A Special Academy Award for the Best Run Theater?

This is an EXCELLENT IDEA!!!!!! The movie theatre venue is VERY important to me. I don’t return to theatres where I have had poor quality of life or bad service. If theatres competed for this Oscar honor, maybe there would be a resurgence in good service, and perhaps theatre builders would once again focus on bringing great beauty to their buildings. Imagine actually creating cinemas that are palatial (or near palatial) again!

Maybe not the Oscars, but perhaps there should be a Movie Theatre Award handed out at the end of each year. Why Not? There seem to be Awards for everything else lately>?

My vote for 2005 is the Arclight in Hollywood, CA.

Thank you all for your excellent feedback as I pursue this idea further! Meantime, I just want to say the idea was born from my experience as a child when my family and I saw the premiere of “Ben Hur” at the Boyd Theatre in Philadelphia. It was by far the most memorable theater-going experience I ever had, and for many years I regarded “Ben Hur” as one of the best movies ever made. Many many years later I saw “Ben Hur” again, this time on TV, but as I watched I wondered why I had thought “Ben Hur” had been so great for so many years. For so much seemed to be missing that time around. And I realized then and there that when I’d seen “Ben Hur” with my family years before at the Boyd, the theater itself and the remarkable way it was run had been two-thirds of the over all experience and artistry! But how much of which Hollywood was willing to give credit for I have no idea. But if Hollywood could come to gain a greater understanding and appreciation of just how vital well-run theaters are to them, and share its profitability and fame with them accordingly, there’s no question in my mind that the motion picture industry would enter an exciting new age, bigger than it ever had been before, with the well-run theaters themselves being very much a part of the celebrity. For they most certainly are a major part of the over all artistry. Or at least that had been the case back when “Ben Hur” premiered at the Boyd. And that experience as I say can never be pirated. As for the Boyd today, it’s been closed for many years now. with activist community groups struggling to find ways to bring it back to life once more. But for this ongoing struggle the city of Philadelphia has no money, private benefactors in Philadelphia have no money, and wealthy individuals out in the suburbs who do have money are wrapped up in restoring their own suburban theaters instead, while Hollywood itself appears disconnected from it all in both cases. And then Ron Howard — who, to be sure, is one of the greatest living directors today — scratches his head wondering why his “Cinderella Man” didn’t do so hot at the theaters. And the theater operators can report back, “Well, we tried.” To which Hollywood right now might reply, “Well, what’s that got to do with anything?” So all told there’s that total disconnect I keep seeing, so unlike how it was back at the Boyd, when the stars of “Ben Hur” itself were there at the premiere.

Awards for Good Theatre operation might seem like a workable concept, but in reality it would be more difficult than it might seem. First of all, there is no universal idea of what is good theatre operation. The chains are obviously run by accountants who work for the conglomerates which own them, and are strictly bottom-line oriented: the highest profit for the current quarter is all they look at. In their MBA-trained minds, any business is seen as a sacrifice for immediate profits, so the future of Hollywood and cinemas is no conern of theirs, only the immediate profits to stockholders. True capitalists would bristle at the idea that things should be otherwise!

Secondly, for this to have any impact, it would have to be on a national level, and that would instantly involve regionalism. Remember that everyone has pride of place, and it would soon degenerate to North vs. South (the Civil War has never really ended in the South), or ‘sophisticated’ East vs. ‘bucolic’ West, or Feminist owners vs. male owners, or Black owners vs. White owners, etc. etc. The divisions in society would soon trump any attempt at fairness, unless they determined every year to choose another theatre/cinema in a different area, run by a different gender of a different race, etc. And how genuine would such a judgement be then as to quality? It would become another excersize in public diversity sentiment.

How would judgements be made? Mom-‘n’-Pop single screen operations are really not the same as chain multiplexes, and it would be dicey to try to compare what are actually two different business models and yet expect the same results from them. Would this make the contest seem too arbitrary and capricious to seriously judge? Where would one find highly experienced (unpaid?) judges who had visited a site remote from their homes enough to really get a feel for the site and its consistancy of operation? How would one eliminate the personal bias that each one has for theatres/cinemas of his youthful locale? If a site disagreed with the write-up about their place, how would they appeal such a personal opinion to a central group? Would there then be a governing body that would review all the judges' write-ups and referee the clamors for special favor, or the accusations of special favor given to someone else? Since this might, in time, affect someone’s profit picture, could the national authority be sued for Restraint Of Trade, or fraud via conspiracy? Would you like to be a national judge accused of bias or conspiracy and criticized in print for such “incompetence” or favoritism? What compensation would such judges receive, and if they are to be volunteers with only their expenses met, are they to be accused of being mere “amateurs” who by implication are clueless as to the real nature of today’s exhibition? Who pays the bills for an office, personnel, supplies, transportation, publicity, awards, etc. etc.?

If the competition is to be more than a tempest in a teapot, then how would one pay a sizeable award that would encourage operators to go beyone the minimalist payment for the maximum profit? If it is to be only a token award such as a plaque, then who will design it, make it, deliver/present it, and at whose cost? Shold a theatre or exhibitor be allowed to ‘donate’ to the judges' expenses? Would such a donation be construed as self-interest in the industry, or a bribe? Would giving the same award to the same theatre/cinema twice in a row reflect a lack of suitable subjects, or a fixation on someone’s favorite cinema?

I think we begin to see the problems, desireable though the concept might otherwise be.

I think that the very choice of the Hollywood Pantages during the years that the Academy Awards ceremony was held there must have been implicit recognition of that theater being the prize winner in this category.

Or was it all a matter of behind-the-scenes political wrangling, and just demonstrated the clout of RKO?

There is the 1948 filmette: “Your Theatre” which shows some of those audience reactions and other scenes that you describe, but it is dated and rarely seen anymore. I don’t know who produced it, but one would imagine it to be from the National Assn. of Theatre Owners (NATO). It was last seen as a trailer at the close of a segment of the PBS series in the early ‘90s of “Matinee at the Bijou” and possibly a library has a set of the tapes of it from which one could look for the trailer. This short subject was never a popularity contest, but it showed the economic importance of the local theatre to the local economy as well as being the major entertainment focus for a community.

It would be seen as a curio today to a TV station, but maybe someone could get the rights to show it on a local station by contacting the Copyright Cleareance Office at the Library of Congress which might itself have a copy of the 10-minute black and white film. A company called Criterion supplies many ‘shorts’ and possibly they will have it. The Theatre Historical Soc. of America may have a copy of it, but as they will tell you, mere possession of a copy is not the same thing as the legal right to exhibit it, though it might possibly be in the public domain which is what the Copyright Clearance Office can tell you.

This is not exactly what you wanted, but it may be as close as you can get in stimulating public appreciation of an exhibition form that seems to be fading. One could contact the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (the OSCARS) in Pasadena, but remember that every year the TV production of the “Oscars” is criticized as being too long, sometimes approaching four hours! For all that time, the MPAAS must find a sponsor willing to pay for each segment of the show, and I doubt highly that NATO would have the many thousands of dollars for commercial payment even if they would agree with your idea and intent. Ah, theatrebuff1, if there were an easy way to implement your idea, it would be grand, so do keep on thinking on the matter. You may have the makings of a producer in you, and his job is always to first find backers and their money.

Theatrebuff1: you give some very good comments, but if you want people to contact you privately on this matter, you must leave your E-mail address or other contact information. When one clicks on the blue name line at the bottom of a message here, he is taken to that person’s Profile Page where such information is recorded. You should go to yours and update the CONTACT entry which is now blank.

Though I’m sure it was pure coincidence in relation to this essay, I’m delighted that the 2006 Oscars gave recognition to the invaluableness of seeing a movie on a giant screen, and how with some movies there just is no other way to see them and hope to see them at their absolute best. To be sure, I would have liked them to have gone further and given full recognition to how great theatrical architecture plays a major role in seeing a great movie at its best, too, not to mention the artistic sensitivity of a theater’s management. But that is only something that audiences of the past with good memories — and hopefully those of the future — would readily be able to appreciate. There are theaters that match that description now, but to be sure, far too few at this moment. But take heart, as things do change. No one can predict when or why, but they do, as, assuredly, history has always taught us.

As Paul Klieman, who operated Philadelphia, Pennsylvania’s last independent movie theater, and who passed away recently, put it so well:

“"You see all this narcotics, it’s a result of boredom… . Even with cable and VCRs and all that stuff, you get claustrophobic in the same room in the same apartment. The movies are a means of getting away. It’s recreation.”

And as a Philadelphia resident I can attest to the fact that parts of this city where well-run movie theaters once existed but that exist no more have become very dismal, boring places to reside in or pay a visit to as a result. Meaning that there’s more to movie theaters than their simply having large screens, although that certainly remains a huge plus. And to be sure, Philadelphia is now all the poorer for its recent loss of Paul Klieman and the theaters he ran so masterfully.

But other parts of the U.S. are very lucky. For instance, jnjeisen, who posted a comment earlier on this page, appears to be doing a fabulous job running the Orpheum Theatre in Hillsboro, Illinois. And equally impressive is how well the Majestic Theatre in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania (which was recently fully restored) is currently being run. And the trick is in running a movie theater as an art form, as an extension of the movie itself, rather than merely as a business. For this artistry — which not just anyone can do — there most definitely should be awards and full Academy recognition for.