Thank you dave-bronx, you are absolutely correct. My mistake. Forgot that Upper St. Clair, PA is an actual city and not included in the listing for Pittsburgh. The webmaster should delete this listing.
Before finding this listing this is what my memories contained from 30 years ago. I remember this theater as a modern (for 1970’s) big box, huge 70mm widescreen shallow-curved screen with a grand moving curtain.
For the most part, The Village would get the movies after the downtown theaters where done with the first runs. Occasionally it would get first runs, such as follow-ons to “The Love Bug”. I remember this vividly as my dad was a VW salesman at McMillan and Beaer VW and they displayed VW Beetles in the lobby during the runs.
If the Warner downtown had almost 2000 seats, the Village must have had 4000 (so much for memories; was the Warner downtown really that big, even with the balcony?). The Village just seemed huge to me as compared with the Warner downtown, maybe because of the Warner downtown’s projection booth was smack in the middle of the auditorium blocking the sightline across the audience. The Village didn’t have a balcony.
The Village got “Earthquake” with Sensurround after the Warner downtown was done with it. I saw it at both and was more scared that the old Warner downtown was going to crumble around me. The Village Sensurround experience was not as powerful in the huge theater which had about 20 people in it when I saw the movie as compared with the Warner downtown which was filled to capacity. With the Sensurround speakers installed, the Village also got “Rollercoaster” (I think), and “Battlestar Galactica” (for sure) which were ok Sensurround experiences, which were the only reasons to go to these movies. Midway and Earthquake were the best of the Sensurround movies IMO, giving Midway the edge for the shear number of earth-shaking rumbles.
I remember going up to the big horns of the Sensurround speakers at the front of the theater and the two back speaker enclosure horns that were mounted on the backs of the rear seats to gawk in amazement that the horns were as big as me. Darn if I should have known to sit right in front of the speaker horns, but I wanted the center of the screen experience because the screen was so huge.
The other comments really did bring back memories of the amazement of those dual curtains opening, the curved one seeming to go on forever wrapping around the front of the audience in a huge arc. I recall that it would take at least 30 seconds for that curtain to open. If I recall correctly, the curtain would open part way for the 35mm previews, then close, before the grand opening of the curtain to reveal the huge grander of the widescreen. I really miss curtain openings, but I really miss those huge screens. People born after 1975 have no clue what a movie-going experience is.
That is so cool that this was actually built to be a Cinerama theater. That would have been great and I would guess would have been the largest one ever built. Boy I wish we had screen dimensions.
I really liked the Village and am glad I left Pittsburgh before the conversion to five screens. You can only imagine the shear size of this theater if you could put 5 little ones in the same four walls.
Well, after thinking about this and refreshing my memories, the theater name is actually South Hills Villiage. I asked the webmaster to either correct the name or delete this post and I’ll start another under the new name. Sorry for the confusion.
I am so glad that my ramblings actually provided useful information. I left Pittsburgh in 1982 and upon reviewing the list of movies above, I can’t be sure that I actually saw a movie there since Earthquake (December 1974). I would have sworn that I saw Midway (June 18, 1976) with Sensurround there but I don’t see it on the list and apparently Logan’s Run was playing that same week so that can’t be correct. So, I can only verify up to Dec. 1974.
The Warner could have been divided into two to three screens in the late 70’s early 80’s like some of the other downtown Pittsburgh theaters did by walling off their balcony and installing two small screens up there; or was it one small screen up top and two on the bottom? Somehow I think this happened but I can’t be sure. No one left alive in my family that would have remembered. I hope someone reads this and recalls whether the Warner was divided or not.
The first impression as a 14 year old going to the Warner for the first time to see Earthquake (1974) was that the theater was very ornately decorated and that this was going to be a living history lesson of theaters of the past. The architecture was beautiful even if it did show it’s age. I loved it. The balcony was closed for this Sensurround engagement, probably for safety purposes. The next striking thing was that the screen was very different from any screen that I had ever seen. It was not only curved, but very deeply curved. If I remember correctly, it was almost 180 degrees cylinder which meant that the seats started a fair distance back from the center of the screen with a large stage under the footprint of the screen. Further, an octagonal projection booth with three windows was smack in the middle of the audience. My dad would tell me that the three Cinerama projectors would be housed in there, but it had since been retrofitted with a single projector with a special lens to bend the image to project onto the screen. Sorry to say, the lens/screen combination really distorted the image at the corners but you accepted this after a while just because of the shear size of the screen.
Waiting in the hallway off the lobby leading to the theater for the previous showing to be over presented it’s own anticipation as the Sensurround vibrations from the dam-bursting scene came through to rattle the old plaster of the walls. This was going to be fun! Entering the theater I saw the big horn speakers hanging high in the air on both sides of the screen plus some big horn speakers way in the back. The Sensurround effects really shook the balcony adding creaks and moans to the recorded sounds. Though I really didn’t think that Sensurround really shook the seats or added anything more than a little vibration to the air in your lungs, it sure made the theater creak in ways that were terrifying making you look back to see if you were far enough away from the balcony in case it fell in. Were the cracks in the plaster there before Earthquake or because of Earthquake?
Thank you dave-bronx, you are absolutely correct. My mistake. Forgot that Upper St. Clair, PA is an actual city and not included in the listing for Pittsburgh. The webmaster should delete this listing.
Before finding this listing this is what my memories contained from 30 years ago. I remember this theater as a modern (for 1970’s) big box, huge 70mm widescreen shallow-curved screen with a grand moving curtain.
For the most part, The Village would get the movies after the downtown theaters where done with the first runs. Occasionally it would get first runs, such as follow-ons to “The Love Bug”. I remember this vividly as my dad was a VW salesman at McMillan and Beaer VW and they displayed VW Beetles in the lobby during the runs.
If the Warner downtown had almost 2000 seats, the Village must have had 4000 (so much for memories; was the Warner downtown really that big, even with the balcony?). The Village just seemed huge to me as compared with the Warner downtown, maybe because of the Warner downtown’s projection booth was smack in the middle of the auditorium blocking the sightline across the audience. The Village didn’t have a balcony.
The Village got “Earthquake” with Sensurround after the Warner downtown was done with it. I saw it at both and was more scared that the old Warner downtown was going to crumble around me. The Village Sensurround experience was not as powerful in the huge theater which had about 20 people in it when I saw the movie as compared with the Warner downtown which was filled to capacity. With the Sensurround speakers installed, the Village also got “Rollercoaster” (I think), and “Battlestar Galactica” (for sure) which were ok Sensurround experiences, which were the only reasons to go to these movies. Midway and Earthquake were the best of the Sensurround movies IMO, giving Midway the edge for the shear number of earth-shaking rumbles.
I remember going up to the big horns of the Sensurround speakers at the front of the theater and the two back speaker enclosure horns that were mounted on the backs of the rear seats to gawk in amazement that the horns were as big as me. Darn if I should have known to sit right in front of the speaker horns, but I wanted the center of the screen experience because the screen was so huge.
The other comments really did bring back memories of the amazement of those dual curtains opening, the curved one seeming to go on forever wrapping around the front of the audience in a huge arc. I recall that it would take at least 30 seconds for that curtain to open. If I recall correctly, the curtain would open part way for the 35mm previews, then close, before the grand opening of the curtain to reveal the huge grander of the widescreen. I really miss curtain openings, but I really miss those huge screens. People born after 1975 have no clue what a movie-going experience is.
That is so cool that this was actually built to be a Cinerama theater. That would have been great and I would guess would have been the largest one ever built. Boy I wish we had screen dimensions.
I really liked the Village and am glad I left Pittsburgh before the conversion to five screens. You can only imagine the shear size of this theater if you could put 5 little ones in the same four walls.
Well, after thinking about this and refreshing my memories, the theater name is actually South Hills Villiage. I asked the webmaster to either correct the name or delete this post and I’ll start another under the new name. Sorry for the confusion.
I emailed some friends left in Pittsburg to see what they know about the Warner.
I am so glad that my ramblings actually provided useful information. I left Pittsburgh in 1982 and upon reviewing the list of movies above, I can’t be sure that I actually saw a movie there since Earthquake (December 1974). I would have sworn that I saw Midway (June 18, 1976) with Sensurround there but I don’t see it on the list and apparently Logan’s Run was playing that same week so that can’t be correct. So, I can only verify up to Dec. 1974.
The Warner could have been divided into two to three screens in the late 70’s early 80’s like some of the other downtown Pittsburgh theaters did by walling off their balcony and installing two small screens up there; or was it one small screen up top and two on the bottom? Somehow I think this happened but I can’t be sure. No one left alive in my family that would have remembered. I hope someone reads this and recalls whether the Warner was divided or not.
The first impression as a 14 year old going to the Warner for the first time to see Earthquake (1974) was that the theater was very ornately decorated and that this was going to be a living history lesson of theaters of the past. The architecture was beautiful even if it did show it’s age. I loved it. The balcony was closed for this Sensurround engagement, probably for safety purposes. The next striking thing was that the screen was very different from any screen that I had ever seen. It was not only curved, but very deeply curved. If I remember correctly, it was almost 180 degrees cylinder which meant that the seats started a fair distance back from the center of the screen with a large stage under the footprint of the screen. Further, an octagonal projection booth with three windows was smack in the middle of the audience. My dad would tell me that the three Cinerama projectors would be housed in there, but it had since been retrofitted with a single projector with a special lens to bend the image to project onto the screen. Sorry to say, the lens/screen combination really distorted the image at the corners but you accepted this after a while just because of the shear size of the screen.
Waiting in the hallway off the lobby leading to the theater for the previous showing to be over presented it’s own anticipation as the Sensurround vibrations from the dam-bursting scene came through to rattle the old plaster of the walls. This was going to be fun! Entering the theater I saw the big horn speakers hanging high in the air on both sides of the screen plus some big horn speakers way in the back. The Sensurround effects really shook the balcony adding creaks and moans to the recorded sounds. Though I really didn’t think that Sensurround really shook the seats or added anything more than a little vibration to the air in your lungs, it sure made the theater creak in ways that were terrifying making you look back to see if you were far enough away from the balcony in case it fell in. Were the cracks in the plaster there before Earthquake or because of Earthquake?
Long live the Warner, in our memories.