Charles Theatre
2217 Atlantic Avenue,
Atlantic City,
NJ
08401
2217 Atlantic Avenue,
Atlantic City,
NJ
08401
4 people
favorited this theater
Showing 1 - 25 of 29 comments
A Strand theatre opened on its site on May 7th, 1921, and placed its last ad on October 9th, 1924. Ad posted.
Opened as Palace on April 1st, 1931. Ad posted.
and reopened as the Surf on December 13th, 1951. Ad posted.
Closed as Palace in 1951.
Reopened as the Charles on October 15th, 1964. Grand opening ad posted.
Ads stopped for the Charles theatre ended in the Press in 1980.
Great poster Bloop. Charles Tannenbaum was a customer of mine at Atlantic Bank. Really nice guy. The closing film was Penitentiary
MichaelJayKlein : just posted an Exorcist Ad from the Charles !
Oh yes, I have very fond memories of The Charles. I spent my entire teenage years going there every time they ran a new picture. I guess I should mention Mr. Tannenbaum always let me in free—he was a friend of my dad’s (man, was I lucky!) I’d see ANYTHING that was playing there—I even sat through “Barry Lyndon” without the benefit of my prescription glasses, as I accidentally had broken them earlier that day. Yes, it was a very fine theater, and I do remember the color TV as I’d sit there watching it before the movie and Mr. Tannenbaum and I would talk—he was a very nice man; always treated me like an “adult”. I remember he was a very good looking man (my mom always said he reminded her of actor George Montgomery in a way).
Someone earlier mentioned a balcony in the theater, but I’m almost certain there was none (?) If somebody can correct me, please do!
I think The Charles, as I remember it, was not doing too well, although they would always get the really “hot” movies when they came out and had huge lines outside (I remember seeing “The Exorcist” and “The Godfather” there to name a couple), but along with the “class” pictures, I can remember seeing a SLEW of great exploitation pictures there—to this day, I can remembering bopping in as usual, totally unaware of what the movie was or what it was about and that week they were showing “Halloween”. SCARED the living works out of me, and I recall walking the six blocks home sticking very closely to the curb on Atlantic City so that if anything jumped out at me from an alley way, my feet had a head start.
Thanks for remembering The Charles, Mr. Tannenbaum and for including a nice picture of it—that alone brought back tons of memories.
Michael
Note to Mr. Chuck Workman above: Yes, I was at the premier of your film! I remember it! And the reason I especially remember this is because Mr. Tannenbaum’s wife was at the ticket booth that particular night, she didn’t know me from Adam, and I had to scrounge up the $3.00 myself that time! So you didn’t get cheated Chuck…
Hey Jill! How is your Dad? I miss the old Theatre days sometimes!
The Charles Theater was owned by Charles Tannenbaum but run and operated by George Perry and Perry Management. It was a venue for many movie premieres as the casinos came revitalized Atlantic City. A movie premiere I recall it hosting was “Sammy Stops the World” with Sammy Davis Jr, which was about his life, and he and his buddies attended the opening with a gala at Caesars following it. This was the first of premieres I was allowed to finally attend being old enough. The Charles had a beautiful balcony and stayed up to the times as best as it could. It was the first theater at the time in the area to have the big sub wolfer speakers when the came out for Battle Star Gallactica. It was eventually sold to the casinos and became a parking lot.
I think I may still have a 35mm trailer for ‘The Money’ in storage… small world.
I used to date the niece of the manager from the Tilton Theatre in Northfield, NJ and Charles (co-owned the Tilton) would let us sit in the closed balcony during the weeknights. Sweet.
This article from the Uniontown (PA) Evening Standard is dated 11/21/63, the day before the Kennedy assassination:
ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. (AP) â€"A general alarm fire broke out early today in a movie theater about 13 blocks south of Monday’s disastrous hotel fire in this resort city. The movie house, the Surf
Theater, was closed for the night and empty when an alarm sounded at 1:23 a.m. Ten residents of apartments above the two-story, stucco theater escaped from the building without injury, firemen said.
The flames, believed to have started in the projection room, were brought under control within a few hours. Fire Chief Warren Conover estimated damage at $50,000. The theater, on Atlantic Avenue, is a block from Convention Hall. Today’s general alarmer came less than 72 hours after the Surfside Hotel disaster that so far has claimed 12 known dead, with 13 more missing and 10 buildings destroyed.
$19.98 on the MTV site:
http://tinyurl.com/mnrelk
My first movie, shot in Atlantic City and called The Money, premiered at The Charles. Charles Tannenbaum was a family friend and actually did us a favor, as the film was a tiny independent movie and hardly played anywhere theatrically. On the night of the “gala” opening, a few people showed up, including my parents who lived nearby. Since my stepfather was a local celebrity, the Atlantic City Press wrote about the premiere and said that the family would all be there. This information proved useful to some and my parents' house was robbed when they were at the movie.
I went often to the Charles, and also to other theaters owned by Charles, and I think a lot of how I feel about movies came from the offbeat films I saw there, and at the Astor and some of the other smaller AC theaters. Charles loved exhibition and told me he often would stop in to one of his theaters, like the Tilton, when he was a successful casino executive, and just hang out, take tickets, and smell the popcorn.
Years later I thought about buying the Margate (the Ventnor was too expensive) but never got very far with that. I watched so many movies in AC as I grew up, mostly at the Ventnor and Margate, but in uptown Atlantic City too as I got older, and so many of the films I used to use in movie montages I probably first saw on some rainy summer day at an Atlantic City theater.
The Money is out on dvd, probably available on Amazon, now called by the distributor Atlantic City Jackpot. The biggest star in it was Danny DeVito, who had three lines, but of course they put his picture on the box.
Renewing link.
From the Hartford Cuurant, 11/22/63:
ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. (UPI) — The second major fire here this week destroyed the Surf Theater Thursday and routed 12 persons from apartments on upper floors. The movie house is about a mile and a half from the Surfside Hotel.
Does anyone remember which distributor fed films to this theater when it was the Surf? – Ed Blank
Mr. Tannenbaum was a friend of my dad’s when I was growing up and he kindly let me see every movie at the Charles for free! What a nice guy! My most memorable “Charles” moment was seeing “Halloween” when it first came out. I’d go to the Charles to see any movie playing there and had no idea I’d get the heebie-jeebies scared out of me when I saw that movie! Sorry to hear it is no longer there. I moved from Atlantic City in 1984.
Still listed as part of Milgrim Theatres, Inc. in the 1985 International Motion Picture Almanac.
Listed as part of Milgrim Theatres, Inc. in the 1970 FDY & 1976 International Motion Picture Almanac.
I was in Atlantic City at the beginning of the year. There is now a large shopping mall around the area of Columbus Park, Missouri and Atlantic Avenues.
Howard
I just saw your posting from Dec 15. Charles Tannenbaum was a nice guy. I worked at Atlantic Bank in 77 and he was one of my customers. He also owned the Capital burlesque and later the Apollo Burlesque. I grew up in Phila (great what you have done for the Boyd. I love that theater) and spent summers in AC.
Mikeoaklandpark
Thanks for the info. I know I saw alot of movies at the Charles that were filmed in scope (Cromwell, The Getaway, Bridge At Remagen, etc)
but it was a long time ago and my memory is a bit hazy regarding
presentation details and at that age I really didn’t know much about
scope, masking, etc. I’m glad to hear The Charles had proper presentation as the theatre was a class act for most of it’s life.
Also, Charles Tannenbaum, the owner of the Charles, also owned or
co-owned the Beach and Tilton theatres.