Loew's Jersey Theatre

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[size=4][color=red]The Landmark Loews Jersey â€" The Wonder Theatre Of New Jersey[/color][/size]

This coming weekend of February 25th and 26th, The Landmark Loews Jersey Theatre located on Journal Square in Jersey City, New Jersey, continues its 10th consecutive year of classic films with three films featuring one of the great couples of cinema, Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall.

The theatre is located directly across from the PATH subway station connecting Manhattan with Jersey City, it is also easy to reach from most area highways. Secure discounted parking is located directly behind the theatre. Have your parking ticket validated at the theatre’s boxoffice.

Unlike Some Other Classic Motion Picture Venues, All Our Show Are Presented Exclusively From High Resolution 35mm Motion Picture Film With Genuine Carbon Arc Projection, On Our Giant 50 Foot Wide Screen.

Friday February 25th at 8:00pm â€" To Have And Have Not (1944)

Starring Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Walter Brennan
Directed by Howard Hawks. (100 Minutes)

This is the movie that brought Bogart and Bacall together â€" both on screen and off. Bogart is the owner of a charter boat in Vichy-controlled Martinique. Approached by Free French activists, Bogart doesn’t want to stick his neck out for them â€" until he finds that doing so will help Bacall. While the screenplay by William Faulkner and Jules Furthman owes as much to Casablanca as to the Hemingway novel they were adapting, it nevertheless is a terrific blend of romance and action leavened with comedy, and Howard Hawks’ direction is, as usual, masterful. But what makes the film truly electric is the unmistakable chemistry that was boiling over for real between Bogart and Bacall as the cameras rolled.

Saturday February 26th at 6:00pm â€" The Big Sleep (1946)

Starring Humphrey Bogart & Lauren Bacall
Directed by Howard Hawks. (114 Minutes)

One of the most popular noir films and most influential detective movies ever made, The Big Sleep nevertheless has one of the most convoluted scripts of any movie made in classic Hollywood. Director Howard Hawks literally blew past red herrings and possible dead ends by letting dialogue and action spill out so fast that there is barely time to acknowledge, never mind contemplate, a new plot twist. But Hawks did slow down to let the audience fully appreciate the erotic innuendo in the repartee between Bogart’s Philip Marlowe and Bacall’s Mrs. Rutledge — performances that were made palpable by the couple’s real-life relationship. This was cutting edge stuff for a Hollywood still under the Production Code. It’s the combination of this razor sharp sexual edge with the disquieting murky mystery that gives the film its distinctly hot yet cold, dream/nightmare feeling.

Saturday February 26th at 8:30pm â€" Dark Passage (1947)

Starring Humphrey Bogart & Lauren Bacall.
Directed by Delmar Davis. (107 Minutes)

A well constructed Film Noir that is one of the most darkly seductive but seldom revived pairings of Bogart & Bacall. Bogart is a man wrongly accused of his wife’s murder who undergoes plastic surgery to conceal his identity. Bacall, more vulnerable here than in other roles, is a lonely heiress who shelters Bogie — and falls for him — while he tries to find his wife’s real killer. The film makes great use not only of its stars' real life chemistry but also of its San Francisco setting. The Bay Area’s hills and winding roads, world-famous bridges and even prison proximity are integral to the story, while the city’s mixture of affluence and squalor, misfits and money men give texture to the shadowy atmosphere. The supporting cast more than hold their own, and Director Delmar Davis makes great use of the tight, efficient script. The opening scenes filmed from Bogart’s perspective are especially effective, adding a distinct, perhaps even Hitchcock-ian feel. Don’t miss this rare chance to see this noir gem on the Big Screen.

Visit The Landmark Loews Jersey web site for details.

[size=1]The Landmark Loews Jersey Theatre[/size]

There are two versions of “Baby Face”. I wonder if the Jersey will be screening the “wilder” version that the Film Forum screened last year?

Great line up of films for the Loew’s “Pre-code” weekend.

Fri. Jan.28. 8:00 PM Double feature of “Freaks” and “She Done Him Wrong”

Sat. Jan.29. 6:30 PM “Morocco"
8:30 PM "Baby Face”

I thoroughly enjoyed the Albert Finney version of “Scrooge” at the Loew’s last week. I even enjoyed it yesterday afternoon on TCM, but that viewing made me even more appreciative to have just seen it 50 feet wide. The Loew’s showing brought me back to 1971 when I first saw it, in a theater with a much smaller screen. Just my own opinion, and no disrespect to Crosby, Kaye and Clooney, but I think “Scrooge” is a much better movie than “White Christmas”.

The organ/vocal concert and sing-along, featuring specially created lyrics with Loew’s Jersey graphics projected on the screen, were wonderful as well. Thanks, Loew’s Jersey staff!

No judgements passed…just opinion. Spin it however you want, the “Holiday” movies this year were on the weak side.
Moving on now,looking forward to the precode weekend !

I agree. Why not “White Christmas”? That film would have looked super on the big screen.

[size=4][color=red]The Landmark Loews Jersey â€" The Wonder Theatre Of New Jersey[/color][/size]

The weekend of November 19th and 20th, The Landmark Loews Jersey Theatre located on Journal Square in Jersey City, New Jersey, continues its 9th consecutive year of classic films with a tribute to a local boy who made it big, Frank Sinatra.

The theatre is located directly across from the PATH subway station connecting Manhattan with Jersey City, it is also easy to reach from most area highways. Secure discounted parking is located directly behind the theatre. Have your parking ticket validated at the theatre’s boxoffice.

Unlike Some Other Classic Film Venues, All Our Show Are Presented Exclusively From High Resolution 35mm Motion Picture Film With Genuine Carbon Arc Projection On Our Giant 50 Foot Wide Screen.

Friday November 19th at 8:00pm â€" The Man With The Golden Arm (1955)

Starring Frank Sinatra, Kim Novak, Eleanor Parker, Darren McGavin
Directed by Otto Preminger (B&W, 119 Minutes)

Sinatra is riveting as a two-bit card shark and drug addict trying to go straight in this deep, very dark noir film that features razor sharp characters, great acting, a crisp jazz soundtrack by Elmer Bernstein and a stylish rendering of the post-war hipster milieu. Sinatra’s depiction of the agony of drug withdrawal remains one of the most chilling yet powerful scenes ever filmed. Director Otto Preminger released this groundbreaking drama without the sanction of a Production Code seal, and helped break the stranglehold the censorial Code held over American cinema. This rare big-screen presentation will be shown in a restoration print from the Film Archive of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences.

Saturday November 20th at 6:00pm â€" On The Town (1949)

Starring Gene Kelly, Frank Sinatra, Betty Garret, Anne Miller, Vera-Ellen, Jumes Munshin.
Directed by Stanley Donen and Gene Kelly. (Color, 98 Minutes)

The kind of movie they don’t make anymore — great music, great dancing, fun, romantic, exhilarating. Three sailors go on a whirlwind, 24-hour leave in New York City. Sinatra is great as the one more interested in seeing the sites than chasing girls — but who winds up being chased by one. Dazzling on-location scenes of mid-century New York, including the now iconic “New York, New York” opening. Choreography by Kelly, music and story by Adolph Greene & Betty Comden, score co-written by Leonard Bernstein.

Saturday November 20th at 8:20pm â€" From Here To Eternity (1953)

Starring Burt Lancaster, Montgomery Clift, Deborah Kerr, Frank Sinatra, Donna Reed, Ernest Borgnine.
Directed by Fred Zinnemann. (B&W, 118 minutes).

Extraordinary cast playing complex, engrossing characters, including Sinatra in an Academy-Award wining role that proved his power as a dramatic actor and revitalized his career. The story broke American cinematic ground — and taboos — with its frank depiction of ambitions, frustrations, personal conflicts, deliberate cruelty, sexual desire and adultery on a Honolulu Army base in the languid months leading up to the Pearl Harbor attack. The scene of Lancaster and Kerr in erotic embrace on the beach is legendary.

Visit The Landmark Loews Jersey web site for details.

[size=1]The Landmark Loews Jersey Theatre[/size]

Easily the biggest turnout I’ve ever seen there! It was such a great thing to witness—and there were all kinds of people there. The audience seemed liked a good cross-section of the NJ population.

It should also be mentioned that this is by far the best behaved movie audience I know of, and I see it in show after show. They are very quiet during the movie (except for the expected film reactions) and the cells phones are put away once the movie starts. It must be the surroundings that bring out this good behavior in the audience. I have never heard 1,000+ people be so quiet before!

Although I suspect that part of this is due to the acoustical design of the auditorium. My theory is that the light coves under the balcony trap the sound of the orchestra audience; and the side wall coves trap the balcony audience sound. I would not put it past the architects of that time.

Movie was great! Organ was great! Theatre was fantastic! $1 popcorn. $1 soda. $6 to $8 to get in. How can you beat it?!

Still awaiting attendance figures from Saturday’s screening of “Nosferatu”, but it MAY have been a record-breaking turnout for a classic film screening (surpassing “Frankenstein” and even “Phantom of the Opera”) – amazingly, some of the biggest FOL movie shows have been SILENT films. For certain, Loew’s Jersey customers surely love horror films. Box office sales figures for this show estimated at around 10 grand! No one could have imagined such success.

Initial crowd expectations were 500-600, but actual turnout appeared to be well over 1000. Even with a short-handed (for a large event) “skeleton crew”, the capable, tireless volunteer staff took just under an hour to get an enormous queue (which stretched down the side and past the rear of the theatre) through the doors and seated. An unbelievable team effort!

All of this just two days after The Village Voice’s “Best of NYC 2010” issue (Oct. 20-26, 2010 / p.67) proclaims Loew’s Jersey as “Best Movie Theater”. Remarkable, considering that it’s in New Jersey!

Out of the 10 theaters listed; the only one that appears to be a “True” movie palace is our very own Wonder Theater; the Loew’s Jersey. The Oaks in Berkeley appears large enough but the description is scant and it doesn’t appear to be anywhere in the same league as the Jersey. It appears that it is safe to say that the Loew’s Jersey is the best of the this country’s historic Movie Palaces whose main function continues to be showing films. We can argue that many other theaters are grander (The Loew’s Paradise, Loew’s 175th Street, Loew’s Valencia, Loew’s Kings, Radio City, New Amsterdam, Atlanta Fox, Oakland Fox, Uptown in Chicago, etc.) But none of these theaters show movies consistently anymore (if at all). We’re very lucky to have this theater.

Can’t wait to see Nosferatu on Saturday night!

Actually, the balcony is about 1200 seats, so there are somewhat more seats downstairs.

AC is completely absent (the existing system is not repairable), so that will have to be reinstalled. The AC is probably more important for capacity than the balcony as the amount of heat 3000 people throw off is absolutely staggering. Regardless, at least part of the balcony (the loge) will likely be open before AC is installed.

The balcony is waiting on some life safety work (fire escape maintenance, sprinklers, etc.) to get done before we can open it, which is tempering the rate at which we work on the balcony compared to other, more pressing building maintenance work. We thought it would have gone faster than it is, but the recession has slowed down funding in all quarters.