RKO National Twin

Savage:

I have a number of exterior shots of the National Twin. Titles on the marquee: Buffy: the Vampire Slayer; Unlawful Entry; Twins; Home Alone. What is your e-mail address?

I have quite a few photos of the National. If I can figure how to post ‘em, I will.

I dont have any pics of this theater (never took pics stupid now that i think about it)

longislandmovies….might you have any pictures from the National that show the theaters interior or exterior?? would love to see them?

I remember AMC publicly announcing the new theatre years before it opened, but I am not sure about Loews. It all seemed so strange the way the state opened and was doomed from the start.

theatrefan:
No, I think this was in the works before the merger, because ABC started construction in there fairly quickly after the National closed. For the amount of work that was done there, it would have been a long planning process with the architects and engineers, and another long process with the Dept. of Buildings for permits and approvals.

It was the other way around – Almi/Century bought RKO-SW from Pacific in 1981, and called it RKO Century Warner. The National had been transferred to RKO from Cinema 5 under Pacific’s ownership of both. Later, in about 1985 RKO-CW bought Cinema 5 from Pacific, except for Cinema I & II (they had a management agreement on that one) and it eventually became the nucleus of City Cinemas.

The National Theatre was opened in Dec. 1972 by Mann Theatres. In 1978 Cinema 5 Theatres took over. In 1981, Cinema 5 theatres were taken over by RKO/Century/Almi Theatres. Cineplex Odeon took over RKO theatres in 1986. The theatre originally had 1,445 seats. It was closed for twinning on Jan. 4, 1982. Reopened as the RKO National Twin on 3/19/82. National closed again on 4/19/87 for remodeling. This is the time they triplexed it without landlords permission. Reopened as the Cineplex Odeon National Twin on June 12, 1987. Closed as a theatre the end of 1997 or Jan. 1998, if my theatre notes are correct.

I think the National closed shortly before the merger, though I could be wrong, I don’t recall us being involved with the National.

When Mann’s left New York in the late-70s, their theatres including the National were taken over by Cinema 5 Ltd. who twinned it. Shortly after, it was transferred over to RKO (Cinema 5 and RKO were both owned by Pacific Theatres at that time) since Cinema 5 was primarily an art-house operation, and in those days a Times Square crowd was definately not in keeping with Cinema 5’s operation.

With the National’s last renovation, by Cineplex in about 1987, they divided the lower theatre in half making it a triplex. The finishing touches were being put in place, pink neon lit, ersatz marble floors polished, bookings finalized, and two days before opening day the landlord showed up. Cineplex had neglected to get his permission to divide the lower theatre, and the landlord got a court order to make them rip the place apart and put it back to 2 theatres, delaying the reopening by a few weeks.

The final two films to be screened at the National Twin – ‘Home Alone 3’ and the Tim Allen-Kirstie Alley-starrer, ‘For Better or Worse’ – reflected in a nutshell the mostly 20th Century Fox and Universal product the National showed during its run as a Cineplex Odeon house.

I remember seeing “Suspiria” there in 1977. It was Mann’s National at the time, and as I recall, it was the only, or one of very few Mann Theaters in New York. The marquee was distinctive, fashioned from black metal with black, candle-like light fixtures extended up off the top in a wavy pattern like a roller-coaster silhouette. I think I saw “The Black Hole” there, too, and “Alien.” I believe “Snuff” opened there as well, a fake snuff film. The distributor paid women actors to picket the movie under the marquee when it opened, to try and build some contraversy. It was a good, big, dark theater. “The Poseidon Adventure” had its world premiere there in 1972.