Wedgewood Cinema
1743 S. Raccoon Road,
Austintown,
OH
44515
1743 S. Raccoon Road,
Austintown,
OH
44515
1 person
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June 29th, 1966 grand opening ad uploaded here.
Thanks milanp.Good Stories.
A few of the movies I recall seeing at the original Wedgewood Cinema:
double-bills of “Berserk” and “The Torture Garden” (February ‘68) and Hitchcock’s “The 39 Steps” and “The Lady Vanishes” (fall '71); “Soylent Green,” “The Wild Rovers,” “Don’t Worry We’ll Think of a Title” (with Morey Amsterdam and Rose Marie from the old “Dick Van Dyke Show”); subruns of “Dr. Dolittle” and “Camelot;” “Me, Natalie;” “Daddy’s Gone-a-Hunting;” “Willard;” “Deep Red;” “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” (the original in November '74); and “Mr. Ricco” (w/ Dean Martin: this was the last movie to play before the theater was twinned), among countless others.
Even when the movies were less than great, it was still fun going to the Wedgewood…especially once all the cavernous downtown houses had folded. I’m pretty sure the last downtown Youngstown theater to bite the dust was the Paramount in May 1971. Their last booking was David Lean’s “Ryan’s
Daughter” (which promptly moved over to the Newport on Midlothian Blvd. for one of their rare subrun bookings).
The original, single-screen Wedgewood Cinema was Ytown showman Peter Wellman’s Quixotic attempt to bring the grandeur of the downtown “movie palace” to the suburbs. But except for a few lucky bookings—e.g., an exclusive roadshow engagement of “Oliver!” in winter 1969; a lengthy run of “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner?” in winter ‘68—the bookings were peculiar to say the least: a lot closer to the sort of thing you’d see at neighborhood second-run houses in the late '50s/early '60s. That said, it was always a pleasure to go to this theater (before it was twinned in early 1975 anyway).
I saw lots of intriguing double-features here: “West Side Story” and “Around the World in 80 Days” in December 1968 among them. One of the oddest pairings was probably Jerry Lewis’ “Which Way to the Front?” paired with “The Wild Bunch” in summer 1970.
The screen was huge, and the theater itself seemed immense. Does anyone have an exact seat count from the original single-screen incarnation? I’m thinking it must have been at least 1,200 or something along those lines. Even after its regrettable twinning, the Wedgewood auditoriums were still pretty
darn big.
Yep,Iam about out,You going to have to start adding some.
Thanks Mike, got those old ads out?
Big summer movie was “SLEEPING BEAUTY”.Only theatre in town playing it.July 1 1970.