I remember the Britton Theater as it existed in the 1960s, when it was just one GIANT single theater. I believe it held roughly 1200-1300 seats. My memory is that there might have been a balcony at the back. The shopping center was not entirely finished, so there was a vacant lot on the right side of the theater with a wooden wall covering most of it up. A faded sign on the brick wall of the theater advertised Walt Disney’s “Sleeping Beauty,” which would’ve been from 1959, but my own memories only start from around 1962. I believe the first movie I saw there was “Taras Bulba,” which would’ve been from that year.
The theater was fairly upscale, kind of a competition to the downtown Tampa and Florida theaters, and they actually had ushers in uniforms and all that stuff. All the way through the late 1960s, they’d show a newsreel, a cartoon short, a couple of trailers, and then the feature. And they always had the memorable AMC logo with the annoying spinning projector logo and the harpsichord/bass song (variations of which still exist with AMC today).
The Britton Plaza theater kind of fell apart over time, and I know they divided it up and turned it into a multiplex. But it was a great theater for me, and I saw some memorable films there. I think the one that had the largest crowd in local history was “Thunderball,” where I swear, the ticket line stretched about a block all the way down the shopping center and to the left, towards the drug store that used to be there. Huge, crazy, massive crowds, easily two thousand people. I also had terrific memories of seeing “Our Man Flint,” “You Only Live Twice,” and a few bad Elvis movies. Palma Ceia was a great neighborhood to grow up in, and the Britton was a very well-run theater for its time.
I remember the Britton Theater as it existed in the 1960s, when it was just one GIANT single theater. I believe it held roughly 1200-1300 seats. My memory is that there might have been a balcony at the back. The shopping center was not entirely finished, so there was a vacant lot on the right side of the theater with a wooden wall covering most of it up. A faded sign on the brick wall of the theater advertised Walt Disney’s “Sleeping Beauty,” which would’ve been from 1959, but my own memories only start from around 1962. I believe the first movie I saw there was “Taras Bulba,” which would’ve been from that year.
The theater was fairly upscale, kind of a competition to the downtown Tampa and Florida theaters, and they actually had ushers in uniforms and all that stuff. All the way through the late 1960s, they’d show a newsreel, a cartoon short, a couple of trailers, and then the feature. And they always had the memorable AMC logo with the annoying spinning projector logo and the harpsichord/bass song (variations of which still exist with AMC today).
The Britton Plaza theater kind of fell apart over time, and I know they divided it up and turned it into a multiplex. But it was a great theater for me, and I saw some memorable films there. I think the one that had the largest crowd in local history was “Thunderball,” where I swear, the ticket line stretched about a block all the way down the shopping center and to the left, towards the drug store that used to be there. Huge, crazy, massive crowds, easily two thousand people. I also had terrific memories of seeing “Our Man Flint,” “You Only Live Twice,” and a few bad Elvis movies. Palma Ceia was a great neighborhood to grow up in, and the Britton was a very well-run theater for its time.