Was this one of the theaters that published a schedule regularly, as Film Forum does now, or did films run open-ended? I was in there just once or twice in the late 1960s.
Saw “The Runner Stumbles” (1979) here, a flop that had some merit. What I mainly remember is that in a virtually empty auditorium, a young couple came in and sat almost directly behind me and carried on throughout. Like, why would they even stay if they were so bored and/or disdainful?
How interesting that the staff could not pop popcorn during the movies. That’s one of the things I miss from the old days: the sound and aroma of popcorn popping. I was a goner when my senses picked them up. Had to slip back to the lobby to make a purchase.
Leroy, If I may correct the record without offending, I think the word the bluenoses found most objectionable in “The Moon Is Blue” was “virgin” (in a nonreligious context).
Also, there was an infamous exchange that I think went:
She: “Do you mind if I take off my shoes and stockings?"
He: "You can take off anything you like."
Fifty-five years ago, that raised eyebrows.
None of the old 42nd Street theaters was nice by the time I started frequenting them in 1967, but as an out-of-towner who knew that a movie could play in only one theater in a “zone” at a time, I was fascinated to find first-run movies playing with companion features in dumpy 42nd Street houses while the same new films were running at higher prices just around the corner on Broadway and Seventh Avenue.
I, too, noticed this theater started deteriorating around the time Sony started funneling almost all of the more important movies into its newer, tonier Lincoln Square.
I once bought a ticket to a Grade Z movie here in the early 1970s just because I was so curious to see the interior. Its glory days were gone, but I sat in there for a couple of years soaking up the atmosphere and never regretted the investment of time and a couple of bucks. We had moviehouses then.
Enjoyed visiting this tiny theater. From the first time I visited there, for the great “Take the Money and Run,” to the last, I think the only dog I ever saw there was the picture with which the theater closed, “The Designated Mourner.” It was also one of the few times I was practically alone in there.
Does anyone recall the name of the drive-in theater that was just outside Augusta? I think it was between Downtown Augusta and Fort Gordon?
Also, what was the name of the drive-in just across the border in South Carolina, please?
And does anyone remember the name of a nice single-screen indoor theater just across the border in South Carolina that was newish in 1965? During the Christmas season in 1965 I saw “Boeing-Boeing” there and then returned for “Thunderball.”
When I spent a weekend in Youngstown as a child in 1952, there were three old theaters clustered within a stone’s throw in Central Square. Two were practically side by side; the third was directly across the street.
I think the Paramount was one of the “twosome” and sat to the left of its street-mate. They were the two nicer theaters, I believe. I saw “Where’s Charley?” (Ray Bolger) in the one to the left (possibly the Paramount). Didn’t get to the other one on the same side of thr street because it had a somewhat mature film, “Don’t Bother to Knock” (Marilyn Monroe).
The theater that sat across the street from the others was shabbier. I saw there a reissue western combo of “Dodge City” and “Virginia City."
Can anyone advise me as to which theater was which, please?
Ken, Any interesting changes in Atlantic City? Is there a functioning moviehouse of any kind within a mile or two of the area where the many Boardwalk and Atlantic Avenue theaters used to be?
That was it, Al. Thank you very much. It was the first time I caught “Beat the Devil,” the 1953 flop that in the 1970s was frequently referred to as a cult favorite but which never truly caught on even at that level.
That was one of the few times I was in the Waverly, if not the only one, although I had occasion to walk past the theater scores of times over the years.
Can anyone recall what classic film played at the Waverly on a double bill with the then-new “Gumshoe” in 1972? It was another gumshoe movie, but a classic – possibly “The Maltese Falcon,” which is my best guess.
Warren, I’ve spent the past month reading thousands of blog postings in Cinema Treasures, and I enjoy your verbal contributions as well as the few graphics I can access.
I’d love to be able to call all of your many PhotoBucket graphics, but unless they’re quite recent, they cannot be accessed. At least, not by me.
I know other people were able to access them shortly after they were posted because I see complimentary thank-you’s posted to you.
Do the PhotoBucket graphics become unavailable after a fixed period of time – maybe 12 or 24 months later?
Have you any alternative way of posting photos so they do not “expire”?
Saw “The Long Good Friday” there. Thought Bob Hoskins was the best gangster find since Cagney and Robinson.
I’d been interested in seeing the interior of the theater. I liked its oldness and its ornate decor, but it was not being maintained well. The experience was a little like being in a 42nd Street grind house but without all the snoring and the stench and the suspect behavior in those theaters.
On my next visit, George A. Romero’s “Creepshow,” which had been filmed in Pittsburgh from a screenplay by Stephen King, was playing there. I was walking by at about 10:40 p.m., en route from a Broadway show to my hotel, when I noticed a guy peering in through the door, as if trying to get someone’s attention inside.
I paused, tempted to explain the obvious – that the last show had begun upwards of an hour earlier and that the manager might have locked the door to prevent anyone from entering while he was checking the day’s receipts.
Just then the guy at the door gave up trying to get in the theater and walked away. It was Stephen King. He probably had wanted to count the house and/or sample a little audience response in the Times Square area.
I seldom went to the National because it was always playing wide-release films that had opened the same day in my hometown, Pittsburgh.
I do remember, though, being about a block away in December 1980 when a rowdy crowd awaiting admission to the first performance of “Stir Crazy” crashed through the plate glass window. Can’t recall if the theater went ahead with the first performances that morning and afternoon.
And I remember waiting on line outside the National one day when hordes of people kept line-jumping. You can’t win that kind of a situation when there’s no supervision. I gave up and left, thinking, “Life is too short.”
I have no complaints about the only three or four viewing experiences I had here, all of them in the early days when Worldwide was first run.
However, I did have one of those annoying bureaucratic experiences.
Because I was in NYC twice a year to review plays and films that eventually would open in my hometown of Pittsburgh, I tried to see a combination of six plays and movies (or a minimum of five) a say. Wednesdays and Saturdays two of them automatically were plays, with the movies before, between and, when possible, after.
To keep expenses down, I’d minimize breakfasts and lunches by getting through most of the day on moviehouse popcorn, large pretzels, etc.
One Monday in 1990 I arrived at Cineplex Odeon Manhattan Twin (as I think it was called then) on East 59th to buy some filling junk food and see both of its then-current features. It was already a minute or so before noon, so I had no time left to dine elsewhere even if I’d wanted to.
The young woman who seemed to be in charge, who wore her indifference like a medal of honor, told those of us waiting at the concession stand that the stand wouldn’t be opening because she hadn’t brought the extra keys. So much for lunch.
The next morning I set out on my Tuesday marathon, which was to begin at Cineplex Odeon’s Worldwide.
I wasn’t even thinking of it being the same circuit, but having just had the experience I had the day before at the Manhattan Twin, I took the precautionary measure of stopping at one of those MOM & Pop delis on Eighth Avenue and purchased a can of Pringles, just as a precaution.
I put it in the deep pocket of my overcoat, bought my ticket and headed to the Worldwide’s concession stand. Damned if a young lady in charge, with attitude to burn, wasn’t telling patrons at the concession stand that it wouldn’t be opening because there was no key.
I couldn’t believe the incompetence or the improbability that that would happen two consecutive days in theaters run by the same company.
It happened that my movie wasn’t to begin for several minutes, and there certainly weren’t many patrons in the whole building, so I strolled in the corridor for a moment, eating one Pringle chip at a time from the can in my overcoat pocket.
The same woman who had announced, without apology or regret, that the concession stand would not be opening, accosted me and told me I had no business bringing in food from the outside and that I would have to leave or get rid of it immediately.
I told her the cirumstances I’ve just mentioned and that it was lucky I has SOMETHING neat and easy to eat since the theater was not selling any of its own snacks that day. She didn’t yield a bit.
The fact that she and her supervisors weren’t satisfying their responsibility to the corporation nor to the patrons apparently hadn’t entered her head.
Just located that blog, Al, thanks to you. Never would have been able to figure that out, and I no longer get to NYC to see for myself. Will read it now.
By the way, his strikes me as another excellent example where it would help if the blog were electronically cross-referenced (maybe that’s impossible or too premature a request) or simply filed under the theater’s best-known identity.
Again, thank you.
This theater seems to have had uncommonly sharp waves of up and down. One of the ups occurred when “Serpico” opened here in December 1973, and lined stretched around the block. It broke some house records there.
On another front, can anyone tell me if there’s a Cinema Treasures blog for the now-defunct Worldwide Cinemas between Eighth Avenue and Ninth Avenue on, I think, West 49th or West 50th? Have tried all possibly variations on the name and keep coming up empty.
When the Strand became the Cinerama and its piggybacked Penthouse upstairs, it was quite nice. The roadshow “Finian’s Rainbow” was, I think, upstairs and another roadshow, maybe “Ice Station Zebra,” on the ground level. That was late 1968. By the time I saw “Black Caesar” there in 1973, I was disheartened by the fact the theater was deteriorating so quickly. And around the corner, the much smaller Cine Orleans, where I had seen “The Killing of Sister George,” was gone.
Was this one of the theaters that published a schedule regularly, as Film Forum does now, or did films run open-ended? I was in there just once or twice in the late 1960s.
Beautiful theater. One of the real losses among the art houses.
Saw “The Runner Stumbles” (1979) here, a flop that had some merit. What I mainly remember is that in a virtually empty auditorium, a young couple came in and sat almost directly behind me and carried on throughout. Like, why would they even stay if they were so bored and/or disdainful?
Still kicking myself that I never headed for the Beacon when it was a moviehouse.
How interesting that the staff could not pop popcorn during the movies. That’s one of the things I miss from the old days: the sound and aroma of popcorn popping. I was a goner when my senses picked them up. Had to slip back to the lobby to make a purchase.
Leroy, If I may correct the record without offending, I think the word the bluenoses found most objectionable in “The Moon Is Blue” was “virgin” (in a nonreligious context).
Also, there was an infamous exchange that I think went:
She: “Do you mind if I take off my shoes and stockings?"
He: "You can take off anything you like."
Fifty-five years ago, that raised eyebrows.
None of the old 42nd Street theaters was nice by the time I started frequenting them in 1967, but as an out-of-towner who knew that a movie could play in only one theater in a “zone” at a time, I was fascinated to find first-run movies playing with companion features in dumpy 42nd Street houses while the same new films were running at higher prices just around the corner on Broadway and Seventh Avenue.
I, too, noticed this theater started deteriorating around the time Sony started funneling almost all of the more important movies into its newer, tonier Lincoln Square.
It’s interesting that this Broadway theater once played movies.
I once bought a ticket to a Grade Z movie here in the early 1970s just because I was so curious to see the interior. Its glory days were gone, but I sat in there for a couple of years soaking up the atmosphere and never regretted the investment of time and a couple of bucks. We had moviehouses then.
Enjoyed visiting this tiny theater. From the first time I visited there, for the great “Take the Money and Run,” to the last, I think the only dog I ever saw there was the picture with which the theater closed, “The Designated Mourner.” It was also one of the few times I was practically alone in there.
Does anyone recall the name of the drive-in theater that was just outside Augusta? I think it was between Downtown Augusta and Fort Gordon?
Also, what was the name of the drive-in just across the border in South Carolina, please?
And does anyone remember the name of a nice single-screen indoor theater just across the border in South Carolina that was newish in 1965? During the Christmas season in 1965 I saw “Boeing-Boeing” there and then returned for “Thunderball.”
When I spent a weekend in Youngstown as a child in 1952, there were three old theaters clustered within a stone’s throw in Central Square. Two were practically side by side; the third was directly across the street.
I think the Paramount was one of the “twosome” and sat to the left of its street-mate. They were the two nicer theaters, I believe. I saw “Where’s Charley?” (Ray Bolger) in the one to the left (possibly the Paramount). Didn’t get to the other one on the same side of thr street because it had a somewhat mature film, “Don’t Bother to Knock” (Marilyn Monroe).
The theater that sat across the street from the others was shabbier. I saw there a reissue western combo of “Dodge City” and “Virginia City."
Can anyone advise me as to which theater was which, please?
Ken, Any interesting changes in Atlantic City? Is there a functioning moviehouse of any kind within a mile or two of the area where the many Boardwalk and Atlantic Avenue theaters used to be?
I had not realized that only the Atlantic Avenue theaters stayed open in the off-season.
Interesting that, despite its reduced circumstances, this was the last surviving moviehouse from the good old days.
That was it, Al. Thank you very much. It was the first time I caught “Beat the Devil,” the 1953 flop that in the 1970s was frequently referred to as a cult favorite but which never truly caught on even at that level.
That was one of the few times I was in the Waverly, if not the only one, although I had occasion to walk past the theater scores of times over the years.
Two unrelated questions:
Can anyone recall what classic film played at the Waverly on a double bill with the then-new “Gumshoe” in 1972? It was another gumshoe movie, but a classic – possibly “The Maltese Falcon,” which is my best guess.
Warren, I’ve spent the past month reading thousands of blog postings in Cinema Treasures, and I enjoy your verbal contributions as well as the few graphics I can access.
I’d love to be able to call all of your many PhotoBucket graphics, but unless they’re quite recent, they cannot be accessed. At least, not by me.
I know other people were able to access them shortly after they were posted because I see complimentary thank-you’s posted to you.
Do the PhotoBucket graphics become unavailable after a fixed period of time – maybe 12 or 24 months later?
Have you any alternative way of posting photos so they do not “expire”?
Two recollections of the Embassy from 1982:
Saw “The Long Good Friday” there. Thought Bob Hoskins was the best gangster find since Cagney and Robinson.
I’d been interested in seeing the interior of the theater. I liked its oldness and its ornate decor, but it was not being maintained well. The experience was a little like being in a 42nd Street grind house but without all the snoring and the stench and the suspect behavior in those theaters.
On my next visit, George A. Romero’s “Creepshow,” which had been filmed in Pittsburgh from a screenplay by Stephen King, was playing there. I was walking by at about 10:40 p.m., en route from a Broadway show to my hotel, when I noticed a guy peering in through the door, as if trying to get someone’s attention inside.
I paused, tempted to explain the obvious – that the last show had begun upwards of an hour earlier and that the manager might have locked the door to prevent anyone from entering while he was checking the day’s receipts.
Just then the guy at the door gave up trying to get in the theater and walked away. It was Stephen King. He probably had wanted to count the house and/or sample a little audience response in the Times Square area.
I seldom went to the National because it was always playing wide-release films that had opened the same day in my hometown, Pittsburgh.
I do remember, though, being about a block away in December 1980 when a rowdy crowd awaiting admission to the first performance of “Stir Crazy” crashed through the plate glass window. Can’t recall if the theater went ahead with the first performances that morning and afternoon.
And I remember waiting on line outside the National one day when hordes of people kept line-jumping. You can’t win that kind of a situation when there’s no supervision. I gave up and left, thinking, “Life is too short.”
Thank you, William. I had not realized that search tool was there. I tried it successfully just now. It will save me a lot of time.
I have no complaints about the only three or four viewing experiences I had here, all of them in the early days when Worldwide was first run.
However, I did have one of those annoying bureaucratic experiences.
Because I was in NYC twice a year to review plays and films that eventually would open in my hometown of Pittsburgh, I tried to see a combination of six plays and movies (or a minimum of five) a say. Wednesdays and Saturdays two of them automatically were plays, with the movies before, between and, when possible, after.
To keep expenses down, I’d minimize breakfasts and lunches by getting through most of the day on moviehouse popcorn, large pretzels, etc.
One Monday in 1990 I arrived at Cineplex Odeon Manhattan Twin (as I think it was called then) on East 59th to buy some filling junk food and see both of its then-current features. It was already a minute or so before noon, so I had no time left to dine elsewhere even if I’d wanted to.
The young woman who seemed to be in charge, who wore her indifference like a medal of honor, told those of us waiting at the concession stand that the stand wouldn’t be opening because she hadn’t brought the extra keys. So much for lunch.
The next morning I set out on my Tuesday marathon, which was to begin at Cineplex Odeon’s Worldwide.
I wasn’t even thinking of it being the same circuit, but having just had the experience I had the day before at the Manhattan Twin, I took the precautionary measure of stopping at one of those MOM & Pop delis on Eighth Avenue and purchased a can of Pringles, just as a precaution.
I put it in the deep pocket of my overcoat, bought my ticket and headed to the Worldwide’s concession stand. Damned if a young lady in charge, with attitude to burn, wasn’t telling patrons at the concession stand that it wouldn’t be opening because there was no key.
I couldn’t believe the incompetence or the improbability that that would happen two consecutive days in theaters run by the same company.
It happened that my movie wasn’t to begin for several minutes, and there certainly weren’t many patrons in the whole building, so I strolled in the corridor for a moment, eating one Pringle chip at a time from the can in my overcoat pocket.
The same woman who had announced, without apology or regret, that the concession stand would not be opening, accosted me and told me I had no business bringing in food from the outside and that I would have to leave or get rid of it immediately.
I told her the cirumstances I’ve just mentioned and that it was lucky I has SOMETHING neat and easy to eat since the theater was not selling any of its own snacks that day. She didn’t yield a bit.
The fact that she and her supervisors weren’t satisfying their responsibility to the corporation nor to the patrons apparently hadn’t entered her head.
Just located that blog, Al, thanks to you. Never would have been able to figure that out, and I no longer get to NYC to see for myself. Will read it now.
By the way, his strikes me as another excellent example where it would help if the blog were electronically cross-referenced (maybe that’s impossible or too premature a request) or simply filed under the theater’s best-known identity.
Again, thank you.
This theater seems to have had uncommonly sharp waves of up and down. One of the ups occurred when “Serpico” opened here in December 1973, and lined stretched around the block. It broke some house records there.
On another front, can anyone tell me if there’s a Cinema Treasures blog for the now-defunct Worldwide Cinemas between Eighth Avenue and Ninth Avenue on, I think, West 49th or West 50th? Have tried all possibly variations on the name and keep coming up empty.
When the Strand became the Cinerama and its piggybacked Penthouse upstairs, it was quite nice. The roadshow “Finian’s Rainbow” was, I think, upstairs and another roadshow, maybe “Ice Station Zebra,” on the ground level. That was late 1968. By the time I saw “Black Caesar” there in 1973, I was disheartened by the fact the theater was deteriorating so quickly. And around the corner, the much smaller Cine Orleans, where I had seen “The Killing of Sister George,” was gone.