I’m sure that the front half may have only had 100 seats not 1,000 shown in the description. Also it closed as a theater in the late 50’s or early 60’s. Shortly after it closed it became a ping-pong parlor which lasted a couple of years then it was a welding shop before it was demolished in the early 2000’s.
I’m a Ron also. Our family would go there because it was cheap. It was cooler in the open air part but you’d have to run like hell when a rain storm came up. The good thing was that it was hardly ever full and you could find a seat.
We probable went there less than 10 times, and 3 or 4 of them required rushing to the back. No matter how hard it poured the movie went on. There were times where you could hardly see the screen.
A slight aside to this, friends of parents owned the grocery store next door, Putzers. Mr. Putzer owned a small freight hauling ship. Because diabetes took his leg in the late 50’s, he could no longer captain and he would lease it out. One of the renters who leased the boat never brought it back as he had a “higher mission”. The renter, “Fidel Castro”.
What was unusual about the Little River Theater was the balcony. The projection booth was in the center and on either side were two soundproof glassed in viewing rooms. One was for smokers and the other for people with small children so that their crying and/or talking wouldn’t disturb people – a great idea.
When it became an “adult” theater it showed those horribly filmed movies of the 30’s and 40’s that were so bad they made “Reefer Madness” look like high art. Supposedly no one under 21 was allowed, but we were in our mid-teens and were never challenged. The live show would have some strippers who couldn’t get work anywhere else. We were sure they were all someone’s grandmothers. Even so, we felt like hot shots for getting in.
I’m sure that the front half may have only had 100 seats not 1,000 shown in the description. Also it closed as a theater in the late 50’s or early 60’s. Shortly after it closed it became a ping-pong parlor which lasted a couple of years then it was a welding shop before it was demolished in the early 2000’s.
I’m a Ron also. Our family would go there because it was cheap. It was cooler in the open air part but you’d have to run like hell when a rain storm came up. The good thing was that it was hardly ever full and you could find a seat.
We probable went there less than 10 times, and 3 or 4 of them required rushing to the back. No matter how hard it poured the movie went on. There were times where you could hardly see the screen.
A slight aside to this, friends of parents owned the grocery store next door, Putzers. Mr. Putzer owned a small freight hauling ship. Because diabetes took his leg in the late 50’s, he could no longer captain and he would lease it out. One of the renters who leased the boat never brought it back as he had a “higher mission”. The renter, “Fidel Castro”.
What was unusual about the Little River Theater was the balcony. The projection booth was in the center and on either side were two soundproof glassed in viewing rooms. One was for smokers and the other for people with small children so that their crying and/or talking wouldn’t disturb people – a great idea.
When it became an “adult” theater it showed those horribly filmed movies of the 30’s and 40’s that were so bad they made “Reefer Madness” look like high art. Supposedly no one under 21 was allowed, but we were in our mid-teens and were never challenged. The live show would have some strippers who couldn’t get work anywhere else. We were sure they were all someone’s grandmothers. Even so, we felt like hot shots for getting in.