DuPont Theater

The Dupont Building and the Dupont Movie theater were both owned and operated by my parents, J. Daniel and Mary Weitzman, and the desegragated theater opened in 1948, not by Mann or Freudberg in 1961. American movie distributors refused to lease films to the desegregated theater and the FBI harassed my parent until they eventually had to sell in 1961.

My parent built and ran the Dupont Theater from 1948 and it was the first nonsegregated movie theater in Washington D.C.

HIGH NOON opened in New York City on July 24, 1952, but did not make it to D.C. until 12/31/52. According to an article I read in the “Washington Post” by their film critic Richard L. Coe, the film was held back because of protests by the American Legion.

HIGH NOON opened simultanously at the Dupont, where it played for 16 weeks, and the Playhouse, where it played for 6 weeks.

JULIUS CAESAR, with Marlon Brando and James Mason, was released in June of 1953 and played in other major cities before coming to the Dupont on February 3, 1954.

The longest running films at the Dupont between 1954 and 1972 (when I lived in the D.C. area) were: JULIUS CAESAR (15 weeks), THE HORSE’S MOUTH (14 weeks), NEVER ON SUNDAY (43 weeks!!!) ONE, TWO, THREE (15 weeks), PHAEDRA (15 weeks), THE THRILL OF IT ALL (14 weeks), DR. STRANGELOVE (14 weeks), THE WORLD OF HENRY ORIENT (11 weeks), ZORBA THE GREEK (22 weeks!), THE LOVED ONE (11 weeks), GEORGY GIRL (27 weeks!), THE FOX (16 weeks), ROMEO AND JULIET (36 weeks!), IF (12 weeks), and THEY SHOOT HORSES, DON’T THEY (12 weeks).

There were also a great many films that played at the Dupont for almost two months, and I will include the entire list of every picture that played at the theater from January of 1950 to January of 1972 at a later date so you can find your favorites.

Some sidenotes: DR. STRANGELOVE and THE WORLD OF HENRY ORIENT played back to back at the Dupont between 2/20/64 and 9/1/64. THE THRILL OF IT ALL with Doris Day and James Garner was hardly an art house film, which was the Dupont’s specialty, but it obviously did great business. Undoubtedly a great “date movie”, it ran at the Dupont from 7/24/63 to 10/10/63.

Ironically, the 1954 version of ROMEO AND JULIET with Laurence Harvey and Susan Shentall also had its first-run engagement at the Dupont. It played for 7 weeks, starting on Christmas Eve of that year.

After enjoying a healthy run of 10 weeks at the Embassy, JOE (1970) moved over to the Dupont on 10/28/70 and played there for 8 more weeks.

The only films I saw at the Dupont were: PRIVILEGE (1967), THE SWIMMER (1968), the 1968 version of ROMEO AND JULIET, TELL THEM WILLIE BOY IS HERE (a late 1969 release that opened at the Dupont on 1/16/70), THEY SHOOT HORSES, DON’T THEY (another late 1969 release that opened at the Dupont on 2/18/70), and THE GREAT WHITE HOPE (1970).

This was a Ted Mann Theater in 1961, according to Boxoffice magazine:

WASHINGTON-In his first move east, Ted Mann’s Emerson Theater Co. of Minnesota has acquired full control of the Dupont Theater in Washington. The art house formerly was owned jointly by United Artists and a syndicate of private investors represented by Leopold V. Freudberg, a Washington financier.

Mann, who owns 12 theaters in Minneapolis, St. Paul and Duluth, also heads a booking operation, Northwest Theaters, in the Minneapolis territory. The Dupont has been setting box office records with “Never on Sunday” for the past 43 weeks.

I worked as Projectionist at the old Dupont in the summer of 1970. The theatre had a long and narrow auditorium with a long narrow lobby next (North) to it. The office building that housed the Dupont was on the South side of Dupont Circle, West side of Conn Ave, East side of 19th St but only half of the block, not all the way to “N” St at the new building is.. The theatre was at the South, widest end.. The booth was entered through the office building and the door looked like an office.. upon entering the “office” there was a foyer with a rest room and to the left was a steep metal stair half a flight down to the actual booth, there was a slanted ladder (emergency exit on the right) a small kitchenette opposite the rest room.. on the booth level was a generator room (North side kinda under the stairs).. on the South side of the booth, more room due to lader, not stairs, was a re-wind and work room, all with heavy (nitrate) fire doors.

Does anyone remember an art house in downtown DC I used to attend showings quite frquently in the late fifties. I thought I remembered the name ‘Plaza" but I could be wrong.

The LITTLE was on 9th Street between F and G Streets. It was later called Roth’s LITTLE. They had an extremely long run there of MGM’s movie “LILI” with Leslie Caron. NOT a first run but a clever re-run it played there at first run admission prices for about a year.
The DUPONT THEATRE had some incredibly long first run engagements. Pictures like HIGH NOON, ZORBA THE GREEK, DR STRANGELOVE each played for months-on-end.
FIRST RUNS in WASHINGTON, as elsewhere, were destroyed by the Martin Luther King Riots. After Dr. King’s followers burned and looted the downtown areas, with no interference by police, people stayed away from downtown and hence from first run theaters. Within a few years movie studios did what was necessary and opened first runs in the suburban neighborhoods. This was the death blow for all of America’s beautiful downtown first runs. Good thing to remember on the MLK holiday in Jamuary. His leadership led to fire, looting, and the end of so many movie palaces as collateral damage.