Cineplex Odeon Route 17 Triplex

Oh, man. This theatre has a warm place in my heart, since I saw many films there as a youth. The Bond double features, especially. Before they closed, the lobby was pretty much the same as it always was, with damn little change. It really hurts to see it slide the way it has. Inside the theatre always smelled of damp mildew, which is never good. This was the first theatre in the area to be twinned, balcony included. Very strange, since all the seats are set to face toward the center of the screen. After the wall went up, you had to sit at a slight angle in your seat, causing your butt to go numb. When the balcony was made into the 3rd theatre, it was a big improvement, since it was a wide theatre and you got a sense of what it was like before the wall went up.
My favorite memory of the Century Theatre; 1968, on a Saturday night, they played a double feature of “The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming” and “In The Heat Of The Night”, plus a sneak preview of a upcoming major motion picture. My parents and I were at the show, and I was feeling sick; I probably had the flu or some childhood ailment. “Russians” comes on first, and I feeling ill, but I think I can make it through the whole show. Now me, being a dumb kid, heard “sneak preview” and thought – long trailer. Wrong! The sneak was for “The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly”, all two and a half hours of it! And I HATED it! Absolutely detested it! I honestly thought it would never end! Everything that happened on screen seemed to take 5 times longer than it should. I remember getting very queasy when Van Cleefs henchman beats up and bloodys Eli Wallach, especially when he digs his thumbs into poor Eli’s eyes. By the time Clint leaves Eli in the cemetary with his share of the gold and rides off, I remember thinking “ well, when is The End going to come up? Don’t tell me there’s more!!” I could'nt wait to get out of there! Of course if I could get into a time machine and go back to that day, I would appreciate the experience for what it was. In the back of my mind, I really hope that this theatre can be salvaged, but it would take a lot of money and effort. If not, I may just shed a tear when the wrecking ball does drop on it.

There is a sign on the front door of this theatre that says “the showing of movies at this location has been suspended until further notice”. I’ll just bet.

This was a pretty ramshackle operation in its latter years, but it had a great funky quality, plus that wonderful popcorn oil/disinfectant/mildew smell that I get so nostalgic about. The thing I will always remember is that whether from laziness or lack of letters, the marquee always featured drastic truncations of movie titles, often just one key word. The best one was While You Were Sleeping, which on the marquee was reduced to just “While (PG)”. That’s it!

Another end of an era :(

Someone IS trying to put a 16 screen multiplex at the Plaza. Paramus is divided over whether to grant the required approvals. From what I remember, the town granted it but another entity within the town has sued over it. The mall developers have said that they have to keep improving the mall by adding new things to it or it will fail especially with the Xanadu project coming along and the fact that everything is closed on Sunday in Paramus and most of Bergen county. The movie theater would be allowed to be open.

This theatre is listed with no showtimes at EnjoyTheShow.com .

This theatre has apparently closed permanently as of last Thursday.

The last true original CENTURY house to close as a single screen Aand never to have been redone was the whitman theater in Huntington ny…..closed ABOUT 2003…..AND had never been changed

Is this really one of the last remaining old style Century Houses left in the metro NYC area? In Brooklyn every single Century House is gone except for the Kings Plaza which opened in 1970 and is now a sixplex, it’s been mordernized quite a few times since 1970 so no traces of Century theates are left in this cinema.

Bill,

Great ADs!!! You are 200% correct. The art of movie advertising for a theater is a lost art. These ads actually make me sad because they bring back memeories from the better days of theaters and movies. How we took all that for granted huh?

When I was at Rt. 17 last week, there were highschool employees commiserating in the lobby (the theater was empty anyway, so what the hell else where they going to do?)but I also agree with the marquee. They put NO effort into it. The thinking is, the theater is gonna go bust any time now, so squeeze whatever you can before it dies, then another multiscreen plex with more bad movies, highschoolers who know nothing and managers without a clue.

BTW Bill, I saw Rocky III at the Bellevue in 70MM. It was a scope print, probably one of the only ones, 6-track and it was awesome. Naturally, I was dumbfounded when I saw it at Cinema46 #2 2 months later and it was a flat, mono print. I knew nothing then.

Also, saw “Last Temptation” at Ziegfeld also, they had a few picketers, security at the foot of the screen, and checked our bags. It was like a William Castle film. It was great.
Love the ads, keep em coming.

It only goes to show nobody gives a damn, the manager or the district people. With a huge marquee like that why is this allowed? Then they sit and wondwer why theatres close.

I’ve never been in this place as it looks pretty sad. But I have to say the habit of the one word movie descriptions on the marquee provides my wife and I with a fun game driving up Route 17.

In a lot of ways, THIS is the ideal location for a multiplex and sure enough, THIS is where the next big one is going and it’s only Bergen county’s second stadium seating theater.

When and if they get the Xanadu complex up and running, I’ve heard rumors that a 20+ theater complex is going up down there.

I’m sure the moronic practice of putting one word for each title turns off anyone who is not familiar with the place.

Sadly, I was never in there when it was a single.

Small screen size is no deterrent to running 70mm, you just don’t get the same benefit of the large format image on a small screen, but you do get the 6-channel sound – which, in the pre-digital-sound days, was a big selling point.