Bellaire Theatre
4020 Bellaire Boulevard,
Houston,
TX
77005
4020 Bellaire Boulevard,
Houston,
TX
77005
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Showing 26 - 32 of 32 comments
In the early 80’s it was still known as The Bellaire Theatre and had one grand auditorium. It was very very run down and the movies were a dollar. I saw Mr. Mom there during the early 80’s and about halfway through the film the movie stopped and the house lights came on…and then one of the employees came in (we were the only people watching the movie) and said the projector broke so we just left. Shortly afterward, it became an adult theatre and stayed that way until the late 80’s. Then some developers came in and added some other smaller screens, a beautiful lobby and a cafe. They shortened the name to “The Bel-Air Theatre” to make it sound more classy. They had a very modern day concession stand with gourmet candy. The cafe was very nice and trendy. The cafe and theatre were separated by a big wall of glass cube tiles with curves in it – a very modern look. One of the areas of the cafe had a window that looked into a theatre so you could eat/drink and watch the movie through the window. You could see out of it, but it didn’t affect the lighting or the experience of the people in the theatre. In the late 80’s and early 90’s it was the PLACE TO BE and hosted Rocky Horror Picture show every weekend in its main huge auditorium (the original screen) which had all new seats – they were a very futuristic style seat. Somewhere in the mid 90’s I heard that the shopping strip owners had gotten too many complaints from tenants about parking issues since the theatre took up so much parking and it closed its doors for good. So sad to see it go!
I hadn’t checked the marquee carefully. The movies listed are from 1991, so a slight correction needs to be made to the second paragraph of the original listing above. I would suspect multiple screens. In addition, it would appear that the name was changed to Bel Air (2 words) sometime during the theater’s later years.
Was this ever plexed? There are so many titles on the marquee.
Original spelling was “Bellaire” after the city of Bellaire, Texas.
Old photos"
http://www.moviepalaces.net/belair.jpg
http://www.moviepalaces.net/bellaire1.jpg
Notice no final “e” on the night time photo (unless the bulbs were out). Perhaps it was the original spelling for this theater.
I remember THE TEN COMMANDMENTS playing first run Houston at the Metropolitan downtown. It played grind during the day and hard ticket for the 8PM showing. After which, it moved over to the Village in West University where it continued it’s Houston exclusive run. The picture was shot in the Paramount vistaVision process, not Cinemascope. I never remember it playing the Bellaire unless it was after the Village run.
After the first Cinemascope picture THE ROBE opened at the Metropolitan in early 54', the majority of the Houston sub run theaters were forced to buy the anamorphic lens and in some cases put in new screens so they could move over the Cinemascope films off the Metropolitan, Majestic and Loews State.
This is now a Health food store. What a shame but thats progress..we lose though!