"The Gheisha Boy".
White’s merged with Modell’s,the signs read WHITE/modell ,then when White’s closed,it was all Modell’s,until they downsized the stores and sold only the core product,sporting goods. By the way,the Google map pinpoint is too much to the west,along with the picture.
According to January 1, 1973 issue of Boxoffice, this was the 201st Jerry Lewis Cinema and it opened 12/22/1972
I don’t think there was any connection between White and Waldbaum’s. My dad knew something about one of the founders, but I vaguely remember the details. The store in Massapequa was one of two that started in the 50’s, and they expanded in the late ‘60 thru the early 70’s around the NY area. The original store that fronted Sunrise Highway was torn down around 1972, and the new store built way off the road on the site of the Massapequa Drive-in. White originally ran the food market, but later contracted it out to Waldbaums.
My college girl (still my wife) is from Monticello, and I remember the White store all the way out at the edge of town. I think there is a Sears Surplus store there now?
I would lovwe to see the whites circular mike glaser 1-631-236-7121
Summer 1975
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Were they affiliated with Waldbaums? I have a White department Store Circular- they are on the back page. There was one at the Monticello N.Y. shopping center which housed a Jerry Lewis Twin Cinema.
goldthorpe- your talking about White Department Stores-didn’t last long. Opened around 1970 and went under in 1974. They were affiliated with Waldbaums.
The current Harrow’s there is going out of business. Another store in that huge lot back then was a store called “White”. I don’t even think it was White’s, the sign outside said White. I remmber it was connected inside to a supermarket, Waldbaum’s perhaps.
To answer your question from a year ago Robert R, the Jerry Lewis Twin in Massapequa became a Rae Twin Cinema before it finally closed. The last movie to play there was Love at First Bite. I remeber that distinctly because after the theater closed the movie title was on the marquee for a while as the property sat vacant. The building is now a Harrows. I saw GREASE there with my sister when I was 13. Wow that took me back! Wat a great time to be a kid!
Here is the Saturday Night Fever ad I mentioned a year ago
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When “Saturday Night Fever” opened in 1977, one of the Long Island locations was the Rae Twin in Massapequa. I know there was a Rae Twin on Staten Island. Was the Long Island version the former Jerry Lewis Twin in Massapequa?
The video (VHS and DVD) is available in Japan as well.
I had heard a rumor years ago that the “Little Rascals” series was also shelved because it was deemed racist. Ok…yeah…there were scenes that were…questionable such as Buckwheats wiping his sweaty brow and showing the wall getting splattered with brown/black coloring. Or when they all pretended they had the measles and they pained Buckwheat’s face with white dots.
But then it started showing up on American Movie Classics on Saturday mornings. And what I found interesting is how EQUAL the black kids were treated on the show to the point that they often got the better of the white folks.
And the show was pretty funny too.
Disney didn’t quite ‘ban’ ‘Song of the South’ in this country. Instead of opting to use the film to spur intelligent dialogue among adults (and children) about how racial (and, to a broader base, cultural) perceptions have changed and evolved since the time of the film’s creation and initial release, they’ve opted to shelve it indefinitely, since its last U.S. theatrical run in November of ‘86. It has been (or, at least, was) available on video in the U.K. (and perhaps other international territories as well) in the years since.