Forum Theatre
Rue Pont d'Avroy 14,
Liege
4000
Rue Pont d'Avroy 14,
Liege
4000
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In the 1950s, it was equipped in Vistavision with a new screen in the 1.85 aspect ratio to occupy the largest possible space inside the stage. The previous projection booth was keystoned in the second balcony (when I visited it in 1993, the old projectors were still there in the dust). For Vistavision, they installed a new booth in the first balcony. Yul Brynner attended the premiere of The Ten Commandments.
The Forum also got Perspecta stereophonic sound along with Vistavision but it was kept deactivated most of the time. Perspecta was fake stereo extracted from a mono soundtrack using directional cues. As the Forum had dreadful acoustics, Perspecta produced a lot of reverb in the balconies where dialog intelligibility was poor.
In the 1960s, because of the need to handle more conventional formats, new projectors were installed for Cinemascope and 1.66 widescreen. These two formats were projected on a constant height model with adjustable side masking, on a screen surface less tall than the previous Vistavision frame. Optical mono sound was the norm and a book about the Forum mistakenly reports it as having been equipped for 4-track magnetic sound, which is not true even at the times of Vistavision. Its author must have confused with Perspecta.
The exact seat count was 3004 which included a few seats never sold to the public because the view they offered was blocked. These seats had been installed for marketing reasons so that the Forum could sell itself as a theatre in the “3000 seats category”. This information was given to my dad by Mr Emile Ledent whom he knew very well, who was general manager of the Forum for decades.
At some point in the late 1970s, business ownership changed from the Masereel family to the Defawe family although Ms Masereel (widow of Mr Jean Masereel who was a great showman) remained the landlord of the whole building that also included the Churchill cinema in its basement.
In the photos section, I posted pictures done in November 2019 when I went to the concert of film scores composed by John Williams and Hans Zimmer.
In its last few years of operation as a cinema, it was an example of premium theatre in the hands of people who know nothing about cinema and have no idea on how to conduct such a venue. I remember seeing Superman 2 and The Empire strikes back in a crowded auditorium when I was a kid. Then on the other hand they showed a bunch of Chinese karate comedies with Jackie Chan, which I went to see on Saturday afternoons with a school mate and there were about 100 spectators, on a Saturday matinee!
Very nice.
The Forum Theatre, photographed in May 2007:
Exterior
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Entrance
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Stairs
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Auditorium
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