Loew's Valencia Theatre
165-11 Jamaica Avenue,
Jamaica,
NY
11432
165-11 Jamaica Avenue,
Jamaica,
NY
11432
36 people
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Showing 226 - 250 of 480 comments
1975
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An exclusive late in the game
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You’re welcome, robbie dupree. My pleasure. Bway has many interesting things to say and show about the Broadway Theater, which once stood at the southwest corner of Bway and Myrtle Avenue, and which dates back to the late 19th century. I think there’s a page on it on this site.
Thanks, Warren, for all the info on the early and small cinemas of downtown Jamaica.
Thanks PKoch for the info on The Bushwick. I had a feeling that it was a broadway movie house…robbie
No, the scenes at the abandoned movie house were filmed at the RKO Bushwick. “Bway” on this site has ample proof and documentation.
It was here at the broadway
/theaters/3987/
Many years ago I saw a film starring Martin Sheen titled The Believers. Some scenes were filmed in an abandoned movie house. I wonder if anyone knows which one ? It looked like it was in East New York or Bushwick but I could never pinpoint it…Robbie
Yes, I remember “The Wild Bunch” opening at the RKO Madison Theatre in Ridgewood, Queens ( # 4621 on this site) in June or July of 1969.
thanks ed= that sounds right. i appreciate your placing it for me. robbie
Robbie… “The Wild Bunch” was released in June of 1969. Not sure how that film rolled out, but if you saw it on first run at the Valencia, it was probably sometime that Summer. The theater held on for another 8 years – though they surely were not the best of times for this magnificent show place.
I lived on Crescent St. in Brooklyn, right under the BMT Jamaica line. Most times I went to more local theatres like The Embassy, The Haven or The Earl but as reached driving age I went to The Valencia on dates. It was that kind of theatre, like nothing I had ever seen. I don’t remember the exact date but the last movie I saw there was The Wild Bunch. There weren’t 50 people in the theatre and I could feel the end was in sight. I was so happy to find this site and read all these wonderful stories and facts. Does anyone know when The Wild Bunch played ? RobbieDupree
I lived on Crescent St. in Brooklyn, right under the BMT Jamaica line. Most times I went to more local theatres like The Embassy, The Haven or The Earl but as reached driving age I went to The Valencia on dates. It was that kind of theatre, like nothing I had ever seen. I don’t remember the exact date but the last movie I saw there was The Wild Bunch. There weren’t 50 people in the theatre and I could feel the end was in sight. I was so happy to find this site and read all these wonderful stories and facts. Does anyone know when The Wild Bunch played ? RobbieDupree
Thanks, EdSolero, interesting how the horizontal member of the cross sign seems to jut out of the “hole” in the upper center of that baroque facade.
Here’s a 1993 look at the marquee and facade of the former Valencia that I snapped on my old Canon EOS. I finally scanned the print (as well as a number of others I took that fall in Queens and on 42nd Street) and uploaded the image to my Photobucket account.
Tabernacle of Prayer
Samuel Beckett was yet another.
Tynan was one of many authors. John Lennon was another.
Thanks, BoxOfficeBill. I’m reminded of Lenny Bruce’s obscenity busts.
Are you a Beat historian, by any chance, either professional or amateur ? I’d be interested to know.
I recall Kenneth Tynan as either the author and / or producer or director of “Oh ! Calcutta !”
PKoch—
The 1965 policing of Michael McClure’s “The Beard†took place in California, not NYC. The play depicts an encounter in the afterlife between Jean Harlow and BoxOfficeBillâ€"oops, I mean Billy the Kidâ€"and it includes profanity and a simulated sex act.
After the police closed down four performances at different venues in San Francisco and Berkeley and arrested cast members upon each of fourteen consecutive performances in LA, the ACLU successfully defended its right to be staged. The California legislature then introduced an anti-obscenity bill, but the proposal was quickly defeated. There’s an account of these events in the Preface to the play’s printed edition (San Francisco: City Lights, 1967).
On 24 Oct. ’67 the play opened uneventfully in NYC in an off-Broadway production at the Evergreen Theater on W 11 Street, directed by the estimable Rip Torn, and it won two Village Voice Obie Awards. Walter Kerr wrote that it was “a children’s play that children ought not to see,†or words to that effect. A London production was hailed by the mighty Kenneth Tynan as “a heterosexual milestone.â€
The mono surround channel in the Warnerphonic system consisted solely of surround sound effects.
It’s good that they had that mono surround channel as backup.
It would have been nice to have that on my first stereo phonograph, when I’d start losing the right channel of sound because of my cartridge wearing out ….
Yeah, yeah, I know, spend $ 10.95 on a new cartridge !
I saw a screening of the 1939 “Wizard Of Oz” in Yonkers in November 1998 which purported to be stereo, but was mostly mono sound.
The original stereo tracks for HOUSE OF WAX are lost. All that survives of the original Warnerphonic sound is the mono surround channel.
Thanks, Warner, for mentioning that, specifically, that the Broadway stage wasn’t subject to the Hollywood Production Code.
What code, if any, WAS the Broadway stage subject to ? I’m thinking specifically now of the arrest of the cast and crew of the Michael McClure play, “The Beard”, in the late 1950’s or early 1960’s. Please elaborate and enlighten us, if you can.
Thank you so much, Lost Memory, for all this detailed information.
“House Of Wax” (the original) was a great film. My dad saw it when it first came out, and I saw it, also in color Polaroid 3-D, about 35 years later, at Film Forum in downtown NYC.
The mention of Marilyn [Monroe]’s behind in Cole Porter’s song seems a bit forward for the times, seeing how we got to see a good deal more of her in that 1952 nude color calendar shot, the one where her left breast seems to be looking right at you, like an eye, and what wasn’t seen in that, was fantasized about, when the subway breeze blew her skirt up around her in “The Seven Year Itch”.
Thanks, Warren, that’s probably correct. I’ll check it out on the IMDb.
Warren, when did stereophonic sound begin in motion pictures ? It was mentioned explicitly (“in stereophonic sound”) in a song in a musical film. You might recall which one.
Apparently, stereophonic sound began in motion pictures a few years before it became available on LP records.