Bellevue Cinema 4

I always liked the exterior of the place.

It was a grand palace back in the day. Now it’s a shoebox. Will never go there again

I saw the ‘Sound Of Music’ at the Belleview during its Todd AO 70mm roadshow engagement in 1965. WOW!! I was 16 then and whenever I could scrape up enough money, I’d see it again and again. It must have played there almost 2 years. The Belleview had a humongous screen, very high and very wide. The bottom of the screen began at the stage and the top went almost to the high ceiling. There was a big beautiful blue curtain. Tickets were sold at the box office and seating prices varied. Music from the ‘Sound Of Music’ would be playing as people were being seated. The lights dimmed slowly and as the 20th Century Fox logo appeared, the big curtain opened, from the side as I recall. I can only describe the feeling I got during the scene of the helicopter approach to Julie Andrews before the ‘song on the hill’ as the closest thing to heaven.. chills running up my spine. The Belleview had great audio and a beautiful screen image. In those days the projection was illuminated by arc lamp and the image popped off the screen, unlike the dull theater images of today. The ‘Sound Of Music’ had an intermission, and the curtain closed when the word ‘intermission’ was on the screen. You never saw a ‘bare’ screen at the Belleview, the curtain always hid it until the movie started. When the intermission was almost over, the lights would flash to warn patrons that the film was about to start. It’s true that the Belleview was right next to the Montclair train station and a passing train was quite noisy. Still, the Belleview had class that has not existed in movie theaters for many years. It was a sad day when the Belleview was divided up into a multiplex. It is barely a shell of what is used to be.

A delayed response to Barry M’s question of more than two years ago: yes, due to the Bellevue’s location near the Upper Montclair train station and a commuter line running about one hundred feet away, outside noise was an issue even in the single-screen halcyon days. I noticed it, albeit intermittently, from my first trip there (a “Sound Of Music” revival when I was about 13). Reminds me of the old Astor Plaza near Times Square (now the Nokia Theatre, a live venue), where the sounds of the subway trains below the auditorium made their presence felt.

I first went to the Bellevue Theatre on New Year’s Day 1965 to see “Mary Poppins.” It was the most elegant theatre I had ever been in. It exuded class with its Tudor décor, the ushers in bright yellow blazers, and from the fact that you had to purchase tickets to assigned seats, just as in a live theatre. I found it all so impressive and exciting, and still did so the following year when we went back to se Julie Andrews again, this time in “The Sound of Music.”

The Bellevue was the place which held roadshow engagements, and sold souvenir booklets filled with photos of the films being presented. (Does anybody do that anymore?)

The Bellevue was a place where, for many years, they played “The Star-Spangled Banner” before each showing.

The biggest hit I remember the Bellevue having was “Fiddler On the Roof”, which played for half-a-year back in 1972.

The Bellevue lost its aura once it was split up into a triplex. I still frequently went there because they had bargain matinees, but stopped once they ended that policy. I’ve only been there a couple of times since they remodeled it completely. I stopped going not so much because of the remodeling but because the same films are playing at theatres closer to my home.

Here is the current irony. In the old days, when theatres showed only a single film, you got to know a lot of theatres, because if you wanted to see Film A, you had to go to one theatre, but to see Film B, you had to go to a different theatre. Then changing economics demanded that these beautiful old theatres be cut up into several smaller cinemas in the hope that the profits from one hit film playing would make up for the deficits from the flops.

Now, however, I think these old cut-up theatres are going to do because so many big multiplexes have been built. Why sit in an old, cramped, charmless theatre when you can go to a multiplex? It too may be charmless, but at least it is big and modern. Especially when all the theatres are showing exactly the same movies. I think that’s what happened to the recently closed Cinema 23 in Cedar Grove. It couldn’t compete with the bigger, newer and equally convenient AMC at the Essex Green Plaza a couple of miles up the road.

Myself, unless I’m going to independent/at film at the Claridge in Montclair, I pretty much keep to the Clifton Commons or the Allwood, but they’re near my home. (And with all its faults, I often favor the Allwood because it is cheaper and usually less crowded. However, I get the feeling the Allwood is on its way out as well.)

Here is a photo circa 1920s:
http://tinyurl.com/pan5ls

Was there in the 70’s for revivals of Disneys Sleeping Beauty in 70mm and was very annoyed that the full stereo was for the final reel.
Also 70mm GWTW and a not very good 35mm print of Camelot which did not utilize the entire screen.
Don’t remember any outside noise.
Hypothetically speaking if one had the money would it be possible to convert the theater back to the great single screen theater it once was?

Here is a 1976 ad from the New York Times;
http://tinyurl.com/28svyd

The Bellevue proudly announced the exclusive Todd-AO showing of “South Pacific"
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This ad from 2/12/69 announces the exclusive NJ engagement of “The Shoes of the Fisherman”, with the premiere benefiting the people of Biafra:

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Haven’t been to the Bellevue since it was converted from a triple into a quad, and have no desire to do so. At least when it was a triple, the upstairs auditorium (the former balcony) still had the big screen from the theatre’s glory days as a single-screen showcase house, which used to run exclusive New Jersey engagements before the movies went into wider release (“The Sound of Music” played there for more than a year in the mid-‘60s, I believe). This was a glorious venue before it was subdivided. One of the first movies I saw there was the cheesy sci-fi flick “Logan’s Run”—but what a riot of futuristic Todd-AO images and stereophonic sound it seemed to be on that massive screen!

An Austin organ, opus 1027, was installed in this theater in 1922.