Embassy Theatre
280 Main Street,
New Britain,
CT
06051
280 Main Street,
New Britain,
CT
06051
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1955 photo added courtesy of Tony Raia and Donna Wofford‎.
I saw two memorable movies at the Embassy, when I was young. “Old Yellar” in 1957 and “The Time Machine” in 1960, a George Pal Production, staring Rod Taylor. My older cousin would take me, since I was six in 1957 and 9 in 1960. We always waited for the balcony to open up so we could sit upstairs. The Time Machine movie scared me because World War III in the movie happened in 1966 and I thought we only had 6 more years to live! It became one of my favorite movies. The Embassy was the second biggest theater in New Britain. The Strand was the biggest. The Embassy also had a two sided marquee on West Main St. between City Hall and the Gates Building, over an alleyway leading to the auditorium. I believe that was the old entrance when the theater was first built as the Lyceum. They used it to provide extra space to advertise movies, however by the time I was born you had to enter under the new 3 sided marque on Main next to Raphael’s Department store. My late parents had told me that when it was the Lyceum the theater had two balconies, and when it was renovated into the embassy the second balcony was removed. Don’t know if anyone can verify that? Alan
From the 1940s a postcard image of Embassy Theatre in New Britain.
I remember the Embassy. I remember part of the being demolished fell through the adjoining Rapheal’s department store.
Don, if the marquee shows Easy Living with Jean Arthur, then this is more like 1937, the year that film was released.
Item in Boxoffice magazine, June 23, 1958:
“Stanley Warner booked Italian films into the Cameo, Bristol, and Embassy, New Britain at the regular price scale."
[For those of us interested in places of exhibition of Italian films to ethnic audiences in the U.S.]
Here is part of an article from the Hartford Courant dated 9/12/64:
Theater Demolition Resumes After Collapse into Store
NEW BRITAIN (Special) — The job of removing huge wooden trusses 70 feet above the stage of the Embassy Theater while avoiding any further collapse of the weakened walls got under way at about 6 p.m. Friday.
Was originally built in 1893 as The Russwin Lyceum.
See http://www.biblestudents.com/htdbv5/zwt0289.htm at the bottom at 277 Main Street as Russwin Lyceum.
Mentioned in Images of America: New Britain, Volume I. Page 128, picture showing 3-sided marquee and a worker under a ladder removing letters for the last time. “As strains of Auld Lang Syne played, movie-goers exited the Embassy Theatre for the last time in the summer of 1964.”
It contained 1300 seats. The owner was John Dabrowski.
Images of America: New Britain, Volume II. Page 110 shows the low marquee and entrance with “Hermie Dressel – Alan Freed” and “Rock, Rock, Rock” on the marquee.
John D. Amato was the assistant manager.
Images of America: New Britain, Volume III. Page 2, long marquee showing “It’s a Wonderful Life”. Page 13, showing “Small Town Girl” (1936 version) with Robert Taylor.
The Lyceum Theater and the Embassy Theater were one and the same. I was in the Embassy once as a little boy, probably in 1954 or 1955. The Embassy closed and was demolished in the early 1960s, a victim of New Britain’s horribly ill-conceived plan for downtown ‘urban renewal.’ A parking garage sits on the theater site.