The twinning of the original PP was bad news to anyone who valued quality presentation. With its big curved screen, almost square auditorium, continental seating, and Ultravision projection system, it provided a moviegoing experience far better than anything else available.
This lame lineup for the grand reopening was a fitting booking for the introduction of the twins. “Prisoner” was a pale effort by Neil Simon to follow up on his two previous NYC hits, Odd Couple and Out Of Towners. It did poor business in this neighborhood that would always turn out for a movie aimed at the older audiences. As for the other one, silly story, over produced, and nice Cole Porter music ruined by two stars who could not sing.
And for this they ended the Christmas Attraction run of Young Frankenstein while it was still doing sell out business.
As for the Penthouse the photo section has some pictures taken from the booths that show how high the ceilings were.
I am sure Cone can elaborate, but it was not closed until about 1979. It was sold to Weis in Summer of 1974 and they ran it several years. I can recall one of the later features as being Ode To Billy Joe because I remember seeing the projectionist local running a picket line there and at Doraville.
Cone I remember the ad for that Hail Hero. The first movie I saw here was Impossible Years. I also recall a four week run of Airport after it left its downtown run at the Rialto. True Grit in August of 1969 is another one I remember.
I tried the website to see what was going on at this location and all you get is a blank page. If you click on the tab for all showtimes you get only the two Florida theaters. So, it looks as if this place may be closed yet again. I believe this would make the fifth time which has to be approaching some type of record.
I also looked up some yelp reviews on the mall itself and apparently it has turned into a real dump, and a not very safe one at that. One reviewer said that if it were not for all of the police and private security the place would be half empty. Makes sense since there is a police station in the parking lot next to the theater entrance.
As for the theater itself, a comment from 10/15/17 states that the theater is now closed.
Since pictures do not lie, I guess this proves that Norm
Levinson did smile on occasion. Personally I never saw it happen nor do I know of anyone who did but there it is. In 1990, when Norm retired, Cobb did what many thought impossible. He hired a UA Theaters exec from New York that made Norm seem like Mr. Rogers.
Actually, Newberry is a great place to visit. Located in the heart of the UP of MI, it is close to the falls but much quieter than the Sault Ste Marie area or the tourists in St. Ignace / Mackinac Island. Unfortunately the theater was closed both times I was there.
As for going to SSM Canada, it might be easier to drive to Detroit. Both times I crossed there the border check was more of a hassle and much more time consuming that my experiences crossing into East Berlin at Checkpoint Charlie. Maybe they treat locals better.
This location was, I believe, opened by Mr. NormnSchneider in the mid 70s. In 1978 I paid my only visit to this location to see Dolby sound presentation of Star Wars. Mr. Schneider was a retired Altec sound engineer among the first generation to work in theater sound and had forgotten more about that business than most people would ever know. After his retirement he built this theater designing and constructing the sound and projection systems by hand. My one visit here was among the finest movie sound experiences I have ever had.
Well David, that is an interesting comment. Regarding that endless loop platter, this link is for a theater in Atlanta where I occasionally worked:
http://cinematreasures.org/theaters/17682
My comment is first in line and describes my experiences of running that thing which mirror yours. Further down there is a link to a theater in Delaware that actually used that abortion to run regular movies.
As for Regal paying minimum wage and requiring the operators to wear uniforms, that was standard practice for them in Atlanta. In addition, they were required to work the floor when not actually threading up, even if only for a few minutes. The point, of course, was to keep them from getting the idea that they were anything special and thus entitled to a living wage. AMC took it a step further by trying to make the booth position just like any other. They would try to make sure the manager scheduled different people to work the booth and that the “projectionists” worked shifts down on the floor. I received many prints directly from AMC theaters that were both damaged and improperly broken down.
I was amused the other day when AMC was forced to downgrade their guidance to investors because their big summer quarter is going to be a financial disaster. I do not understand this. For years I was told in negotiating sessions that having to pay a professional projectionist prevented the theater from making a profit. With the advent of digital, operatorless projection they should be making millions.
While the Thunderbird played its share of sex and horror drive in fare, it was mostly a standard second run venue. The first run locations were still downtown or in the north side suburbs. First run movies did not come to the south side until 1977 when ABC opened the Hoover Twin about a mile down the road. In 1971 Cobb opened an indoor quad in the old Homewood Lanes bowling center but it was also second run.
If you look at the picture that Drive In 54 was kind enough to post, the building on the right is the Vestavia Lanes bowling center which is still there today. In 1972,a new shopping center was built on the other side of the Lanes. It contained a single screen Jerry Lewis Theater which competed for the second run product, but not for long. In less than two years Cobb bought it out, changed the name to “Vestavia” and for the next few years operated both an indoor and a drive in separated only by the bowling center.
Like millions of other children of that era I have memories of attending the drive in dressed in my pajamas with pillows, blankets, etc… filling the back seat of the family sedan, in our case a Chevy of course. This was the closest location of any of the Birmingham theaters to our house. Because of the small number of first run theaters in town it was not unusual for lower profile first run product to play here, although two of my more distinct memories concern seeing 10 Commandments and The Longest Day, both sub runs, at Shades Mt.
Shortly after we moved, this location was demolished and the Red Lobster that now sits in the parking lot of the shopping center marks the rough location of the screen and box office. Cobb moved down to the foot of the hill near where 31 crosses I-65 and built a single screen drive in there called the Thunderbird. This location closed in September 1968 with the Thunderbird opening at the same time.
Among the last two programs to play here were “The Detective” with “Fathom” and “Wild In The Streets” with “Glory Stompers.” By this time Shades Mt. and then Thunderbird played fairly standard second run programs along with the Skyview and recently opened Mustang. The sex and horror programs usually associated with drive ins mostly played at the Airport, Bama, and especially the Robinwood locations.
If you think that name is odd then you are obviously not from eastern South Carolina. It is the legendary nickname of Francis Marion who fought the British in that swampy area during the revolutionary war. Mel Gibson’s character in The Patriot was very loosely based on him. Very, very loosely. Leslie Nielsen played the Swamp Fox in a Disney TV series of that name which occasionally ran as part of Disney’s Sunday night show.
As to the previous comment by “Hhhh” posted on 6/14/17, while the events may be accurate I believe that he has this location mixed up with another theater, or really two other theaters.
Bestoink Dooley, real name George Ellis, did run an art house in the mid to late 60’s, but it was the Festival on Walton Street. When he left it became the Gay Paree and it has this page on CT:
http://cinematreasures.org/theaters/21339
George moved out to Ansley Mall and took over the Ansley Mall Mini Cinema and renamed it Film Forum. This was the place the Lonesome Cowboy episode referred to above took place although that was still during its Mini Cinema days before Ellis took over. The solicitor had tipped off the news media about the raid and film of the people exiting the theater, clearly recognizable to anyone who knew them, was shown on the 11PM news that night. The Film Forum has this page on CT:
http://cinematreasures.org/theaters/16291
As to the theater on this page, the Central, I was never inside. I did walk past it several times on the way to the Citizens Jewelry Company next door. In those pre Best Buy days, Citizens was the place to go for electronics at prices that beat Rich’s and Davison’s. I came to Atlanta in 1967 and by that time the programming here was as described by Jesse Brantley in the first comment on this page.
Thanks for those pictures. They brought back a lot of memories. Based on the names of the managers listed under the logo for each theater, I can date the first Kiddie Camp flyer to 1985. I was at Northlake that summer and business was so busy that we used all three houses. Since Northlake was the only reel to reel GCC theater we were not able to interlock so we biked the reels from house to house starting shows every 30 minutes.
As for the movies themselves, Neverending Story was a big hit and I think we ran it every year. Annie was also very popular but it did not run as often because it was over 2 hours long. The bulk of the business for most of the theaters was from day care centers who would bring kids in by the bus load and more than 2 hours, especially at Northlake where the last show started at 11, caused them to get out too late.
Charlotte’s Web was another big hit. I think that the only thing that kept them from running it every year was print availability. Every projectionist dreaded the arrival of these prints, as well as the midnight show ones because the condition of the prints so poor. Sometimes it would take hours to inspect and repair a print and you had to do it since you were finished if you had a print break while running interlock especially at Akers Mill which had a very primitive, heavily modified interlock system. (Remember, this was in the day before the arrival of the polyester / mylar prints starting in 1996. Those were unbreakable which brought about its own set of problems, but that is another story.)Since GCC ran this program circuitwide, there were not always enough prints to go around even though they staggered the order and rotated the prints around the country.
The second Kiddie Show flyer is sometime after 1988 since it includes Hairston 8. Hairston was the citywide champ for kiddie show business. I worked there several times even after they did not use union operators regularly since the manager did not trust his staff projectionist to run it. They ran shows at 10, 12, and 2. At 10 we would interlock 7 of the eight houses, all the system would allow. At noon they would cancel the first show on four movies and run the kiddie show in the four large houses. At 2PM they would cancel another show of whatever adult movie they had and run it in the two big houses. All of this required a lot of print shifting and I think that my all time high was 17 print moves in one day before all of the regular movies were back where they belonged.
Like so much about this business, that was a time and experience that will never happen again.
I never saw this theater of course, but from the comments above I know exactly what it looked like. All GCC builds from 1968-78 had that same bleak red white and pale blue look. Couple that with those two position seats, long thin center aisle auditoriums with windowboxed screens and you had the ultimate in bland movie going experience.
Since most of these were new builds, often in free standing buildings I could never understand why they insisted on long, thin houses that had the center aisle taking up the prime seating / viewing area. Why not put the seats in the middle and run the aisles down the sides? The fake drape sound absorbing walls were painted light grey instead of dark and always resulted in a distracting reflective glare. Those awful seats always made me feel like I needed to brace myself against the seat in front to keep from sliding forward. And, I can not recall how many times someone rang the booth to tell me that the picture was off. The public, not knowing the difference between flat and scope was always complaining about the flat picture on that unmasked scope screen thinking that I was not showing the entire image.
The larger auditoriums, like the #1 house here apparently, which had a center seating section, were soon ruined by twinning which resulted in even worse looking theaters with terrible presentation. I never saw exposed front speakers (when Dolby was added they at least got our three placed behind the screen) but the surround speakers were a waste of time since all they added was noise. The houses were far too long and thin for proper stereo. And of course the worst sin of all, being a Pepsi bottler, they served Pepsi products. I had to bring my own Cokes to work with me.
I never could understand why a company with all that money and designing theaters from a clean sheet of paper could to come up with a better product.
This is a link to an article about the career of Bob Endres, the long time head projectionist at Radio City Music Hall. It includes a picture of Bob in the booth of the Lake Theater taken when his family was vacationing in Clear Lake from their home in Chicago. It is a good article for anyone interested in the projection end of the theater business.
I have been to this theater while attending the Winter Dance Party on Buddy Holly weekend at the Surf Ballroom. 1999 I think. A nice looking small town theater so much more welcoming that the 24 screen megaplexes that I avoid in Atlanta. Very nice people too.
In those days at least, GCC had a strong relationship with Columbia so we ran a lot of their stuff. Our Christmas ‘85 feature was White Nights, another mediocre draw. I mean we even ran Ishtar, so that may account for G'busters. They also had that and Gremlins at Southlake where I did a couple of turns covering vacations that summer. I well remember one rainy Sunday where G'busters sold out every show except the last one. That may have been the last good summer since Northlake 8 soon took over. I looked up my record, and when I started in October the features were Razor’s Edge, Little Drummer Girl, and Broad Street.
One thing I forgot to mention in my previous comment was the conversion of the booth to platters around 1988. I did not even know that had been done until I was called in to work one day of relief. Since the manager was covering the booth Monday – Wednesdays, they did that to cut down on the missed changeovers. That is why they were able to send platters to Perimeter when Northlake closed.
For the record, the intro to this theater should say 1200 seats (three houses at 400 seats each), opened in 1976, and closed in 1992. Perimeter Mall opened in 1973 and was the first GCC in Atlanta. Northlake followed in 1976, Akers Mill in 1977, and Southlake in 1978. After that it was Gwinnett Place in 1984, Merchants Walk in 1986, Parkside (later renamed Sandy Springs) in 1987 and Hairston in 1988.
By no means was this the first GCC theater I worked in, but it was the first one that I had a “permanent” position in. In the fall of 1984, the new GCC Gwinnett Place 6 opened and the two projectionists from Northlake were picked as the opening duo there. To replace them the company chose one of the projectionists from Southlake who was looking for a shorter commute, and me. I had worked a lot of relief in GCC booths but I was happy to finally have a regular job.
I was also happy to be at Northlake. When I had worked there as floor staff it had been a huge moneymaker since it opened in 1976 with Murder By Death. That Christmas Goodbye Girl was another massive hit with countless sellouts for what seemed like weekend after weekend. I did not work there after 1979 and lost track of things, but I know that they were one of the theaters to get ET in the summer of 1982. I thought I had it made working in a good first run theater for a big company and pulling in what seemed like a fine living at $7.50 per hour.
But, things are not always as they seem. In May of 1984 AMC had opened their Northlake Festival 8 almost across the street and GCC Northlake had become a ghost town. The big movies we ran that fall were Give My Regards To Broad Street, Razors Edge, and something called Windy City which often played to empty houses and drew all of 12 people on Thanksgiving Day. You know your theater is in trouble when your big Christmas pictures are Mickey and Maude and Johnny Dangerously.
The next summer things improved a little with Cocoon, Silverado, and European Vacation. However, the duds far outnumbered even these modest hits, and in the fall of 1986, GCC cut the booth hours down to one projectionist and dumped the rest of the hours on the manager, at no extra pay of course. I was off to Akers Mill until they did the same thing there in fall of 1987 and then to Perimeter Mall where they did the same thing in the spring of 1988.
I decided to give another company a try and that went well until 1995 when I came back to GCC and an opening at the new Parkside 8. For the next 5 years I split my time between there and Perimeter until GCC finally closed up in 2000. However, I did continue to work Parkside for the new owner, George Lefont, from 2004 until they went digital a couple of years ago.
As for Northlake, I loved working the booth there. It was the last theater in Atlanta built with reel to reel operation, 2 35MM Century projectors per screen with the old push button Dolby in the #1 house. However, the presentation was terrible with the long 400 seat shoebox theaters, fixed masking which left the sides of the flat picture raw, and those awful two position seats that some GCC people are so fond of. The most fun I had there was running the kiddie shows which did so well we used all three houses. We would use the 20 minute reels and start the shows 30 minutes apart, walking, or biking as they used to call it, the print from house to house to house one reel at a time. Even though there were no carbons, it really gave me the feel of running an old time booth.
One other note on the booth. It was equipped with the Cinemation Mark 3 pegboard automation system. This great piece of equipment, hated and feared by those who would not take the time or trouble to learn what it could do for them was the best automation system I ever worked with. If you put the pegs in the right hole and the tape in the right spot it never missed a cue. When Northlake was closed and demolished in 1992, four of the six projectors and two of the platters were sent to Perimeter Mall to replace the very poor conditioned projectors there and to get the booth to an all platter operation. So, for five years I got to run some of my old equipment even though the old Northlake was long gone to the landfill.
This location was built by Georgia Theater Company and opened in, I think, 1956. GTC was a big operator of drive ins in the Atlanta area and this was a standard looking build. I was only there once, in 1972, to check out the booth, but I never worked or saw a movie there. The booth had Simplex projectors and lamphouses that you had to push in the crank handles and crank to adjust the carbons. Sorry, but I can not remember the name of the brand. One odd thing was the presence of 6000' magazines on the projectors but no big reels, so it was still the changeovers every 18 minutes or so.
The feature the night I was there was “The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly.” I remember the big Civil War battle scene looking especially impressive.
This location was closed in 1974, and the manager, Mr. Bill Stephens, was transferred to the newly acquired Parkaire Twin in Cobb County. The managers house which was located on the lot was moved to the Northeast Expressway Drive In. The manager at that location lived in a nice house in the base of the screen, but after twice being flooded out when the creek that flowed alongside the west and southern boundary of the drive in left its banks they decided to put the Bolton house at the back of the lot where the land was higher.
Too late. After the house was moved but before it was hooked up and ready to live in there was yet another flood in March of 1975 which also washed out the newly built ramps for the twinning project that was then underway.
“I went through all the microfilm at the library and wrote down every movie that ever played at the 41 Twin from opening in 1948 until it closed in 2001. That was hundreds of microfilm reels.”
I am not sure who actually wrote the above comment, but whoever it was deserves credit for their dedication. I have always enjoyed looking at movie ads up until the time when they started to change in the mid 80’s to a more phone book like listing to accommodate the new megaplexes, but some of those old drive in ads were a bit much for me at times. I was amazed at some of the titles they came up with for the horror and biker movies.
I went to this location many times as a youngster when it was the Wendler and Roberts Drug Store. The attraction was an old fashioned soda fountain in the back of the store. I think that the theater opened in 1968 or 69 as an “Adult Art” theater. The fare was European style art films rated X although from what I heard from the projectionist they were really soft R.
In 1970 they had a brief change in policy running the type of standard “art” that Peachtree Battle and Ansley Mall Mini Cinemas were having some success with. The premiere feature was something starring Lee Majors as a Viking. My only visit here was during this time and the feature was some forgettable Swedish art effort.
In less than a year it was back to the old fare and before long they were advertised as XXX. Most of what I know about the Buckhead I learned from the long time union projectionist there who left to come to Lenox Square when I was the manager there. He said that the ownership paid above market and treated the employees well since in those pre security camera days skimming was a big problems in operations like this that could be run by one person.
In total, this location was in business for about 30 years or so. It closed when Buckhead became a big weekend bar scene destination and was soon gutted for the first of several bars that would occupy the spot. In 2005, this whole area was assembled and demolished for the billion dollar Shops Of Buckhead development that was abandoned half finished when the 2008 recession hit. The space on the corner of Peachtree and West Paces Ferry which was originally The Millers Book Store and was rehabbed and incorporated into the new development might might include the space the theater occupied, but it is hard to tell now.
Based on further comments, I think that it is safe to say that when the drive in was demolished it was followed by Arlans (a K-Mart style discount store), then the building was used as the flea market, then torn down for the Lindberg MARTA station. The Hastings Nursery was always at the northwest corner of the Cheshire Bridge, Lindberg, LaVista intersection across the street from the now closed up Varsity Jr. Hastings later moved to Brookhaven across the street from the Cherokee Plaza but is now closed.
The Kiddie Land at Broadview Plaza was gone by the time my family moved to Atlanta but I remember the K-Mart well as it was the first two story discount store I had ever seen. It had a good layout as all of the yard, garden, and hardware was on the ground floor which opened to the back parking lot and allowed close up parking since most people parked in front in the Piedmont lot.
The GEX store mentioned in a previous comment was located on the I-85 access road between Shallowford Road and the old North 85 Drive In. The Richway store also mentioned above was located on North Druid Hills Road across from Briarcliff High School and almost next door to the old Georgia Cinerama Theater. I do not go into this traffic clogged area unless I have to and did not know that the Zestos was closed. It must have operated there for 50 to 60 years. The Sizzler Steakhouse mentioned by Will was a regular stop for me as a group of us would usually go there following the Monday morning managers meetings once Georgia Theater Company moved their offices from the Fox to Lenox Square. Last time I was in the area the old Shoney’s was still there in its derelict condition although someone has told me since that it has finally been torn down.
The only change I would make in any of these later comments is regarding the Great Southeast Music Hall. Actually, the theater was there first, opening in about 1969 with the addition of the Broadview 2 in 1972. When Weis sold out and #2 became George Lefont’s Screening Room, the old #1 became the music hall. It then moved in 1978 to the site of the old Cherokee Theater.
Lots of movie theater history at this intersection as well as many memories for those of us who grew up in this area. Now it is just a traffic nightmare occupied by big retail and office developments with nothing unique to distinguish them from countless other such developments around the city.
In 1980 this place was in a very run down condition and was run by Georgia Theater Company. When the Atlanta City Manager moved out of Lenox Square Theater and into the company HQ to be the new GM, he left behind a lot of paperwork that I had the pleasure of reading through.
One that I recall was a report he did on this theater. Everything from the dirty bathrooms to the peeling paint, lack of working speakers, uncut grass, and messy storerooms got a mention. The last line of the report sticks in my mind as he called it the dirtiest, most run down theater he had ever been involved with.
He included a long list of repairs and improvements that were needed to get the place into respectable condition, but I do not know if they were ever done. GTC was pretty conservative when it came to spending money on everyday necessities so they might have decided this location was not worth it.
This ad is from mid December 1970 and was for a two week filler booking leading up to the Christmas attraction which I believe was Alex In Wonderland, or maybe Brewester McCloud, I forget which. This booking was the first time I saw West Side Story, and what a great experience that was.
A couple of corrections. While it was in stereo, it was unfortunately not 70MM but 4 track 35MM mag. At this time The Atlanta still had the 36X95 foot ribbon screen with the 146 degree curve and while the 35MM image did not take up the entire screen, the deep curve always caused the edges to be out of focus. No matter, great movie.
Second, West Side Story did not have its initial run here, but just up Peachtree at the Rhodes Theater. At that time The Atlanta was still the Tower, or may have been undergoing its reconstruction as Martin’s Cinerama. One other note about the tag of “Original Roadshow Version.” The print was in good shape but the projectionist did not show the image during the overture or the closing credits, only the sound. When I started working here a little over a year later, I asked when why they did that. The answer: save having to change the carbons as often. Even in a nice house like this you would still find people too lazy to do the job right.
KP: Very much enjoyed your memories of this theater. This place and your experiences are the poster children for dozens if not hundreds of what we thought of as megaplexes for that day. Looking through your under construction pictures reminds me of at least half a dozen places I started working in while they were in that state. One in particular reminds me of this place as it had 5 auditoriums, Dolby in one house, and Eprad 2 channel in another.
I can recall two new theaters where we were installing drink machines and unboxing lobby furnishings as people were lining up at the door for the opening day. In one case they opened one house while seat and booth installation proceeded in the others.
They were pretty bland places and in some cases were identical as the company would not waste money on giving the theater a personality when they could just build the same place on a vacant lot. Did make it easy on me when I had to fill in at different booths around town as most of them had the same equipment.
“I saw some similar shows there, for example something set in a swamp with Claudia Jennings and many alligators…”
Backseater
That would be “Gator Bait.” Great drive in movie. Ran it at the NE Expressway Drive in in Atlanta with its co-feature of “Unholy Rollers” which was another Claudia Jennings movie we had run a couple of years earlier. Those were the days.
Yes, Joe is gone at the age of 89. There was a small private memorial service in the chapel of Crawford Long Hospital for family and a few close work associates. There is talk of a public memorial service in the future, but no word on if the Fox will offer to host it.
In a very appropriate alignment of events, James H. (Jimmy) Williams, a long time Atlanta projectionist died on the same day at age 90. Jimmy moved from the Roxy (also managed by ABC) in the late 50’s and worked as a regular Fox projectionist for many years. After the Fox reopened in ‘78 he would occasionally work a shift on the Summer Movie Series.
All of the old timers who were such a part of those great years are now moving on. Those of us who were young enough and lucky enough to have worked with them in their later years have some great memories, to say nothing of the many stories we post here.
The twinning of the original PP was bad news to anyone who valued quality presentation. With its big curved screen, almost square auditorium, continental seating, and Ultravision projection system, it provided a moviegoing experience far better than anything else available.
This lame lineup for the grand reopening was a fitting booking for the introduction of the twins. “Prisoner” was a pale effort by Neil Simon to follow up on his two previous NYC hits, Odd Couple and Out Of Towners. It did poor business in this neighborhood that would always turn out for a movie aimed at the older audiences. As for the other one, silly story, over produced, and nice Cole Porter music ruined by two stars who could not sing.
And for this they ended the Christmas Attraction run of Young Frankenstein while it was still doing sell out business.
As for the Penthouse the photo section has some pictures taken from the booths that show how high the ceilings were.
I am sure Cone can elaborate, but it was not closed until about 1979. It was sold to Weis in Summer of 1974 and they ran it several years. I can recall one of the later features as being Ode To Billy Joe because I remember seeing the projectionist local running a picket line there and at Doraville.
Cone I remember the ad for that Hail Hero. The first movie I saw here was Impossible Years. I also recall a four week run of Airport after it left its downtown run at the Rialto. True Grit in August of 1969 is another one I remember.
I tried the website to see what was going on at this location and all you get is a blank page. If you click on the tab for all showtimes you get only the two Florida theaters. So, it looks as if this place may be closed yet again. I believe this would make the fifth time which has to be approaching some type of record.
I also looked up some yelp reviews on the mall itself and apparently it has turned into a real dump, and a not very safe one at that. One reviewer said that if it were not for all of the police and private security the place would be half empty. Makes sense since there is a police station in the parking lot next to the theater entrance.
As for the theater itself, a comment from 10/15/17 states that the theater is now closed.
Since pictures do not lie, I guess this proves that Norm Levinson did smile on occasion. Personally I never saw it happen nor do I know of anyone who did but there it is. In 1990, when Norm retired, Cobb did what many thought impossible. He hired a UA Theaters exec from New York that made Norm seem like Mr. Rogers.
Actually, Newberry is a great place to visit. Located in the heart of the UP of MI, it is close to the falls but much quieter than the Sault Ste Marie area or the tourists in St. Ignace / Mackinac Island. Unfortunately the theater was closed both times I was there.
As for going to SSM Canada, it might be easier to drive to Detroit. Both times I crossed there the border check was more of a hassle and much more time consuming that my experiences crossing into East Berlin at Checkpoint Charlie. Maybe they treat locals better.
This location was, I believe, opened by Mr. NormnSchneider in the mid 70s. In 1978 I paid my only visit to this location to see Dolby sound presentation of Star Wars. Mr. Schneider was a retired Altec sound engineer among the first generation to work in theater sound and had forgotten more about that business than most people would ever know. After his retirement he built this theater designing and constructing the sound and projection systems by hand. My one visit here was among the finest movie sound experiences I have ever had.
Well David, that is an interesting comment. Regarding that endless loop platter, this link is for a theater in Atlanta where I occasionally worked:
http://cinematreasures.org/theaters/17682
My comment is first in line and describes my experiences of running that thing which mirror yours. Further down there is a link to a theater in Delaware that actually used that abortion to run regular movies.
As for Regal paying minimum wage and requiring the operators to wear uniforms, that was standard practice for them in Atlanta. In addition, they were required to work the floor when not actually threading up, even if only for a few minutes. The point, of course, was to keep them from getting the idea that they were anything special and thus entitled to a living wage. AMC took it a step further by trying to make the booth position just like any other. They would try to make sure the manager scheduled different people to work the booth and that the “projectionists” worked shifts down on the floor. I received many prints directly from AMC theaters that were both damaged and improperly broken down.
I was amused the other day when AMC was forced to downgrade their guidance to investors because their big summer quarter is going to be a financial disaster. I do not understand this. For years I was told in negotiating sessions that having to pay a professional projectionist prevented the theater from making a profit. With the advent of digital, operatorless projection they should be making millions.
While the Thunderbird played its share of sex and horror drive in fare, it was mostly a standard second run venue. The first run locations were still downtown or in the north side suburbs. First run movies did not come to the south side until 1977 when ABC opened the Hoover Twin about a mile down the road. In 1971 Cobb opened an indoor quad in the old Homewood Lanes bowling center but it was also second run.
If you look at the picture that Drive In 54 was kind enough to post, the building on the right is the Vestavia Lanes bowling center which is still there today. In 1972,a new shopping center was built on the other side of the Lanes. It contained a single screen Jerry Lewis Theater which competed for the second run product, but not for long. In less than two years Cobb bought it out, changed the name to “Vestavia” and for the next few years operated both an indoor and a drive in separated only by the bowling center.
Like millions of other children of that era I have memories of attending the drive in dressed in my pajamas with pillows, blankets, etc… filling the back seat of the family sedan, in our case a Chevy of course. This was the closest location of any of the Birmingham theaters to our house. Because of the small number of first run theaters in town it was not unusual for lower profile first run product to play here, although two of my more distinct memories concern seeing 10 Commandments and The Longest Day, both sub runs, at Shades Mt.
Shortly after we moved, this location was demolished and the Red Lobster that now sits in the parking lot of the shopping center marks the rough location of the screen and box office. Cobb moved down to the foot of the hill near where 31 crosses I-65 and built a single screen drive in there called the Thunderbird. This location closed in September 1968 with the Thunderbird opening at the same time.
Among the last two programs to play here were “The Detective” with “Fathom” and “Wild In The Streets” with “Glory Stompers.” By this time Shades Mt. and then Thunderbird played fairly standard second run programs along with the Skyview and recently opened Mustang. The sex and horror programs usually associated with drive ins mostly played at the Airport, Bama, and especially the Robinwood locations.
If you think that name is odd then you are obviously not from eastern South Carolina. It is the legendary nickname of Francis Marion who fought the British in that swampy area during the revolutionary war. Mel Gibson’s character in The Patriot was very loosely based on him. Very, very loosely. Leslie Nielsen played the Swamp Fox in a Disney TV series of that name which occasionally ran as part of Disney’s Sunday night show.
As to the previous comment by “Hhhh” posted on 6/14/17, while the events may be accurate I believe that he has this location mixed up with another theater, or really two other theaters.
Bestoink Dooley, real name George Ellis, did run an art house in the mid to late 60’s, but it was the Festival on Walton Street. When he left it became the Gay Paree and it has this page on CT:
http://cinematreasures.org/theaters/21339
George moved out to Ansley Mall and took over the Ansley Mall Mini Cinema and renamed it Film Forum. This was the place the Lonesome Cowboy episode referred to above took place although that was still during its Mini Cinema days before Ellis took over. The solicitor had tipped off the news media about the raid and film of the people exiting the theater, clearly recognizable to anyone who knew them, was shown on the 11PM news that night. The Film Forum has this page on CT:
http://cinematreasures.org/theaters/16291
As to the theater on this page, the Central, I was never inside. I did walk past it several times on the way to the Citizens Jewelry Company next door. In those pre Best Buy days, Citizens was the place to go for electronics at prices that beat Rich’s and Davison’s. I came to Atlanta in 1967 and by that time the programming here was as described by Jesse Brantley in the first comment on this page.
Thanks for those pictures. They brought back a lot of memories. Based on the names of the managers listed under the logo for each theater, I can date the first Kiddie Camp flyer to 1985. I was at Northlake that summer and business was so busy that we used all three houses. Since Northlake was the only reel to reel GCC theater we were not able to interlock so we biked the reels from house to house starting shows every 30 minutes.
As for the movies themselves, Neverending Story was a big hit and I think we ran it every year. Annie was also very popular but it did not run as often because it was over 2 hours long. The bulk of the business for most of the theaters was from day care centers who would bring kids in by the bus load and more than 2 hours, especially at Northlake where the last show started at 11, caused them to get out too late.
Charlotte’s Web was another big hit. I think that the only thing that kept them from running it every year was print availability. Every projectionist dreaded the arrival of these prints, as well as the midnight show ones because the condition of the prints so poor. Sometimes it would take hours to inspect and repair a print and you had to do it since you were finished if you had a print break while running interlock especially at Akers Mill which had a very primitive, heavily modified interlock system. (Remember, this was in the day before the arrival of the polyester / mylar prints starting in 1996. Those were unbreakable which brought about its own set of problems, but that is another story.)Since GCC ran this program circuitwide, there were not always enough prints to go around even though they staggered the order and rotated the prints around the country.
The second Kiddie Show flyer is sometime after 1988 since it includes Hairston 8. Hairston was the citywide champ for kiddie show business. I worked there several times even after they did not use union operators regularly since the manager did not trust his staff projectionist to run it. They ran shows at 10, 12, and 2. At 10 we would interlock 7 of the eight houses, all the system would allow. At noon they would cancel the first show on four movies and run the kiddie show in the four large houses. At 2PM they would cancel another show of whatever adult movie they had and run it in the two big houses. All of this required a lot of print shifting and I think that my all time high was 17 print moves in one day before all of the regular movies were back where they belonged.
Like so much about this business, that was a time and experience that will never happen again.
I never saw this theater of course, but from the comments above I know exactly what it looked like. All GCC builds from 1968-78 had that same bleak red white and pale blue look. Couple that with those two position seats, long thin center aisle auditoriums with windowboxed screens and you had the ultimate in bland movie going experience.
Since most of these were new builds, often in free standing buildings I could never understand why they insisted on long, thin houses that had the center aisle taking up the prime seating / viewing area. Why not put the seats in the middle and run the aisles down the sides? The fake drape sound absorbing walls were painted light grey instead of dark and always resulted in a distracting reflective glare. Those awful seats always made me feel like I needed to brace myself against the seat in front to keep from sliding forward. And, I can not recall how many times someone rang the booth to tell me that the picture was off. The public, not knowing the difference between flat and scope was always complaining about the flat picture on that unmasked scope screen thinking that I was not showing the entire image.
The larger auditoriums, like the #1 house here apparently, which had a center seating section, were soon ruined by twinning which resulted in even worse looking theaters with terrible presentation. I never saw exposed front speakers (when Dolby was added they at least got our three placed behind the screen) but the surround speakers were a waste of time since all they added was noise. The houses were far too long and thin for proper stereo. And of course the worst sin of all, being a Pepsi bottler, they served Pepsi products. I had to bring my own Cokes to work with me.
I never could understand why a company with all that money and designing theaters from a clean sheet of paper could to come up with a better product.
https://www.caboosebooks.net/node/94
This is a link to an article about the career of Bob Endres, the long time head projectionist at Radio City Music Hall. It includes a picture of Bob in the booth of the Lake Theater taken when his family was vacationing in Clear Lake from their home in Chicago. It is a good article for anyone interested in the projection end of the theater business.
I have been to this theater while attending the Winter Dance Party on Buddy Holly weekend at the Surf Ballroom. 1999 I think. A nice looking small town theater so much more welcoming that the 24 screen megaplexes that I avoid in Atlanta. Very nice people too.
In those days at least, GCC had a strong relationship with Columbia so we ran a lot of their stuff. Our Christmas ‘85 feature was White Nights, another mediocre draw. I mean we even ran Ishtar, so that may account for G'busters. They also had that and Gremlins at Southlake where I did a couple of turns covering vacations that summer. I well remember one rainy Sunday where G'busters sold out every show except the last one. That may have been the last good summer since Northlake 8 soon took over. I looked up my record, and when I started in October the features were Razor’s Edge, Little Drummer Girl, and Broad Street.
One thing I forgot to mention in my previous comment was the conversion of the booth to platters around 1988. I did not even know that had been done until I was called in to work one day of relief. Since the manager was covering the booth Monday – Wednesdays, they did that to cut down on the missed changeovers. That is why they were able to send platters to Perimeter when Northlake closed.
For the record, the intro to this theater should say 1200 seats (three houses at 400 seats each), opened in 1976, and closed in 1992. Perimeter Mall opened in 1973 and was the first GCC in Atlanta. Northlake followed in 1976, Akers Mill in 1977, and Southlake in 1978. After that it was Gwinnett Place in 1984, Merchants Walk in 1986, Parkside (later renamed Sandy Springs) in 1987 and Hairston in 1988.
By no means was this the first GCC theater I worked in, but it was the first one that I had a “permanent” position in. In the fall of 1984, the new GCC Gwinnett Place 6 opened and the two projectionists from Northlake were picked as the opening duo there. To replace them the company chose one of the projectionists from Southlake who was looking for a shorter commute, and me. I had worked a lot of relief in GCC booths but I was happy to finally have a regular job.
I was also happy to be at Northlake. When I had worked there as floor staff it had been a huge moneymaker since it opened in 1976 with Murder By Death. That Christmas Goodbye Girl was another massive hit with countless sellouts for what seemed like weekend after weekend. I did not work there after 1979 and lost track of things, but I know that they were one of the theaters to get ET in the summer of 1982. I thought I had it made working in a good first run theater for a big company and pulling in what seemed like a fine living at $7.50 per hour.
But, things are not always as they seem. In May of 1984 AMC had opened their Northlake Festival 8 almost across the street and GCC Northlake had become a ghost town. The big movies we ran that fall were Give My Regards To Broad Street, Razors Edge, and something called Windy City which often played to empty houses and drew all of 12 people on Thanksgiving Day. You know your theater is in trouble when your big Christmas pictures are Mickey and Maude and Johnny Dangerously.
The next summer things improved a little with Cocoon, Silverado, and European Vacation. However, the duds far outnumbered even these modest hits, and in the fall of 1986, GCC cut the booth hours down to one projectionist and dumped the rest of the hours on the manager, at no extra pay of course. I was off to Akers Mill until they did the same thing there in fall of 1987 and then to Perimeter Mall where they did the same thing in the spring of 1988.
I decided to give another company a try and that went well until 1995 when I came back to GCC and an opening at the new Parkside 8. For the next 5 years I split my time between there and Perimeter until GCC finally closed up in 2000. However, I did continue to work Parkside for the new owner, George Lefont, from 2004 until they went digital a couple of years ago.
As for Northlake, I loved working the booth there. It was the last theater in Atlanta built with reel to reel operation, 2 35MM Century projectors per screen with the old push button Dolby in the #1 house. However, the presentation was terrible with the long 400 seat shoebox theaters, fixed masking which left the sides of the flat picture raw, and those awful two position seats that some GCC people are so fond of. The most fun I had there was running the kiddie shows which did so well we used all three houses. We would use the 20 minute reels and start the shows 30 minutes apart, walking, or biking as they used to call it, the print from house to house to house one reel at a time. Even though there were no carbons, it really gave me the feel of running an old time booth.
One other note on the booth. It was equipped with the Cinemation Mark 3 pegboard automation system. This great piece of equipment, hated and feared by those who would not take the time or trouble to learn what it could do for them was the best automation system I ever worked with. If you put the pegs in the right hole and the tape in the right spot it never missed a cue. When Northlake was closed and demolished in 1992, four of the six projectors and two of the platters were sent to Perimeter Mall to replace the very poor conditioned projectors there and to get the booth to an all platter operation. So, for five years I got to run some of my old equipment even though the old Northlake was long gone to the landfill.
This location was built by Georgia Theater Company and opened in, I think, 1956. GTC was a big operator of drive ins in the Atlanta area and this was a standard looking build. I was only there once, in 1972, to check out the booth, but I never worked or saw a movie there. The booth had Simplex projectors and lamphouses that you had to push in the crank handles and crank to adjust the carbons. Sorry, but I can not remember the name of the brand. One odd thing was the presence of 6000' magazines on the projectors but no big reels, so it was still the changeovers every 18 minutes or so.
The feature the night I was there was “The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly.” I remember the big Civil War battle scene looking especially impressive.
This location was closed in 1974, and the manager, Mr. Bill Stephens, was transferred to the newly acquired Parkaire Twin in Cobb County. The managers house which was located on the lot was moved to the Northeast Expressway Drive In. The manager at that location lived in a nice house in the base of the screen, but after twice being flooded out when the creek that flowed alongside the west and southern boundary of the drive in left its banks they decided to put the Bolton house at the back of the lot where the land was higher.
Too late. After the house was moved but before it was hooked up and ready to live in there was yet another flood in March of 1975 which also washed out the newly built ramps for the twinning project that was then underway.
“I went through all the microfilm at the library and wrote down every movie that ever played at the 41 Twin from opening in 1948 until it closed in 2001. That was hundreds of microfilm reels.”
I am not sure who actually wrote the above comment, but whoever it was deserves credit for their dedication. I have always enjoyed looking at movie ads up until the time when they started to change in the mid 80’s to a more phone book like listing to accommodate the new megaplexes, but some of those old drive in ads were a bit much for me at times. I was amazed at some of the titles they came up with for the horror and biker movies.
I went to this location many times as a youngster when it was the Wendler and Roberts Drug Store. The attraction was an old fashioned soda fountain in the back of the store. I think that the theater opened in 1968 or 69 as an “Adult Art” theater. The fare was European style art films rated X although from what I heard from the projectionist they were really soft R.
In 1970 they had a brief change in policy running the type of standard “art” that Peachtree Battle and Ansley Mall Mini Cinemas were having some success with. The premiere feature was something starring Lee Majors as a Viking. My only visit here was during this time and the feature was some forgettable Swedish art effort.
In less than a year it was back to the old fare and before long they were advertised as XXX. Most of what I know about the Buckhead I learned from the long time union projectionist there who left to come to Lenox Square when I was the manager there. He said that the ownership paid above market and treated the employees well since in those pre security camera days skimming was a big problems in operations like this that could be run by one person.
In total, this location was in business for about 30 years or so. It closed when Buckhead became a big weekend bar scene destination and was soon gutted for the first of several bars that would occupy the spot. In 2005, this whole area was assembled and demolished for the billion dollar Shops Of Buckhead development that was abandoned half finished when the 2008 recession hit. The space on the corner of Peachtree and West Paces Ferry which was originally The Millers Book Store and was rehabbed and incorporated into the new development might might include the space the theater occupied, but it is hard to tell now.
Based on further comments, I think that it is safe to say that when the drive in was demolished it was followed by Arlans (a K-Mart style discount store), then the building was used as the flea market, then torn down for the Lindberg MARTA station. The Hastings Nursery was always at the northwest corner of the Cheshire Bridge, Lindberg, LaVista intersection across the street from the now closed up Varsity Jr. Hastings later moved to Brookhaven across the street from the Cherokee Plaza but is now closed.
The Kiddie Land at Broadview Plaza was gone by the time my family moved to Atlanta but I remember the K-Mart well as it was the first two story discount store I had ever seen. It had a good layout as all of the yard, garden, and hardware was on the ground floor which opened to the back parking lot and allowed close up parking since most people parked in front in the Piedmont lot.
The GEX store mentioned in a previous comment was located on the I-85 access road between Shallowford Road and the old North 85 Drive In. The Richway store also mentioned above was located on North Druid Hills Road across from Briarcliff High School and almost next door to the old Georgia Cinerama Theater. I do not go into this traffic clogged area unless I have to and did not know that the Zestos was closed. It must have operated there for 50 to 60 years. The Sizzler Steakhouse mentioned by Will was a regular stop for me as a group of us would usually go there following the Monday morning managers meetings once Georgia Theater Company moved their offices from the Fox to Lenox Square. Last time I was in the area the old Shoney’s was still there in its derelict condition although someone has told me since that it has finally been torn down.
The only change I would make in any of these later comments is regarding the Great Southeast Music Hall. Actually, the theater was there first, opening in about 1969 with the addition of the Broadview 2 in 1972. When Weis sold out and #2 became George Lefont’s Screening Room, the old #1 became the music hall. It then moved in 1978 to the site of the old Cherokee Theater.
Lots of movie theater history at this intersection as well as many memories for those of us who grew up in this area. Now it is just a traffic nightmare occupied by big retail and office developments with nothing unique to distinguish them from countless other such developments around the city.
In 1980 this place was in a very run down condition and was run by Georgia Theater Company. When the Atlanta City Manager moved out of Lenox Square Theater and into the company HQ to be the new GM, he left behind a lot of paperwork that I had the pleasure of reading through.
One that I recall was a report he did on this theater. Everything from the dirty bathrooms to the peeling paint, lack of working speakers, uncut grass, and messy storerooms got a mention. The last line of the report sticks in my mind as he called it the dirtiest, most run down theater he had ever been involved with.
He included a long list of repairs and improvements that were needed to get the place into respectable condition, but I do not know if they were ever done. GTC was pretty conservative when it came to spending money on everyday necessities so they might have decided this location was not worth it.
This ad is from mid December 1970 and was for a two week filler booking leading up to the Christmas attraction which I believe was Alex In Wonderland, or maybe Brewester McCloud, I forget which. This booking was the first time I saw West Side Story, and what a great experience that was.
A couple of corrections. While it was in stereo, it was unfortunately not 70MM but 4 track 35MM mag. At this time The Atlanta still had the 36X95 foot ribbon screen with the 146 degree curve and while the 35MM image did not take up the entire screen, the deep curve always caused the edges to be out of focus. No matter, great movie.
Second, West Side Story did not have its initial run here, but just up Peachtree at the Rhodes Theater. At that time The Atlanta was still the Tower, or may have been undergoing its reconstruction as Martin’s Cinerama. One other note about the tag of “Original Roadshow Version.” The print was in good shape but the projectionist did not show the image during the overture or the closing credits, only the sound. When I started working here a little over a year later, I asked when why they did that. The answer: save having to change the carbons as often. Even in a nice house like this you would still find people too lazy to do the job right.
Thanks for posting the ad.
KP: Very much enjoyed your memories of this theater. This place and your experiences are the poster children for dozens if not hundreds of what we thought of as megaplexes for that day. Looking through your under construction pictures reminds me of at least half a dozen places I started working in while they were in that state. One in particular reminds me of this place as it had 5 auditoriums, Dolby in one house, and Eprad 2 channel in another.
I can recall two new theaters where we were installing drink machines and unboxing lobby furnishings as people were lining up at the door for the opening day. In one case they opened one house while seat and booth installation proceeded in the others.
They were pretty bland places and in some cases were identical as the company would not waste money on giving the theater a personality when they could just build the same place on a vacant lot. Did make it easy on me when I had to fill in at different booths around town as most of them had the same equipment.
“I saw some similar shows there, for example something set in a swamp with Claudia Jennings and many alligators…”
Backseater
That would be “Gator Bait.” Great drive in movie. Ran it at the NE Expressway Drive in in Atlanta with its co-feature of “Unholy Rollers” which was another Claudia Jennings movie we had run a couple of years earlier. Those were the days.
Yes, Joe is gone at the age of 89. There was a small private memorial service in the chapel of Crawford Long Hospital for family and a few close work associates. There is talk of a public memorial service in the future, but no word on if the Fox will offer to host it.
In a very appropriate alignment of events, James H. (Jimmy) Williams, a long time Atlanta projectionist died on the same day at age 90. Jimmy moved from the Roxy (also managed by ABC) in the late 50’s and worked as a regular Fox projectionist for many years. After the Fox reopened in ‘78 he would occasionally work a shift on the Summer Movie Series.
All of the old timers who were such a part of those great years are now moving on. Those of us who were young enough and lucky enough to have worked with them in their later years have some great memories, to say nothing of the many stories we post here.