Theatre By The Sea

This theatre showed movies in the immediate postwar period. HOTEL BERLIN and HOLLYWOOD CANTEEN played here in 1945 according to ads found in the Westerly Sun. At that time they shared bookings with the Strand Theatre in Hope Valley.

I saw several Disney movies there during the early-to-mid 1970s. I used to get car-sick in those days, so I won’t forget the long, long drive from Providence and back in the back of a Volkswagen squareback, usually with no seatbelt.

I have no documentation about its use as a movie theatre in the immediate postwar period. But I do know that in the month of September 1968, immediately after the live theatre season, there was a film festival of classic and foreign movies here. I myself was consulted on what format that might take, because at that time I ran a film society in Providence called Prestige Film. I wound up having no hand in the program in Matunuck. The promoters settled on a collecion of selected movies distributed by Janus Films. A screen was set up and temporary 16mm projectors were put in place. I attended two of the films shown that month: the von Sternberg/Marlene Dietrich The Blue Angel on Monday, September 2 and Hitchcock’s The Lady Vanishes on Tuesday, September 17. A printed calendar was distributed listing the offerings in the series, but I no longer have a copy of it, so I do not remember how many films were shown over how many nights. The series ran only selected nights during the month, as I recall. But I did see those two movies here in 1968.