Scotsland Cinema 1 & 2

dallasmovietheaters on February 13, 2025 at 2:52 pm

A group of investors decided in 1971 the time was right to convert the Copp Farm to a Shangri-La ski resort, tennis club, health spa, and lakefront residences. Professional Investors Syndicate would build a 150' ski hill and associate a hotel on the property. The planned Scotsland Resort Hotel would also include a twin-screen cinema. This was not uncommon in the suburban theater boom of the late 1960s and 1970s featuring one and two screen cinemas with reduced seat count, luxury seating, and - in some cases - large format and/or stereo presentations.

Back in the early 1970s, the rise of hotel-site cinemas was a big thing. Three conditions allowed that. The first was the use of safety film leading to far fewer fatal movie theater explosions that decimated theaters and, often, neighboring buildings. The second was a switch to automated projection booth equipment allowing operators to circumvent or lessen the reliance on union projectionists. And third was that the downtown theaters were in retreat due to limited parking, decaying interiors, and too-high seat count that made some movie outings seem eerily empty. So hotels, casinos and other properties built automated theaters to take advantage of abundant free parking and a nearby clientele.

And the Scotsland group found an operator who would open a clean and modern two-screen cinema. But then the project stopped suddenly in 1973 with unpaid bills and court dates. When the project resumed and the investors mostly looking from the outside in, James D. Gudmundson and his independent Scotsland Cinema I & II opened on April 5, 1974 with “The Sting” and a double-feature “Superdad” and “Son of Flubber”. Ad in photos. Auditorium I had a total of 435 seats and II had 306 seats for a toal of 741 seats. The exterior was modern and the interior was a rustic-designed venue to fit in with the Scotsland Resort Complex which wouldn’t open until the theater’s third week operation and its grand opening May 1, 1974.

The cinema survived the chop that Scotsland found itself in. Just seven months into its run, Princess Hotels became the new operator of the resort. In September of 1976, the complex was rebranded as the Olympia Resort Hotel. It had new operators in 1980 and somehow lasted far longer than it should have. The Cinema closed permanently as the Scotsland Cinemas on March 10, 1996 with “Muppet Treasure Island” and “Broken Arrow.” (BTW, I see no evidence that it was ever called the Scotsland Theatres.) The hotel skidded to closure in January of 2018 in disrepair and dated. The resort was mercifully demolished in 2021.