A September, 1975 newspaper ad shared with the Boro Drive-In in South Attleboro, Massachusetts, promotes Games Guys Play along with Games Girls Play and the third feature, Roommates. $4.00 a carload.
A September, 1975 newspaper ad shared with the Quonset Drive-In in North Kingstown, RI, promotes Games Guys Play along with Games Girls Play and the third feature, Roommates. $4.00 a carload.
An article in the Providence Journal of September 16, 1976 reported the projected opening of the Cable Car that was set for October 20. The piece quoted a description of the new cinema by owner/creator Raymond Bilodeau as being a place of “rugged architecture and elegance.” The place seems actually to have opened, quietly, around October 30, 1976 when the first feature shown was Luther, a film in the American Film Theatre series which had previously been shown in Rhode Island. The cinema, formerly a garage, was to have armchairs, love seats and sofas and a seating capacity of 130.
For the finale of the 9th R.I. International Film Festival this evening at the Columbus Theatre, the presentation was a 35mm copy of the two-strip Technicolor version of the 1926 The Black Pirate with Douglas Fairbanks. It was a wonder to behold. 1926 was the year the Columbus opened and this was the festival’s tribute to the place. The accompanying music was provided by the unique Alloy Orchestra.
Preceding the feature was a surviving fragment of the 1916 My Lady of the Lilacs, made by the Rhode Island company called Eastern Film Corporation and now preserved by the Rhode Island Historical Society.
Yes, it is tame…and I believe you are right about the belated importation and the timing of the release with Lamarr’s burgeoning popularity. I’ve seen it a couple of times over the years and I believe it has been shown on TCM. DVDs are available through Amazon.com and other outlets.
The Ken Loach film Poor Cow was playing its second week here at the beginning of May, 1968. This was an unusual art-house type booking for this former neighborhood theatre.
An editorial by David Brussat in the Providence Journal of March 17, 1994 suggested the site of the former Rialto Theatre as the place to put a movie theatre in the then cinema-less downtown. One suggestion was for a multiplex at the site; another was for a single-screen “blockbuster house.” At the time plans were already underway to bring movie theatres to the proposed new mall at Providence Place, and this Rialto-revived facility never materialized. Here is an artist’s conception of what the front might looked like on the Mathewson Street theatre, whose front portion is all that remains of the otherwise demolished place. When the Providence Place Cinemas 16 and the Feinstein IMAX opened at the mall about six years later, the hope for new movie theatres for downtown Providence finally materialized, but not here.
The Paris Cinema opened as a single screen theatre on Wednesday, November 26, 1969. I went to the movie on opening day, The Madwoman of Chaillot with Katherine Hepburn, billed as an exclusive engagement. Screenings were continuous from 12 noon. The cinema was advertised as “The First New Theatre in Downtown Providence in Over 25 Years!” The place subsequently had two screens, but it was not the case of a large auditorium being twinned, just that the second of the side-by-side auditoriums was not ready yet or had not been added yet at the time of opening.
Pawtucket Ecstasy ban:
From a July 29, 1939 Providence Journal article:
“Representative Hary F. Curvin, Public Safety Director in Pawtucket, yesterday banned the foreign-mde film ‘Ecstasy.’ because, he said, ‘it is sensuous—-would be detrimental to the morality of the youth of Pawtucket—-saturated with immorality.’
“The film stars Hedy Lamarr. Under the Curvin ban it cannot be shown in Pawtucket. It was billed for a run at the Capitol Theatre, opening Monday.
“Curvin notified Hyman Rodman, manager of the theatre, Thursday that he would not allow the film to be shown in Pawtucket. Curvin said that he had not seen the movie but had been prompted in his ruling by similar rulings in some other communities.
“Rodman asked Curvin to pre-view the movie. Curvin did so Thursday night. Early yesterday morning, after watching the film run off with Inspector Vincent Hourigan, Curvin told Rodman he was more convinced than ever that the film must not be shown in the city.”
The manager told me that singer Jerry Vale was in the audience for the Buddy premiere. He had sung in a concert at the theatre a good number of years before.
Ads for the theatre often said “next to Public Market.” The building that was Public Market had contained, on the second floor, the concert hall called Music Hall. Music Hall shut after a 1905 fire. The market survived, after some building modifications, until 1955 when it was demolished.
Last night the Columbus Theatre, playing host to the Rhode Island International Film Festival, premiered the documentary film Buddy, by Cherry Arnold. The movie is about former Providence Major Vincent A. “Buddy” Cianci, Jr., now serving time in prison on a criminal racketeering conviction. Ironically, when Cianci was mayor, he had tried to shut down the Columbus Theatre, which was then a porno house, and wanted to turn it into a high school for the performing arts. Here is a Providence Journal article reporting on the premiere.
March of the Penguins has been here for over three weeks now. Films play one, two, three weeks usually and there are generally two different films with separate admissions. No more repertory. Revivals are extremely rare, except sometimes for the weekend midnight shows. After movies leave here, they often play at the Cable Car Cinema on South Main Street. The Cable Car is pretty much a move-over house but with occasional exclusive first-runs, like the French Happily Ever After which is there now. Some of the Avon movies do play elsewhere in Rhode Island, usually at the Jane Pickens Theatre in Newport. It too is an art house, and some of their shows are simultaneous with the ones at the Avon.
Here is an article from the Harvard Crimson about the opening of the Telepix in 1939. I don’t know exactly when it became the Park Square, but it was probably 1962 or 1963. I went to a movie here (The Bicycle Thief) at the end of December, 1961 when it was the Telepix. In July of 1963 the place was showing Love at Twenty and was called the Park Square. So the name change had to have taken place within that time.
As the first Boston art house, the Fine Arts Theatre was sui generis and showed many great films during its pre-war phase. The manager during this fascinating period was George Kaska.
Eisenstein’s silent Ten Days That Shook the World was shown in 1930, around the same time that director Eisenstein spoke at Harvard University. Other Russian films, by Eisenstein and others, were regularly programmed. Eisenstein’s Potemkin and Thunder Over Mexico were screened as was the Russian documentary Soviets on Parade, the Tolstoy-based The Living Corpse, Pudovkin’s Storm Over Asia and the dramatic Professor Mamlock.
Among the German-language films were Riefenstahl’s The Blue Light, Fritz Lang’s M, Wiener Blut, Beethoven’s Concerto, the Schubertian Zwei Herzen, Lehar’s operetta Friederike, Das Lied vom Leben.
Hedy Lamarr emerged from the water naked in Gustav Machaty’s Ecstasy. The French-Canadian Maria Chapdelaine played here. The British version of Jew Süss (Power) with Conrad Veidt was shown (not the notorious anti-semitic German one by Veit Harlan). Flaherty’s magnificent Man of Aran so pleased Boston audiences that it was brought back with Power on a double bill. Song of the Road, with Scotsman Harry Lauder, also played.
The difficult job of being a good usher at the University Theatre in 1937, according to a Harvard Crimson article. Favorite bit: “…whether from Sargent or Radcliffe, any group of girls is bound to mean trouble for an usher.”
In 1929, decades before the Brattle would become a cinema in 1953, there was a presentation of a locally-produced film on the History of Massachusetts. This Harvard Crimson piece notes that it would be shown here as well as at the Fine Arts Theatre in Boston.
The Italian neo-realist film masterpiece The Bicycle Thief opened here in 1950. Revenge with Anna Magnani had played in 1949 as had the “scandalous” Devil in the Flesh from France. Bitter Rice opened in 1951, Miracle in Milan and The Mill on the Po in 1952.
A September, 1975 newspaper ad shared with the Boro Drive-In in South Attleboro, Massachusetts, promotes Games Guys Play along with Games Girls Play and the third feature, Roommates. $4.00 a carload.
A September, 1975 newspaper ad shared with the Quonset Drive-In in North Kingstown, RI, promotes Games Guys Play along with Games Girls Play and the third feature, Roommates. $4.00 a carload.
Opening of the Cable Car Cinema
An article in the Providence Journal of September 16, 1976 reported the projected opening of the Cable Car that was set for October 20. The piece quoted a description of the new cinema by owner/creator Raymond Bilodeau as being a place of “rugged architecture and elegance.” The place seems actually to have opened, quietly, around October 30, 1976 when the first feature shown was Luther, a film in the American Film Theatre series which had previously been shown in Rhode Island. The cinema, formerly a garage, was to have armchairs, love seats and sofas and a seating capacity of 130.
In fact, the theatre had a seating capacity that was more like 175 initially and was reduced to about 130 about fifteen years later when the place was modified to accomodate café tables to the right of the open projection booth and a kitchen was carved out of one of the former two bathrooms and part of the rear of the auditorium.
The location where the theatre once existed is now the parking lot for Gasbarro’s Liquors.
For the finale of the 9th R.I. International Film Festival this evening at the Columbus Theatre, the presentation was a 35mm copy of the two-strip Technicolor version of the 1926 The Black Pirate with Douglas Fairbanks. It was a wonder to behold. 1926 was the year the Columbus opened and this was the festival’s tribute to the place. The accompanying music was provided by the unique Alloy Orchestra.
Preceding the feature was a surviving fragment of the 1916 My Lady of the Lilacs, made by the Rhode Island company called Eastern Film Corporation and now preserved by the Rhode Island Historical Society.
Yes, it is tame…and I believe you are right about the belated importation and the timing of the release with Lamarr’s burgeoning popularity. I’ve seen it a couple of times over the years and I believe it has been shown on TCM. DVDs are available through Amazon.com and other outlets.
Oddly, the film did not open in New York until Christmas of 1940, judging from the date of the New York Times review.
The Ken Loach film Poor Cow was playing its second week here at the beginning of May, 1968. This was an unusual art-house type booking for this former neighborhood theatre.
On May 1st, 1968 the film The Graduate was in its twelfth week here.
In May of 1968 the Route 44 Drive-In was showing the immortal double bill of Mondo Freudo & The Pleasure Girls.
In May of 1968 the Pike was showing the immortal Mondo Freudo & The Festival Girls.
An editorial by David Brussat in the Providence Journal of March 17, 1994 suggested the site of the former Rialto Theatre as the place to put a movie theatre in the then cinema-less downtown. One suggestion was for a multiplex at the site; another was for a single-screen “blockbuster house.” At the time plans were already underway to bring movie theatres to the proposed new mall at Providence Place, and this Rialto-revived facility never materialized. Here is an artist’s conception of what the front might looked like on the Mathewson Street theatre, whose front portion is all that remains of the otherwise demolished place. When the Providence Place Cinemas 16 and the Feinstein IMAX opened at the mall about six years later, the hope for new movie theatres for downtown Providence finally materialized, but not here.
The Paris Cinema opened as a single screen theatre on Wednesday, November 26, 1969. I went to the movie on opening day, The Madwoman of Chaillot with Katherine Hepburn, billed as an exclusive engagement. Screenings were continuous from 12 noon. The cinema was advertised as “The First New Theatre in Downtown Providence in Over 25 Years!” The place subsequently had two screens, but it was not the case of a large auditorium being twinned, just that the second of the side-by-side auditoriums was not ready yet or had not been added yet at the time of opening.
Pawtucket Ecstasy ban:
From a July 29, 1939 Providence Journal article:
“Representative Hary F. Curvin, Public Safety Director in Pawtucket, yesterday banned the foreign-mde film ‘Ecstasy.’ because, he said, ‘it is sensuous—-would be detrimental to the morality of the youth of Pawtucket—-saturated with immorality.’
“The film stars Hedy Lamarr. Under the Curvin ban it cannot be shown in Pawtucket. It was billed for a run at the Capitol Theatre, opening Monday.
“Curvin notified Hyman Rodman, manager of the theatre, Thursday that he would not allow the film to be shown in Pawtucket. Curvin said that he had not seen the movie but had been prompted in his ruling by similar rulings in some other communities.
“Rodman asked Curvin to pre-view the movie. Curvin did so Thursday night. Early yesterday morning, after watching the film run off with Inspector Vincent Hourigan, Curvin told Rodman he was more convinced than ever that the film must not be shown in the city.”
The manager told me that singer Jerry Vale was in the audience for the Buddy premiere. He had sung in a concert at the theatre a good number of years before.
When this was the Burrillville Theatre, a revival run of Gone With the Wind began here on Thanksgiving Day in 1969.
Ads for the theatre often said “next to Public Market.” The building that was Public Market had contained, on the second floor, the concert hall called Music Hall. Music Hall shut after a 1905 fire. The market survived, after some building modifications, until 1955 when it was demolished.
Last night the Columbus Theatre, playing host to the Rhode Island International Film Festival, premiered the documentary film Buddy, by Cherry Arnold. The movie is about former Providence Major Vincent A. “Buddy” Cianci, Jr., now serving time in prison on a criminal racketeering conviction. Ironically, when Cianci was mayor, he had tried to shut down the Columbus Theatre, which was then a porno house, and wanted to turn it into a high school for the performing arts. Here is a Providence Journal article reporting on the premiere.
March of the Penguins has been here for over three weeks now. Films play one, two, three weeks usually and there are generally two different films with separate admissions. No more repertory. Revivals are extremely rare, except sometimes for the weekend midnight shows. After movies leave here, they often play at the Cable Car Cinema on South Main Street. The Cable Car is pretty much a move-over house but with occasional exclusive first-runs, like the French Happily Ever After which is there now. Some of the Avon movies do play elsewhere in Rhode Island, usually at the Jane Pickens Theatre in Newport. It too is an art house, and some of their shows are simultaneous with the ones at the Avon.
Here is an article from the Harvard Crimson about the opening of the Telepix in 1939. I don’t know exactly when it became the Park Square, but it was probably 1962 or 1963. I went to a movie here (The Bicycle Thief) at the end of December, 1961 when it was the Telepix. In July of 1963 the place was showing Love at Twenty and was called the Park Square. So the name change had to have taken place within that time.
As the first Boston art house, the Fine Arts Theatre was sui generis and showed many great films during its pre-war phase. The manager during this fascinating period was George Kaska.
Eisenstein’s silent Ten Days That Shook the World was shown in 1930, around the same time that director Eisenstein spoke at Harvard University. Other Russian films, by Eisenstein and others, were regularly programmed. Eisenstein’s Potemkin and Thunder Over Mexico were screened as was the Russian documentary Soviets on Parade, the Tolstoy-based The Living Corpse, Pudovkin’s Storm Over Asia and the dramatic Professor Mamlock.
René Clair’s A nous la liberté was one of the big successes here during the 1930s and his Sous les toits de Paris also played. Duvivier’s Un carnet de bal made an appearance.
Among the German-language films were Riefenstahl’s The Blue Light, Fritz Lang’s M, Wiener Blut, Beethoven’s Concerto, the Schubertian Zwei Herzen, Lehar’s operetta Friederike, Das Lied vom Leben.
Hedy Lamarr emerged from the water naked in Gustav Machaty’s Ecstasy. The French-Canadian Maria Chapdelaine played here. The British version of Jew Süss (Power) with Conrad Veidt was shown (not the notorious anti-semitic German one by Veit Harlan). Flaherty’s magnificent Man of Aran so pleased Boston audiences that it was brought back with Power on a double bill. Song of the Road, with Scotsman Harry Lauder, also played.
The difficult job of being a good usher at the University Theatre in 1937, according to a Harvard Crimson article. Favorite bit: “…whether from Sargent or Radcliffe, any group of girls is bound to mean trouble for an usher.”
In 1929, decades before the Brattle would become a cinema in 1953, there was a presentation of a locally-produced film on the History of Massachusetts. This Harvard Crimson piece notes that it would be shown here as well as at the Fine Arts Theatre in Boston.
Here’s another brief Harvard Crimson piece about the announced opening of the Esquire Theatre in 1964.
The Italian neo-realist film masterpiece The Bicycle Thief opened here in 1950. Revenge with Anna Magnani had played in 1949 as had the “scandalous” Devil in the Flesh from France. Bitter Rice opened in 1951, Miracle in Milan and The Mill on the Po in 1952.