Malverne Cinema

Ed Solero on November 24, 2006 at 8:01 pm

Snapped some evening photos of the Malverne Theater a couple of weeks back. In the first image, I tried to approximate the angle of the shot Warren posted on October 20, 2005. I’ll start off with those two images for comparison…

Malverne at night 2006
Malverne at night 1946

The old ticket booth is gone (for a long time now, I’m sure), the brick facade and wood-framed display cases have been concealed with more modern material and the old entrance doors updated with glass replacements. Here are the rest of the photos…

Wide shot
Profile shot 1
Profile shot 2
Independent Screening Room
Outer vestibule
Ticket lobby through entrance doors

RCDTJ… what’s the “Independent Screening Room” adjacent to the theater? There doesn’t seem to be any entry from the street (the door has a door saying as much)… is this a storefront that was converted to one of the Malvern’s current screens?

hotaru on July 17, 2006 at 12:37 pm

OK, I’ve got an anecdote and some info from my Dad, who was born and raised in Malverne. He worked at the Malverne as an usher back in 1952 for about 6 months; he was 15. RobertR is correct, it didn’t have a balcony. Look at the photos Warren posted (Dad liked those, BTW); in the second pair there’s a photo of the rear of the house, and you can see the doorway that leads to the stairs to the projection room, and the private screening room. The window of this screening room can also be seen in this photo, just to the left of the projection openings. I don’t know if this was a common feature in theaters, but Dad sure liked it- that was his favorite place to watch movies. This room was soundproof, with its own speakers, and had a seating capacity of about 10-15. Dad’s illustrious career as an usher came to a screeching halt when the manager discovered he had been letting his buddies in for free through the back door. The manager had been none the wiser to this arrangement for a while, though. One day the guys got a little too rowdy, and the manager asked to see thier ticket stubs, which, of course, they were unable to produce. Upon further questioning as to how they got in, they quickly ratted out their benefactor, thus ending Dad’s days of watching movies in private luxury upstairs, as his non-paying friends raised a ruckus down below. He wasn’t too devastated, though. He hated wearing what he called his “Monkey Suit”. This was the standard garb for ushers at the Malverne (and probably similar to what ushers wore everywhere in those days)– a grey jacket, slacks and hat with maroon trim, white shirt, and a cardboard dickey with a bow tie. You’d get busted for having a dirty dickey; this was one of the mgr.’s pet peeves, haha. Dad made 50 cents an hour for usher duty, a whopping 75 cents/hr for those days when he filled in for the mighty ticket-tearer. Box office duty was reserved for attractive girls in their late teens or early twenties. Dad still visits family in Malverne every weekend, but he has not seen a movie at the Malverne since the old days. I spent the better part of my childhood in Malverne, and can (barely) remember when it was a single screen house. Used to go sometimes once they twinned it and they were showing off price films, and have seen some of the offbeat stuff there. I haven’t been there since they added screens, and I have to admit, I’m put off by lack of stereo sound. Doesn’t seem to faze the Malvernites, though. The place still does a good business, and there are always people about whenever I drive by. I"ll have to stop in and ask if the private screening room is still in use!

rcdt55b on January 20, 2005 at 12:45 pm

It would do much better if they upgrade the equipment.

chconnol on December 28, 2004 at 8:24 am

I went to this theater a lot but for some reason, I can’t recall if it had a balcony. I don’t think it did but it might’ve.

I saw “Being There” in 1980 and it was still a single screener. I remember thinking it was a lot like the Century’s Baldwin but then the auditorium was surprisingly ornate. It wasn’t all black paint…the ceiling was sculpted and had a small dome. It looked like it could’ve used some work though. Soon after, it got it’s multiplexing thing and became a double. For years it actually got a lot of first run movies then switched to more art house stuff. Saw “Out of Africa”, “Sweet Liberty” and other films here in the mid 80’s.

I think the theater remains to this day because the neighborhood is still so nice. Not a great theater at all but it was decently maintained at least.

rcdt55b on November 28, 2004 at 7:52 am

Malverne has 5 screens not 6. They also run film festivals.