Cinema 70
412 N. Chelton Road,
Colorado Springs,
CO
80909
412 N. Chelton Road,
Colorado Springs,
CO
80909
3 people
favorited this theater
Showing 22 comments
Three cinemas on August 20th, 1976
Grand opening ad posted.
Found on Newspaperarchive.com
Great, beautiful theatre. Saw “Terminator 2” here in 1991. Excellent sound and outstanding picture!
Hey dallasmovietheaters! I could use your help. Could you please drop me an email at mkil
J.P Britton architectural sketch of the Cinema 70 in 1964 in Colorado Springs I photos.
Last film I saw at Cinema 70 was South Park in 1999. I still have my unopened box of Cheesy Poofs given out opening night!
I remember one time they had a Star Trek film fest there showing IV, V, and VI back to back and a few vendor booths.
This theatre was truly epic.
The architecture of this cinema was certainly neat looking. But, it was closed when I moved here, and for as long I can remember it’s been a motorcycle dealership.
What a great site! I just discovered a couple of “My Fair Lady” flyers and a ticket envelope for the Cinema 70 in a “My Fair Lady” program book I found at a used-book store. It is so neat to understand why these moments would have been so meaningful to whoever saved them! (see photo page)
This page still needs to be updated to attribute the design of the Cinema 70 to Lusk & Wallace (Dietz Lusk Jr. and John J. Wallace) rather than Mel C. Glatz, and to remove the erroneous AKA of Cooper 70 Theatre.
Dietz Lusk didn’t include any of his theaters among the works listed in his entry in the 1970 edition of the AIA’s guide to American architects. By that time the firm was designing a great variety of projects, but so far I’ve found no theaters later than this one among their works.
A link to Dorothy Dandridge and “Island in this Sun” is here: http://www.listal.com/viewimage/864003
IMHO: Cinema 70 was the most beautiful and elegant theatre of its time. The interior was magnificent. I can remember asking my uncle, Royale Milo, why he picked the beige color for the draperies. He said that he was in love with Dorothy Dandridge who had worn a beige-blond dress in the movie, “Island in the Sun” and he wanted the auditorium be be as beautiful as she was.
I remember when the Cooper was opened, it was called the Cooper (without any following numbers). Later, in the 1960s, Colorado Springs Gazette newspaper advertising called it the Cooper 70, however, building signage was not changed. Joe is correct that in the 70s the name,including building signage, was changed to Cooper 1-2-3.
Page 20 of a history of Cooper Theatres (a pdf can be downloaded from this web page) says that the Cooper 1-2-3 was an expansion of the Cooper 70. The two new auditoriums were added in 1970.
So is the Cooper 1-2-3 a separate entity from the Cinema 70, Ute 70 and Cooper 70?
Coate and orange are right. I conflated the Cinema 70 with the Cooper 70 in my earlier comment. The Cooper 70 and Ute 70 are not yet listed at Cinema Treasures.
Cinema 70 certainly is confusing. According to records at the Colorado Springs Regional Planning Office, the original building at 412 N. Chelton, the name is the NEW CINEMA 70 and the architects were Lusk and Wallace and Associates. The theatre was owned by Westland and Arcadia Properties; the Cooper Foundation never owned the NEW CINEMA 70. The NEW CINEMA 70 opened in 1965 with My Fair Lady. Interior design, was done by Hans Tager who also did the mural inside the Peak Theatre in Colorado Springs in 1950. The creame-beige-blond draperies were done by Royale Milo. With seating for 2000 persons, NEW CINEMA 70 was the largest auditorium in Colorado at the time. Mel C. Glatz and Associates appear to have had no connection with the NEW CINEMA 70 project, although Glatz may have incorporated ideas from the NEW CINEMA 70 Theatre, in his later work on the Ute 70 Theatre. It is known that Royale Milo did assist Glatz on the draperies in the Ute 70, however. NEW CINEMA 70 was in direct competition with the COOPER CINERAMA in Denver and the UTE 70 in Colorado Springs.
Wow, this page is a mess!
Let me take a stab at getting things corrected. The fact is the Cinema 70, Cooper 70 and Ute 70 are three different theaters. They are not alternate names for one another. A simple check of 1960s era issues of the Colorado Springs Gazette-Telegraph prove this.
To clarify…
Cooper 70 was opened in 1963 by the Cooper Foundation. It was located on South Nevada Ave.
Cinema 70 was opened in 1965 by Westland Theatres. It was located on Chelton Road.
Ute 70 was opened in 1967 by the Cooper Foundation. It was located on North Nevada Ave. (This is not to be confused with the original Ute Theatre located on Pikes Peak.)
Cinema 70 opened in 1963 as the Cooper 70 Theatre, according to a history of the Cooper circuit published by the Cooper Foundation, available as a 7.9MB .pdf file which can be downloaded from this page of their web site. The opening of the Cooper 70 was scheduled for November 22, but was delayed until the following night because of the assassination of President Kennedy that day.
The design of the Cooper 70 is attributed by the history to Mel Glatz, in association with architect Maynard Rorman. The team also designed the Ute 70 and Cooper 1-2-3 in Colorado Springs, the Cooper Twin and Wilshire Twin in Greeley, Colorado, and the additions to the Cooper Cinerama theaters when they were expanded into multi-screen houses.
Here is a November 1977 ad from the same source:
http://tinyurl.com/n7tzsk
Here is a March 1972 ad from the Colorado Springs Gazette:
http://tinyurl.com/nfh928
Actually the Cinema 70 was out on Chelton and Platte, it consisted of one large auditorium and two fairly small ones (presumably added later than screen 1) I remember seeing “Where the Red Fern grows” as a youngster, and the awful “Porky’s” as a teenager. The Arcadia drive in used to be located directly behind. The Ute 70, I believe was downtown on Nevada Avenue and was briefly an antique store in the 90’s.
This was actually opened as the “Ute 70” in 1967 and was the down-the-street replacement for the original Ute Theater. The “70” tag related to its capability of running 70mm; an advertising “plus” in the late-60’s and early-70’s.