Chatham Cinema

Ron3853 on September 22, 2008 at 3:23 pm

Thanks, 71dude. I now have more years for Pittsburgh first-run theaters up through 1981, but haven’t been able to find the time to type them in. You saved me a year!

We ahould compare research sometime.

edblank on June 6, 2008 at 9:38 pm

The theater’s address was 701 Fifth Avenue. Capacity: 647.

In my book, the Chatham was the premiere Pittsburgh moviehouse in which to see a movie – before, then or since.

If you examine Ron Miller’s list of movies to play here, you can see that almost every one is first rate. The big theater circuit in town (Associated, which morphed into Cinemette) seemed to throw the Chatham a really choice bone every three or four months.

If the film did some business, as most did (“Alfie,” “Wait Until Dark,” “Bullitt,” “The Odd Couple,” “Airport,” “The Sting,” et al), the Chatham was set for months with deluxe fare that drew an upscale audience.

When something came up short (“Don’t Drink the Water,” “The Mephisto Waltz,” “Bang the Drum Slowly”), the theater had to scramble until its next gift of an important new film.

Helped by comfortable seats and superb sight lines, something about the communal ambiance of the Chatham allowed all sorts of moods to wash over audiences, from the comedy of “Barefoot in the Park” and “The Odd Couple” to the excitement of the two greatest car chase thrillers, “Bullitt” and “The French Connection,” to the shared shock of the climactic jolt in “Wait Until Dark,” when gasps and shouts invariably erupted, to the sheer euphoria of “That’s Entertainment,” the Chatham was the most purely enjoyable theater to attend.

I always thought of it as the Radio City Music Hall of Pittsburgh in terms of bookings and the classiness of the experience.

For most of the years it was open and owned by Morris Finkel, the Chatham’s manager was George Pappas, a mustached, dapper administrator who ran the theater like a tight ship.

He stood in his open-walled office, arms folded, surveying the audience in the lobby awaiting the next performance, admonishing sternly, and with a voice he projected effortlessly, anyone he caught sneaking a smoke or behaving a wee bit rambunctiously. (It was a different time and, frankly, a better time – sans cell phones and butterfly attention spans.)

At the Chatham there was a distinct sense that someone of military bearing was in charge and was determined to maintain standards. The audience itself was the primary beneficiary.

Given the outstanding bill of fare Pappas had the good fortune to exhibit over the years, I was astonished – no, incredulous – when Pappas admitted late in his career that he never sat down and watched a movie there. Not once, he insisted. He was, I always suspected, too restless, too determindly interactive.

The first hint that times were a-changing was in 1970 when the Chatham played “Airport” for 14 weeks to excellent attendance before Universal decided it wanted to move the blockbuster into the choicest suburban houses.

When “Airport’s” first week at the larger(South Hills) Village Theatre (now redesigned as Carmike 10), which was the 15th week in Pittsburgh, outdrew the biggest of the 14 weeks at the Chatham, it became apparent that suburban sites now had greater value to distributors than even the nicest Downtown theaters.

This would be the best of all possible sites for major art/specialty/independent releases if someone had the cash and the imagination to reopen and run it well.

roxdude on June 8, 2006 at 6:03 am

This was a very nice example of a 1960’s era theater. It was one of the theaters that had ladies day every Wednesday. Kids as well as women were charged 50 cents for matinees until 5 pm. and coffee and donuts were served free. I saw a lot of movies during the summer there and I remember the big marquee for A Clockwork Orange. I was attending college at the University of Pittsburgh and the bus to the Oakland section of town passed by the theater every trip. I also enjoyed seeing the Sting there. A nice classy theater and a joy to watch first run movies there.

Ron3853 on December 4, 2004 at 8:45 pm

Below are the motion pictures which played the Chatham Cinema from its opening in 1966 through December 31, 1975. research is from microfilms of Variety and The Pittsburgh Press and The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. The dates listed are the Wednesday of the opening week of the new films, as in those days, new releases generally opened on that day, rather than on Fridays as they do now. Films from January 1, 1976 on will be provided in later posts.

10/26/66 Alfie
03/22/67 Funeral in Berlin
04/19/67 The Taming of the Shrew
07/12/67 Two for the Road
08/16/67 Barefoot in the Park
11/15/67 Reflections in a Golden Eye
12/20/67 Wait Until Dark
04/03/68 The Fox
06/26/68 The Odd Couple
10/30/68 The Bliss of Mrs. Blossom
11/13/68 The Subject Was Roses
11/27/68 Secret Ceremony
12/18/68 Bullitt
03/26/69 The Killing of Sister George
05/07/69 Midas Run
05/14/69 Romeo and Juliet
05/28/69 Goodbye, Columbus
08/27/69 Last Summer
10/08/69 The Rain People
10/22/69 The Sterile Cuckoo
11/26/69 Don’t Drink the Water
12/10/69 Blow-Up/The Loved One
12/17/69 John and Mary
02/11/70 The Molly Maguires
03/11/70 Z
05/06/70 Airport
08/12/70 The Out-of-Towners
10/21/70 Sunflower
11/04/70 Little Fauss and Big Halsey
12/16/70 South Pacific
12/23/70 There’s a Girl in My Soup
02/10/71 Husbands
03/10/71 Little Big Man
05/12/71 The Mephisto Waltz
05/26/71 When Eight Bells Toll
06/02/71 The Odd Couple/The Out-of-Towners
06/09/71 Joe/Lovers and Other Strangers
06/16/71 Summer of ‘42
08/25/71 Billy Jack
09/01/71 Doc
09/22/71 The Devils
10/13/71 A Criminal Affair
10/20/71 Play Misty for Me
11/17/71 The French Connection
03/22/72 A Clockwork Orange
05/24/72 Play It Again, Sam
07/12/72 Prime Cut
08/09/72 The Candidate
10/04/72 Deliverance
12/20/72 Jeremiah Johnson
01/31/73 The Heartbreak Kid
03/28/73 The Emigrants
04/11/73 Brother Sun, Sister Moon
05/02/73 Sleuth
05/23/73 The Day of the Jackal
07/11/73 Scarecrow
08/15/73 O Lucky Man
08/29/73 Happy Mother’s Day…Love, George
09/19/73 Bang the Drum Slowly
10/03/73 I Could Never Have Sex With Any Man…
10/17/73 American Graffiti
12/19/73 The Sting
03/27/74 Mame
05/22/74 The Sugarland Express
06/26/74 Our Time
07/17/74 That’s Entertainment
10/16/74 Airport 1975
12/18/74 The Front Page
02/05/75 Young Frankenstein
05/07/75 At Long Last Love
05/21/75 The Other Side of the Mountain
06/25/75 The French Connection II
08/13/75 The Fortune
09/10/75 The Hound of the Baskervilles
09/24/75 Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?
10/01/75 Hennessy
10/15/75 Dog Day Afternoon
12/24/75 The Black Bird