The opening of the Perimeter Mall Theatre was a true watershed in the history of movie theatres in Atlanta. First, it marked the entry of the General Cinema chain into the Atlanta market. Until that time the theatre business in Atlanta was dominated by two local companies, Storey, and Georgia Theatre Company which themselves were once one company, Lucas and Jenkins. Other national chains such as Loews and Walter Reade had a small presence in Atlanta and regional chains like Martin (now Carmike) and ABC Southeastern a somewhat larger one.
The location of the Perimeter Mall also marked a big change. For years first run theatres had been slowly moving toward the northern suburbs of Atlanta as the exodus from downtown gathered steam. For the most part this consisted of the first run theatres in the Buckhead area such as Lenox, Phipps Plaza, Tara, Capri, Fine Art (now Garden Hills) and the Georgia Cinerama (listed on this site as the Georgia Twin). The northernmost first run location was the Loews 12 Oaks in Chamblee, and it had a spotty record at best in attracting first run business unless it had a can’t miss feature. But Perimeter Mall was the first theatre built outside I-285 with the first run trade in mind. It was also the first multiplex (in those days three screens was considered a multiplex) built with first run intentions. At the time Atlanta had two other triples, the Old National, later expanded to 7, and the Westgate, originally a Martin twin later bought and tripled by Georgia Theatre Company. Both of these theatres, now closed, were on the southside of Atlanta and concentrated on intermediate runs of films as they left the first run theatres to the north.
Among the other changes ushered into the market by the arrival of GCC was the lower priced bargain matinee and the policy of running an all day, “grind” schedule year round. Hard as it may be to believe now, many of the suburban first run theatres of that time, such as Phipps, Tara, 12 Oaks, and Georgia, would cut back to night showings only as business dropped off as the runs lengthened. One new feature that did not catch on was the inclusion of smoking areas. I can remember some downtown theatres such as the Rialto having roped off areas in the balcony where smoking was permitted, but at Perimeter Mall the entire left side seating sections allowed smoking and ashtrays were built into the back of each seat. I do not know when this policy ended, but it did not last long.
As mentioned in the above post, the auditoriums of the theatre were nothing to brag about. Cinema 1 held 850 seats, Cinema 2 had 550, and Cinema 3 had 420. 1 and 2 had three section seating with two aisles and 3 had two section with a center aisle. None had curtains, a common feature at the time. Instead they had the black bordered “window box” screens. I do not believe movable masking was added until later which meant that while cinemascope movies looked fine, flat presentations were left with a raw edge on the sides. All screens were lit up with a row of overhead screen lights in the trademark General Cinema blue. The walls were not draped but were covered with a thin metal curved to look like pleated drapes with holes to allow sound to be absorbed by its foam backing.
The lobby was large and well lit due to the 100% glass wall design. Unfortunately, no one bothered to check the sun angle, especially in the winter, and as a result the lobby, which faced south was almost unbearable, both heat and light wise, in the late afternoon. It was not long before louvered blinds and later curtains were installed. The theatre did not have a box office as such. Once you entered the lobby you were directed either right or left depending on which movie you were seeing and walked up to a desk with a ticket machine. Although this gave an informal modern look to the place it was a security nightmare. When the lobby started to fill up people would be standing just behind the cashiers with nothing but a velvet rope separating them from the cashiers and the open cash drawers. When business was slow, just one desk was used. The lobby was not divided by theatres. On the left was a hallway leading to Cinema 1. In the middle was a concession stand which jutted out into the lobby. On the right was a hallway leading to Cinemas 2 and 3.
The projection booth was very long and narrow. It was equipped with two Century 35MM projectors per theatre with Christie lamphouses. 6000 foot reels were provided and there were two make-up / rewind tables, one between 1 and 2 and the other between 2 and 3. As a nice touch, small windows were included on each side of the auditorium dividing walls. This allowed the operator to see into two theatres at once. One remarkable piece of equipment was the Cinemation Mark 3 Pegboard automation system. Perimeter was the second theatre in town to have this marvel (following the Doraville Mini Cinema) and in my humble opinion it was the finest piece of automated program management equipment I ever worked with. I do not recall this system ever missing a cue here or at GCC’s second Atlanta location, the Northlake which was similarly equipped.
The Perimeter Mall Theatre opened on Friday, December 21, 1973. The opening features were The Laughing Policeman, and The Seven Ups, both wide break first run movies, and The Way We Were, and intermediate break fresh from its first run engagement at the Tara. I was standing in line for the first show, and remember waiting outside and watching the manager and staff frantically unboxing trash cans and ash trays that had been delivered shortly before. After we were admitted to the lobby to stand in line to purchase tickets, we had a nice view of the Pepsi crews desperately cutting holes in the concession stand counter tops and trying to get at least some machines up and going before showtime. I was not working in projection booths at that time, but I know that the booth situation probably mirrored that of the lobby. My showing of 7 Ups included an “Also Showing” preview for 7 Ups and several stops and starts before the movie started and at least one early changeover. Obviously, the booth was not ready in time for the projectionist to have the luxury of a dry run.
Despite this rocky start, Perimeter was a hit from the beginning. In 1974 it was probably Atlanta’s top grossing theatre, all screens combined that is. Also, many films which used to open exclusive run would now open at the Perimeter Mall as well. At Christmas of 1979 a milestone was reached when Dolby was added to Cinema 1 for the first Star Trek movie. In the Spring of 1980, a sad event occurred when Cinema 1 was split into two 380 seat shoebox theatres. The Dolby system was moved to Cinema 2 which was now known as Cinema 3. In the booth, the end wall was moved to enclose some of the office space so the left projector could be moved to shoot onto the screen of the new #1. The right projector was shifted to the right to shoot into #2 and a platter was placed in between. The booth now had two houses running platter and two running reel to reel. This caused no end of aggravation in the years to come when it was necessary to move prints between houses until sometime in the 90’s when the entire booth was converted to platters. Both 1 and 2 were equipped with the up and down masking which made the flat pictures larger than scope. The only good thing to come out of this episode was the addition of side to side masking in #3 and an entirely new and larger screen in #4 also equipped with up and down masking. While all of this was going on the lobby and concession were remodeled. The ticket desks were removed and a true, secure boxoffice was built where the front doors once stood. Some of the glass area on either side was removed for the installation of new entrance doors.
This was pretty much the way Perimeter looked to the casual observer for the rest of its time. Some improvements continued to be made. Dolby was added to #4 and still later to #1 when Northlake was closed and its projectors and Dolby system were moved to Perimeter. Dolby Digital was added to #3 in 1994 but no DTS or SDDS systems were ever installed. Downstairs, the “new look” GCC concession stand was added in 1986 and an outside awning was erected around the front half of the building.
Despite these upgrades, the time for this facility was clearly past by 1990. Even though the place was well maintained, it still had that old 70’s look, and 4 screens were just not enough anymore. By the late 90’s it was little more that a moveover house for the new GCC Parkside (later known as the EFC Parkside then Madstone, and now Lefont Sandy Springs.), and the new United Artists, (now Regal) Perimeter Point. It was used to good effect as a place to hold pre opening promotional screenings because of the good size of the #3 house and the fact that you seldom had to cancel a showing of a movie that was doing good business to run your screening. Being located in the middle of a massive office park area, the site also did pretty well as a location for business meetings. It also did well showing limited appeal or “art” movies.
For years there was talk of either expanding the location or building an entirely new facility with a mall entrance. As anyone who was familiar with the GCC of the time knows, GCC was notoriously slow when it came to site choosing and building of theatres. While they were busy thinking, UA opened the Perimeter Point 10 across the street. In the end, nothing was done. As I stated in my post on the theatre at Lenox Square, I believe the mall ownership here was also less than thrilled about having a theatre using their precious parking spaces for people who were only interested in purchasing a movie ticket. This attitude became even harder when MARTA opened a train station next to the mall and riders tried to park in the mall parking lot so they could take the train downtown. An unofficial story that I was told was that the mall would allow GCC to expand or tear down and rebuild the theatre, but that they had to remain in the existing footprint. Also, the traffic situation in the area worked against the site. Ashford Dunwoody Road, which runs in front of the mall was and still is the daily site of a spectacular afternoon rush hour traffic jam. Many times we would stand in the lobby and measure the amount of time it would take for a car to pass the half mile or so stretch in front of the theatre, and 10 to 15 minutes was not unusual. Once, when I was called in during rush hour because of a booth emergency I actually parked at the MARTA station one stop to the south, rode the train to the Perimeter Mall stop, walked through the mall and across the parking lot, and arrived much sooner than I would have if I had waited in traffic.
In the final event, nothing was ever done about the location, and in 1999 the decision was made to close. On the final night, the manager invited those of us who were still in touch to come by and share some old times together. We took some pictures and were allowed to take some mementos that would not be making the trip to the GCC Parkside where anything useful was being sent. I made off with a rewind spindle and a couple of diode pegs from the automation system. My ticket stub from 1973 with its $1.00 bargain matinee price was a big hit. When it closed, the theatre had been in operation for 26 years, an eternity compared to larger and more expensive sites that are still closing today. For the record, the final frame of the movie which closed the last curtain (figuratively speaking of course since the Perimeter Mall never had a real curtain) belonged to Cider House Rules. A few months later I received a call from another former projectionist informing me that the demolition of the theatre was underway. On the way to work the next morning I stopped by and took some pictures. The auditoriums were a pile of rubble but the lobby was still mostly intact.
Anyone who has grown up in Atlanta or even lived here long is used to this sort of thing by now. I can’t say for sure, but I think I probably worked more time at Perimeter Mall Theatre than at any other single location in my entire movie theatre history, and that takes in a lot of theatres and years. The loss of the venue itself was nothing to mourn over. It was outdated and built in the less than impressive 70’s utilitarian style that bridged the gap between the downtown movies palaces of the past and the Close Encounters “spaceship” style of today. The theatre was located at the highly visible corner of Ashford Dunwoody Road and Perimeter Center West, but don’t go there today expecting to see any sign of it. After demolition was complete, the Mall completely reworked the corner and removed the theatres entrance driveway and surrounding trees and landscaping. Now, you could never tell that anything other than the existing parking lot was ever there. This is one the most visible corner lots in Atlanta and I am sure that before long a hotel or office tower will be sitting on the old theatre site.
Unless I have the wrong theatre in mind, I believe that the Delk has closed. The story I heard was that they had already advance sold tickets to the opening midnight showing of Star Wars 3 when the decision was made to close the location at the close of business May 19th 2005. Needless to say, they did not get a Star Wars print for just one day so it fell to the manager, as all dirty jobs do, to go out and inform the ticketholders that they had missed their chance to see the last Star Wars film on its opening 12:01AM premiere showing. Just another fine example of the concern and consideration that big chain movie theatre owners and executives have for the people who work for them.
As I said, I may have the wrong theatre in mind and even if I am right this location might have reopened by now. At the end, the location was managed by Regal following its takeover of the locally owned Storey. The location is still a viable one but it is getting to the point that 10 screens are not worth the trouble to these big chains. Just as an aside, this location was started by the owners of the Kings Cinemas chain which was itself a decendant of the old Septum chain. The site was sold to Storey before construction was complete.
A couple of corrections to my comment above. Aside from the typos, I mistated a couple of dates. Storey took over the management contract in late 1971, not 1970. Also, Weis bought the location in mid 1974, not 1975.
To clarify the information in the post which started this page: The Sandy Springs Theatre and the Sandy Springs Mini Cinema are the same location, namely this one. As for the Cinema 285, it was built in 1971 by Georgia Theatre which operated the site for its entire life. In 1974, the name was changed to Hammond Square Cinema to reflect the new name of its shopping center. As for the confusion about its opening, that may be due to the fact that the shopping center in which Cinema 285 was located had several starts and halts during its construction. During the two to three years it took to build the center, there was a large sign facing Roswell Road listing the proposed tennants, one of which was Sandy Springs Theatre. This was just a generic listing, probably painted before an operator for the proposed theatre space was even signed up. Later a newer sign was put up listing “Georgia Theatre” which undoubtedly referred to Georgia Theatre Company. For the complete story on the Cinema 285 / Hammond Square, I have posted a page on this website, although it has not been listed as yet. Maybe tomorrow.
As for the Comedy Spot, it is located in The Balconies Shopping Center and I believe the address is 220 Hildebrand Drive. That center was built in 1972 although the Comedy Club did not open there until many years later. There was never any movie theatre connection to that site.
There were two different theatres in Sandy Springs, neither of which was located at the Johnson Ferry, Roswell Road, Mt. Vernon Highway intersection. This comment is in regards to the Sandy Springs Mini Cinema which at other times was known as the Sandy Springs Theatre, and the Weis Sandy Springs. The correct address for is was 6125 Roswell Road. This is the shopping center at the intersection of Roswell Road and Hildebrand Drive. The Comedy Spot mentioned above is located across Hildebrand Drive in a shopping area which was built in 1972.
I was not paying attention to movies or theatres at the time the Sandy Springs was built but it appeared in late 1967 or early 1968. It was part of the Modular Cinemas of America chain which went by the name of Mini Cinema. The chain was already operating the Peachtree Battle Minii Cinema, (later known as Weis Peachtree Battle and still later George LeFont’s Silver Screen), and the Ansley Mall Mini Cinema, (later much more famous as George Ellis’s Film Forum.)
When I first attended a movie there is was like no theatre I had ever seen. First is was not built as a theatre, but was just a converted storefront in a strip shopping center. Second was the size. 350 seats might sound like a lot these days, but at the time it hardly seemed like a real theatre. The lobby was very small, running the width of the front. There was a desk just inside the door where the cashier sat. Entrances to the auditorium were on each side. On the left entrance you passed the janitor / storage room. On the right entrance side was the concession stand. From the concession stand was the entrance to the projection booth. There was no office. The manager used a desk in the booth. Rest rooms were located downstairs underneath the booth, something that wouold be illegal in todays post ADA world. The staff consisted of the cashier and a concession attendant. There was seldom enough business to justify an usher and the stand was too small for two people to work at the same time.
The auditorium, while small was a nice shape, almost square. A slope had been cut into the floor so you had to go up steps to exit the back fire escape. except for the exit doors on each side the screen was wall to wall. The projection booth was equipped with 35MM Century projectors, 6000 foot reels and changeover automation. Lights, curtain and masking had to be operated by the projectionist. With the wide screen, short throw and shallow auditorium, the the movies looked and sounded very good. For the most part the first four Mini Cinemas (Doraville becoming the fourth in `969) were very fortunate when it came to theatre management. Modular contracted with the local projectionist union to run the booth, and this included a daily fee for the operator to also manage the location. There were several ex Loews and Georgia Theatre managers in the local and with the good pay and zero oversight by Modular finding good people to fill these jobs was seldom a problem.
Although the Peachtree Battle and Ansley Mall usually ran first run movies, Sandy Springs, Doraville, and the Candler Road Twin, when it opened in 1971, always were second run houses. As with the case of the nearby Cinema 285, earning a living with second run product was hard in this area which contained most of the first run theatres in town. Modular soon tired of the business and in late 1970 contracted out the booking, advertising, and home office duties to the Storey chain. The Mini Cinemas started appearing in the Storey Theatre ads. Sandy Springs, being the only franchise of the group did not go for this and struck out as an independent theatre. Although also using Storey for the mechanics of booking, the theatre manager took on the duties of picking movies and taking out the newspaper ads which appeared under the name of “Sandy Springs Theatre.”
With its low overhead and payroll, the theatre could still make money as an independent. In March of 1973 it booked “Worlds Greatest Athelete” on the day after it left the Fox, and did record business. That summer, “The Sound of Music” was also a big hit in its 1973 reissue. However, its connection to Modular did cause problems. At different times, both Sandy Springs and Modular were somewhat slow to pay bills. Since the vendors were not interested in sorting out just who was who, the credit and billing problems of both parties often spread to each other. By 1972 and 1973, most of the films and concession supplies were on a COD basis only. I can remember several times writing a personal check to get the print released when I went to Benton Brothers to pick up film, later to be reimbursed from the box office receipts. Likewise, I would usually take cash with me when going to Wil-Kin or Blevins to get concession supplies.
Of course no business can operate for long this way. In the summer of 1973, the agreement with Storey ended and all of the theatres except Peachtree Battle , which had been sold to Weis, and Ansley Mall, run by Ellis, were back under the Mini Cinema name. By this time, many film companies would not bother with this chain even under a COD basis after several prints never were run because no one could come up with the cash to pay the COD.
In 1975, Weis bought out the Sandy Springs, Doraville, and Candler Road. This would have been good news at an earlier time but by this time Weis was just a shell of its former self having almost blind bid its way into bankruptcy. Weis' efforts to slash costs and cut payroll led to a dispute with the projectionists union and resulted in a long running picket line. The last movie of note to play at any of these theatres was the Jessica Lange remake of King Kong. Within the year all of the Weis Theatres in Atlanta were either sold off or closed.
The Sandy Springs location was gutted and became a seafood resturant. Later it was converted to an independent resturant known as The Brickery. The Brickery is still going strong after many years, and in a nice turn of events, some of us gather there for our periodic retired / former theatre employees lunches.
Another venue from my past. I attended the Martin (now Carmike)operated Starlite many times during the early 70’s while a student at Georgia College. I do not know the address, but it was located on HWY 441 North on the west side of the road between town and the old Hatcher Square. The last time I was in Milledgeville I had truble finding the exact location. It seems that the site may have been subdivided. A Wal-Mart (the source of destruction of many drive ins) occupies a good part of the site, but they might have bought out other ajoining properties as well, so the store might not sit exactly on the old drive in site. Also, the drive in was located on a hill that seems to have been leveled.
The entrance was off 441, and when sitting on the field you faced NE. The projection booth was located on ground level next to the snack bar. Although I never got a close look, the projectors seemed to be Norelcos with carbon arc lamps. On weekend nights, your admission also got you a “Banko” (as opposed to Bingo) card. Numbers were called out during intermission.
Programs were double features and usually changed twice a week, running Sunday through Tuesday and then Wednesday through Saturday. During that time you had to drive to Macon to see a first run movie. When movies went to second run the usually went to the Martin operated Campus (indoor) in downtown Milledgeville. If the booking schedule was full you might see the lesser of the second runs play at the drive in. The co feature was always something from the previous year or years. Sometimes both features would be years old. My movie log (long since abandoned) shows that some of the movies I saw there were Darling Lilly / Out of Towners, Jesse James, starring a very young Henry Fonda,/2 Mules for Sister Sara / Tell Them Willie Bay Is Here, Winning / Hellfighters, Psyco, (the only single feature I remember seeing there). They obviously had a Universal Pictures connection as did many Martin Theatres during that time including first run theatres in Atlanta. Some other features from that time were Last of the Red Hot Lovers / Play It Again Sam, Paper Moon, Great Northfield Minnesota Raid / Sometimes A Great Notion, The Hospital / Money Talks.
The projection was always borderline. The picture was never especially bright, and differed considerably between projectors, and this was long before the days of radio sound. Also, the projectionist had the supremely aggravating habit of cutting off the show as soon as the credits started to roll.
I later discovered a very nice drive in in a beautiful setting, the Georgia Theatre operated Riverside in Macon and started going there. I have attended and worked in many drive ins in Atlanta, but have never seen the small town, dirt field, informal atmosphere of the Starlite duplicated. It was never the best place to actually see a movie, but it did provide for a very plesant setting and a nice change of pace for this city boy who chose to come to a small town for his education.
Sometime around 1972, Martin opened a single theatre in the new Hatcher Square and started to open the better movies there. This caused a chain reaction where the Campus had to start showing some of the movies the Starlite would have played in the past, and the drive in was left with some very poor programs. The Starlite was still operating when I graduated, but was closed by the late 70’s although the screen was still standing into the 80’s if my memory of post college visits is correct.
A good description above of this very bland location.
The Cobb Cinema and the Twon and Country owed their existance to the odd booking patterns of the Atlanta Georgia area in the late 60’s and early to mid 70’s. Because Cobb County was considered a different city, all of the big releases playing in the first run houses of Atlanta could open day and date with theatres in Cobb County. The old Belmont Hills, Miracle and Strand were soon joined by the whopping 1000 seat Georgia Theatre Company Cobb Center and the two Eastern Federal entries, Cobb Cinema an T&C. Although Cobb was a blockhouse sitting in the parking lot of the Miracle Shopping Center while T&C was added on and connected to the back of the Town and Country Shopping Center they were very much alike. Both booths used Cinemecannica V18s which had all of the film loaded onto one reel positioned in back of the projector itself. Both theatres held about 320 seats.
The only notable thing about these sites was that neither was built with a concession stand. Obviously, EFC did not have a lot of confidence that they would work and tried to spend as little as possible on the construction. A line of vending machines, including popcorn, lined the far lobby wall. On busy nights an employee with a bus driver changer hooked to his belt was there to asist the custiomers. Later makeshift concession stands were added although there was no popcorn popper. Like all EFC theatres they got their popcorn trucked in pre popped from Jacksonville every 6 weeks or so. Since there was little storage space, the pop corn for these sites was stored at the Miracle and they got what they needed every few days. There never were ice machines. Insulated ice bins were added for the concession stands and the Cobb got their ice from the Miracle. T&C had to buy their ice by the bag. This concession history also applies to the concession stand history of the downtown Baronet Theatre.
When Cobb County started to boom, General Cinema and ABC rushed in to open first run multiplexes at Akers Mill and Loehmans Plaza, and Georgia Theatre added two small screens to the existing Cobb Center and later split the big house. Even the Miracle was twinned. This finished these two little houses which was no real loss, as well as the old Belmont Hills, which was a loss. The T&C was later tripled and for years was operated by George LeFont. It is now closed. The Cobb Cinema is now a church. The Cobb Center is locked up and condemmed. The space for the Belmont is now stores. The Stand has been closed for years and a civic group is trying to restore it. Akers Mill ran for about 20 years but closed in the late 90’s. Lohemans lasted about half that long and closed with a citywide reputation of being the worst place in town to see a movie.
A couple of years ago, a movie called BADASSSSSSSSSSSSSS came to Atlanta. It was the story of the making of the Melvin Van Peebles movie Sweet Sweetback’s Badass Song, one of the groundbreaking films that helped pave the way for the Black movie explosion of the early 70’s. The reviewer for the paper wrote a short history of the movie and the Coronet Theatre which is where it played in Atlanta. This is a letter I wroe to him filling in more detail on those days at the Coronet:
Now that I am in my 50’s I do not pay much attention to movies, but as a teenager working at the Cherokee Theatre in the early 70’s I saw every one that came out. Since the same company, Eastern Federal Corporation, owned both theatres I sometimes found myself working at the Coronet and its upstairs mini twin the Baronet, when things were busy there.
The Coronet, located on Peachtree Street between the Atlanta and Fox theatres, was really built with the first run roadshow crowd in mind. It had 600 seats, 35/70MM projectors and a beautiful wall to wall curved screen. By the time it was built those days were about over for downtown theatres. The only movie of this type that played there was a 70MM run of “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.” It looked great on that screen but nobody came to see it. There was a brief time when the Coronet tried to cash in on the brief craze of sex oriented movies that came out in the late 60’s that were produced by some major studios seeing just how far they could push their new found ability to put anything on the screen. The most notable of these was something called “Can Hieronymus Merkin Ever Forget Mercy Humppe and Find True Happiness?” I am not kidding about this. You can look it up in the Internet Movie Data Base. Happily it was long gone by my time, but the people who were there at the time still talked about it.
The first of the successful “Black” movies that played at the Coronet was something called “Watermelon Man” with Godfrey Cambridge. That was an unexpected hit and woke the Eastern Federal people up to the fact that there was a vast untapped market for downtown theatres. Being new, the Coronet did not have a tradition or name like the Roxy, Grand, Rialto, Fox, or Rhodes, and the EFC bookers did not hesitate to go after their new audience. “Sweet Sweetback” soon opened and as you stated in your article was a massive hit and had a long run. It was marketed under that name because in those days the AJC would not print certain words such as sex, seduction, seduce, and especially badassssss in movie advertising. (They also required that some additional clothes be penciled in if the women pictured in the artwork were a little too revealing.)
After “Sweet Sweetback” came “Cotton Comes to Harlem” which was a big hit and “Shaft” which was an even bigger hit. This business encouraged Eastern Federal to take over a small office area just outside the Coronet’s balcony exit and put in the 110 seat Baronet Theatre. Even with their newfound success the Coronet had some slow times as “Shaft” was followed by movies such as “Honky” and “The Bus Is Coming.” It took a while for the black movie pipeline to fill up with quality product. The black audience may have been a new find, but that did not mean that they were any different from the white audiences of the time. If you threw junk up on the screen they stayed home.
1972 was the big year for the Coronet / Baronet. The first hit was “Cool Breeze.” By this time other downtown theatres had caught on to the Coronet’s act and moved in. The Martin chain got the sequel to “Shaft” and announced its entrance into the market with “Shaft’s Big Score.” The Coronet’s luck held though because they were left with the sequel to “Cotton Comes To Harlem.” It seemed that the crowds preferred Gravedigger Jones and Coffin Ed Johnson cleaning up Harlem to John Shaft, who was basically just a black detective inserted into a typical white crime plot. “Come Back Charleston Blue” (a very entertaining movie if you have not seen it)turned out to be the biggest hit of them all. After “Blue” came another monster hit, “Super Fly.”
Although it continued to do well, the biggest days of the Coronet were over. The other downtown theatres had seen the light and started getting the better pictures. The last big hit for the Coronet was “Gordon’s War” in the summer of 1973. I think 1973 was the high water mark of the theme. By this time I was working at the Atlanta Theatre and we broke all of the old “Sound of Music” and “2001” records with “Super Fly TNT” and “Chinese Connection.” The Loews Grand was playing “Coffy” and “Blacula” and the Rialto had “Shaft In Africa.” Even the Fabulous Fox Theatre got in on the act with a Jim Brown movie called “Slaughter’s Big Ripoff.” The Coronet was left with an independent production called “Brother on the Run.”
It was at some point during this time that the Coronet hoped to recapture the magic with the next film by Melvin Van Peebles called “Don’t Play Us Cheap.” Melvin and, I think, Mario were there for the opening and seemed like pretty nice guys. The movie was not a success, at least at the Coronet. It left so fast that I did not get a chance to see it, but the word seemed to be that the market had now changed and people were coming to the movie more for entertainment and not as much for activism.
All of this took place over the course of only three years, but it really did change things. Even James Bond got into the act as the 1973 version “Live and Let Die” had a plot that involved 007 with a Harlem based heroin ring. There were some other good entries like “Across 110th Street” but things got pretty cheap and raunchy after that as the producers found that if you could make the movie cheap enough you could turn a profit on the first weekend gross before the bad word of mouth killed off the movie. (Just like the horror film craze of the early 80’s.) Things hit bottom with a couple of Rudy Ray Moore films, “Dolomite” and “Disco Godfather” and a movie about the most successful pimp in town called “The Mack.” This last one led to an event in Atlanta that outraged everyone from the Mayor to the School Chief. A poll of Atlanta Junior High School students revealed that over 50% of the boys wanted to be Macks when they grew up. This did not cause much news until the administrators found out that a Mack was slang for pimp. You can look it up because I read it in the AJC.
In view of your article on the opening of “Badassssss” I thought you might be interested in the fading memories of someone who saw first hand the changes “Sweet Sweetback” ushered in.
I was at Lenox Square the other day, and noticed that the entire site of the old theatre had been gutted and the slanted floors of the old auditoriums were being filled in. The building permit stated that a Business / Community College was to be built there. Hope they put drip pans over their computers. When I posted this theatre I only gave a bland description. If you are interested, here are some of the more colorful bits of Lenox history:
The Lenox Square shopping center opened in 1959 but I believe that the theatre did not open until 1963 or so. When I was the manager I was told by the owners son that he worked as an usher when the theatre opened and the first two movies were “Come Blow Your Horn” and “The Great Escape”. About 1967 the theatre took over the space next door of an enclosed indoor golf driving range and added another theatre. The original theatre was a beautiful 660 seat showplace with a large screen and spacious lobby. The added theatre was a 320 seat monstrosity that was so long and thin that you had to blast the people on the front rows with sound so the people in the back could hear.
This was the configuration when I started as manager in 1975. That was the busiest year for the theatre up to that time. From its opening until 1977 Ga. Theatre Company had an exclusive marketing agreement with United Artists Pictures (not to be confused with United Artists Theatre Company which later bought the chain) to open all UA pictures exclusive run at the Lenox. That meant that in 1975 we played “Man With The Golden Gun” “Lenny” “Return of the Pink Panther” “Love and Death” and “Rollerball”.
After that agreement ended the company decided they did not need that big theatre but did need more screens. They split the big theatre into two 320 seat shoeboxes which were worse that the old golf range theatre. They took over some vacated mall office space and put in a 220 monstrosity where the screen had to be located off center because there was a support column that the seats had to curve around. Later they put a 200 seat theatre in the little lobby of the old golf range theatre and still later took the lobby of the original theatre and added two 110 “screening rooms”.
As you can imagine, by this time it was a terrible place to see a movie although it still did great business because of its excellent location and the fact that the company was willing to put up the money to get top pictures. They still played a lot of UA product there such as the Rocky and Woody Allen and James Bond films, but also movies like “ET” “Poltergeist” “Airplane” “Top Gun” “Aliens” etc… Starting in 1981 the theatre suffered another blow when the mall enclosed the open air plaza above the theatre and built a three story food and restaurant complex. The plaza had been built with the rain and elements in mind and the theatre rarely leaked. No such precautions were taken when the plaza was enclosed since it was “indoor.” From that moment on, whenever one of the food outlets hosed down their floors or had a stopped up sink or a broken toilet, the water (and everything else) eventually made it down to the theatre.
In the late 80’s Ga. Theatre Company sold most of its assets including all of their Atlanta locations to TCI Inc. which was the owner of several movie chains one of which was Untied Artists Theatres. TCI later spun off all of their theatres into another company which was even later acquired by the Regal chain. I did not have much contact with the theatre after that and had not been to a movie there since “T2” which I think was 1991. The place had really run down by then and it could not compete booking wise with the new 14plex that AMC opened across the street. The mall was always hostile to the presence of the theatre. I always felt that they did not want their precious parking spaces taken up by someone who was only going to spend enough money to buy a movie ticket. Lenox Square considers itself very upscale and I got the feeling that they thought theatre patrons were not up to their standards.
I understand that they were pulling the seats and other equipment out even as the theatre was open for its last day. I am sure the mall would never allow another theatre to operate there, and the location is really not suitable anymore anyway. There might be the day when another theatre opens at Lenox but it would be in a different spot. Parking at Lenox is at a premium, and I am sure the mall would rather save the spaces for shoppers.
A lot of us had some good times at Lenox and have been talking about them lately. It was a great place in its time, but just as with everything else in Atlanta, it was cast aside when that time was over. We have a saying that goes.. “growing up in Atlanta means watching your past hauled off in a dump truck.” In my 27 years of movie theatre work I worked in many theatres here. I only left in 1999 and now with the closing of the Lenox there is only one theatre still operating where I worked, and it is the Starlight, Atlanta’s last drive in. Indeed, not only are the theatres closed, but for the most part the buildings themselves are gone.
The Phipps Plaza Theatre was one of the outstanding movie theatres in Atlanta history, and after reading the two posts on Cinema Treasures I thought that it would be nice if the whole story was told. So, here it is, from the beginning up to the point that the existing posts take over.
The Phipps Plaza Shopping Center was built in 1968-69 across Peachtree Road from the existing Lenox Square which at the time hosted its own fine single screen first run theatre. From the beginning, Phipps Plaza considered itself more upscale than Lenox and it showed in the choice of anchor stores Lord and Taylor and Saks 5th Avenue, and the design of the theatre. The Phipps Theatre bridged a gap in theatre design between the old downtown movie palaces such as the Fox, Roxy, Grand, and Erlanger, and the modern day spaceship look of Rave, Regal, AMC, etc… Phipps could best be described as 1970’s living room. The lobby was not particularly big, but was the full height of both levels of the mall. From the second mall level you could look down onto the open area in front of the boxoffice and into the lobby thanks to the two story glass wall that separated the lobby from the mall itself. The lobby was furnished in ultra modern (for the times) art and seating areas. The lounges were also very swank with a women’s rest room area that did not have stalls as such but actual private rooms with wooden doors. Each stall / room had its own private basin.
Nice as the lobby was, it was the design of the auditorium that really set the theatre apart from its contemporaries. The auditorium held 860 seats, but instead of a shoebox pattern was actually wider than it was deep. Across the front was a wall to wall curved screen. I do not know the dimensions, but it must have been equal to the 34' by 65' Cinerama screen that was in the Atlanta / Erlanger at that time. The layout of the seating area was also curved to the same degree, opposite from the screen. There was no center aisle. Two aisles along the walls provided access to the very long rows of seating. The first time I saw a movie there I sat in the middle and was amazed by the way I could look down the row and see the seats curve out of sight before reaching the wall. Although this provided an outstanding field of view from almost any seat in the house, it did cause problems when the house was full, which it often was. Anyone sitting in the middle had to climb over a minimum of 15 to 20 people if they had to leave during the show. It also made it hard for the theatre to be sold to capacity because of the tendency people have to leave a seat between themselves and their temporary neighbors. Just outside the projection booth there was a small balcony the manager could look off of to spot the gaps in the patrons, and he could then use the PA system to ask the everyone move into the center of the rows so they could free up seats at the ends of the rows. The auditorium was completely covered in medium green drapes while the seats were dark red. The floor was either painted, stained, or poured black.
As with everything else, the projection booth was equipped state of the art. There were two 35 /70 projectors which did not point at the screen, but toward each other into a box known as an Optiverter. This system, which I believe was called Optivision, used a system of mirrors inside the box to adjust and enlarge the picture so that by the time it came out the front it filled up the entire curved screen with amazingly sharp focus and light. This was a new and very delicate system which won an Academy Award for technical achievement, as the theatre was proud to inform you by the way of a plaque posted next to the boxoffice. As with anything of this nature, exact alignment was a must, and that was not always the case. The tech for the Wil-Kin company spent many long hours at the Phipps and the South DeKalb Twin fine tuning their boxes. Despite these problems, when the system was working right it produced a great movie watching experience, especially when coupled with 4 and 6 track magnetic sound. To add to the enjoyment, there was a vertical rack of lights behind the drapes on each edge of the screen which pointed toward the center of the screen. Whenever there was an overture preceding a movie, the curtain would be closed after the previews, the auditorium lights would remain off, and the two racks of screen lights would illuminate the closed curtain. As the overture ended, the screen lights would dim and the curtain would open. Since all previews at that time were flat and most roadshow type movies were scope, this had the added effect of almost doubling the size of the screen. The scope picture used the whole screen of course, but the flat was impressive too, using the full floor to ceiling height of the screen.
ABC Southeastern Entertainment, the operators of the Fox and Roxy in downtown Atlanta as well as the Alabama and Ritz in downtown Birmingham, opened the Phipps Plaza Theatre during the Christmas holidays of 1969. The opening movie was Bob, Carol, Ted, and Alice. The theatre and movie were an immediate hit. BCTA was followed by the not so hit They Shoot Horses Don’t They? which was in turn followed by the biggest hit of those early years, MAS*H. By this time Phipps was established as one of Atlanta’s top theatres, a place where people expected the big films to play. Other big grossing films to play in those years were Klute, What’s Up Doc? and The Getaway. Business was so good that ABC decided to add a screen, and in 1973 The Phipps Penthouse Theatre was built on the upper level of the mall just to the north of the existing theatre. At 550 seats, this house was not as large, or grand as the downstairs location, but was quite a theatre in its own right. Other than sharing a manager and staff, the Penthouse was run as a completely separate theatre with its own boxoffice, concession stand and projectionist. It had a very ugly and distracting loud color scheme for its auditorium walls and seats, but it also had a curved screen with Optivision projection. The Penthouse opened on December 26, 1973 with The Exorcist. This was the height of the glory days for this location, and in fact, it proved to be the beginning of the end.
The success of Phipps convinced the ABC crowd that there was business to support another screen. But, where to put it? There was no more mall space convenient, and besides, that would mean paying more rent. The solution? Split the original downstairs theatre. I know that there is a movie theatre Hell somewhere, heavily populated by theatre owners and execs who spent the 70’s carving up once proud venues into shotguns and shoeboxes, but there should be an especially hot corner reserved for who ever made this decision. In March of 1975, the run of Young Frankenstein was brought to an early end while still doing sellout business. The magnificent, wide, curved screen, curved seating area showplace, was split into two rectangular shoeboxes, each seating about 500 with flat screens and 4-16-4 seating divided by two off center aisles. While not bad theatres when compared to other criminal designs of that era, they were truly pathetic sights for anyone who knew what was destroyed to create them. The tone for the new version of Phipps was set by the premiere engagement of the new Phipps Plaza Twin, none other than At Long Last Love staring Burt Reynolds and Cybill Sheppard. Need I say more?
Despite this beginning, the location continued to do well. The summer of 1975 brought Jaws, which probably made the owners wish they had their 350 lost seats back. Following that were such hits as Logans Run, Omen, A Bridge Too Far, Jaws 2, and Empire Strikes Back. The Penthouse got into the act with the Sensurround release of Midway and in 1977 scored a first with the premiere of Dolby Stereo in Atlanta when Close Encounters opened. (I know there are people who will dispute this. There were a few other Dolby equipped theatres in Atlanta, and some of them were playing movies that had previously opened in mono, like Star Wars, but Close Encounters was the first movie to premiere in Dolby in Atlanta.) Even movies that did not do well overall did well at Phipps due to the demographics of the area. These included Lucky Lady, Barry Lyndon, and The Other Side of Midnight.
In the early 80’s, I am not sure of the exact year, ABC sold out to Plitt Theatres which later sold out to Cineplex, and the handwriting was soon on the wall. I do not know the terms of the Plitt deal with Phipps. They might have just been running the location for a management fee like ABC did for years with the Fox. At any rate, they did not spend one dime on keeping the theatre up. The last movie I saw there was The Verdict in 1983. By that time the Penthouse had lost its name and identity and the place was being run as a triple. The boxoffice of the Penthouse had been turned into a giant planter, complete with plastic plants. All tickets were sold from the downstairs boxoffice, a source of no small amount of irritation to patrons in those pre elevator days. The downstairs theatre had large sections of carpet missing and a small version of Niagara Falls running down the large two story lobby wall and into buckets placed in front of the concession stand. The once proud auditorium was in similar shape with a very musty smell to boot. I never went back until the night before it closed where with the help of the projectionist I shot several rolls of film. Sadly I know of no pictures of the 1969 theatre, but the Penthouse looked pretty much unchanged from the day it opened since my pictures do not show up dirt, torn carpets or reproduce smell.
Phipps Plaza has undergone a complete rebuilding since those days. The AMC 14plex occupies a completely different spot from the old theatre. The area where the theatre was located was completely demolished. If you go to Phipps Plaza today, walk to the far western end of the ground floor of the mall where the two story Parisians Department Store is located. That is roughly the spot. Go to the upper level, stand in front of Parisians upper entrance and look to your right. That is about where the Penthouse was located. As with so much in Atlanta a sad end to a once fine place. I only wish I had time and room to tell all of my Phipps stories.
The opening of the Perimeter Mall Theatre was a true watershed in the history of movie theatres in Atlanta. First, it marked the entry of the General Cinema chain into the Atlanta market. Until that time the theatre business in Atlanta was dominated by two local companies, Storey, and Georgia Theatre Company which themselves were once one company, Lucas and Jenkins. Other national chains such as Loews and Walter Reade had a small presence in Atlanta and regional chains like Martin (now Carmike) and ABC Southeastern a somewhat larger one.
The location of the Perimeter Mall also marked a big change. For years first run theatres had been slowly moving toward the northern suburbs of Atlanta as the exodus from downtown gathered steam. For the most part this consisted of the first run theatres in the Buckhead area such as Lenox, Phipps Plaza, Tara, Capri, Fine Art (now Garden Hills) and the Georgia Cinerama (listed on this site as the Georgia Twin). The northernmost first run location was the Loews 12 Oaks in Chamblee, and it had a spotty record at best in attracting first run business unless it had a can’t miss feature. But Perimeter Mall was the first theatre built outside I-285 with the first run trade in mind. It was also the first multiplex (in those days three screens was considered a multiplex) built with first run intentions. At the time Atlanta had two other triples, the Old National, later expanded to 7, and the Westgate, originally a Martin twin later bought and tripled by Georgia Theatre Company. Both of these theatres, now closed, were on the southside of Atlanta and concentrated on intermediate runs of films as they left the first run theatres to the north.
Among the other changes ushered into the market by the arrival of GCC was the lower priced bargain matinee and the policy of running an all day, “grind” schedule year round. Hard as it may be to believe now, many of the suburban first run theatres of that time, such as Phipps, Tara, 12 Oaks, and Georgia, would cut back to night showings only as business dropped off as the runs lengthened. One new feature that did not catch on was the inclusion of smoking areas. I can remember some downtown theatres such as the Rialto having roped off areas in the balcony where smoking was permitted, but at Perimeter Mall the entire left side seating sections allowed smoking and ashtrays were built into the back of each seat. I do not know when this policy ended, but it did not last long.
As mentioned in the above post, the auditoriums of the theatre were nothing to brag about. Cinema 1 held 850 seats, Cinema 2 had 550, and Cinema 3 had 420. 1 and 2 had three section seating with two aisles and 3 had two section with a center aisle. None had curtains, a common feature at the time. Instead they had the black bordered “window box” screens. I do not believe movable masking was added until later which meant that while cinemascope movies looked fine, flat presentations were left with a raw edge on the sides. All screens were lit up with a row of overhead screen lights in the trademark General Cinema blue. The walls were not draped but were covered with a thin metal curved to look like pleated drapes with holes to allow sound to be absorbed by its foam backing.
The lobby was large and well lit due to the 100% glass wall design. Unfortunately, no one bothered to check the sun angle, especially in the winter, and as a result the lobby, which faced south was almost unbearable, both heat and light wise, in the late afternoon. It was not long before louvered blinds and later curtains were installed. The theatre did not have a box office as such. Once you entered the lobby you were directed either right or left depending on which movie you were seeing and walked up to a desk with a ticket machine. Although this gave an informal modern look to the place it was a security nightmare. When the lobby started to fill up people would be standing just behind the cashiers with nothing but a velvet rope separating them from the cashiers and the open cash drawers. When business was slow, just one desk was used. The lobby was not divided by theatres. On the left was a hallway leading to Cinema 1. In the middle was a concession stand which jutted out into the lobby. On the right was a hallway leading to Cinemas 2 and 3.
The projection booth was very long and narrow. It was equipped with two Century 35MM projectors per theatre with Christie lamphouses. 6000 foot reels were provided and there were two make-up / rewind tables, one between 1 and 2 and the other between 2 and 3. As a nice touch, small windows were included on each side of the auditorium dividing walls. This allowed the operator to see into two theatres at once. One remarkable piece of equipment was the Cinemation Mark 3 Pegboard automation system. Perimeter was the second theatre in town to have this marvel (following the Doraville Mini Cinema) and in my humble opinion it was the finest piece of automated program management equipment I ever worked with. I do not recall this system ever missing a cue here or at GCC’s second Atlanta location, the Northlake which was similarly equipped.
The Perimeter Mall Theatre opened on Friday, December 21, 1973. The opening features were The Laughing Policeman, and The Seven Ups, both wide break first run movies, and The Way We Were, and intermediate break fresh from its first run engagement at the Tara. I was standing in line for the first show, and remember waiting outside and watching the manager and staff frantically unboxing trash cans and ash trays that had been delivered shortly before. After we were admitted to the lobby to stand in line to purchase tickets, we had a nice view of the Pepsi crews desperately cutting holes in the concession stand counter tops and trying to get at least some machines up and going before showtime. I was not working in projection booths at that time, but I know that the booth situation probably mirrored that of the lobby. My showing of 7 Ups included an “Also Showing” preview for 7 Ups and several stops and starts before the movie started and at least one early changeover. Obviously, the booth was not ready in time for the projectionist to have the luxury of a dry run.
Despite this rocky start, Perimeter was a hit from the beginning. In 1974 it was probably Atlanta’s top grossing theatre, all screens combined that is. Also, many films which used to open exclusive run would now open at the Perimeter Mall as well. At Christmas of 1979 a milestone was reached when Dolby was added to Cinema 1 for the first Star Trek movie. In the Spring of 1980, a sad event occurred when Cinema 1 was split into two 380 seat shoebox theatres. The Dolby system was moved to Cinema 2 which was now known as Cinema 3. In the booth, the end wall was moved to enclose some of the office space so the left projector could be moved to shoot onto the screen of the new #1. The right projector was shifted to the right to shoot into #2 and a platter was placed in between. The booth now had two houses running platter and two running reel to reel. This caused no end of aggravation in the years to come when it was necessary to move prints between houses until sometime in the 90’s when the entire booth was converted to platters. Both 1 and 2 were equipped with the up and down masking which made the flat pictures larger than scope. The only good thing to come out of this episode was the addition of side to side masking in #3 and an entirely new and larger screen in #4 also equipped with up and down masking. While all of this was going on the lobby and concession were remodeled. The ticket desks were removed and a true, secure boxoffice was built where the front doors once stood. Some of the glass area on either side was removed for the installation of new entrance doors.
This was pretty much the way Perimeter looked to the casual observer for the rest of its time. Some improvements continued to be made. Dolby was added to #4 and still later to #1 when Northlake was closed and its projectors and Dolby system were moved to Perimeter. Dolby Digital was added to #3 in 1994 but no DTS or SDDS systems were ever installed. Downstairs, the “new look” GCC concession stand was added in 1986 and an outside awning was erected around the front half of the building.
Despite these upgrades, the time for this facility was clearly past by 1990. Even though the place was well maintained, it still had that old 70’s look, and 4 screens were just not enough anymore. By the late 90’s it was little more that a moveover house for the new GCC Parkside (later known as the EFC Parkside then Madstone, and now Lefont Sandy Springs.), and the new United Artists, (now Regal) Perimeter Point. It was used to good effect as a place to hold pre opening promotional screenings because of the good size of the #3 house and the fact that you seldom had to cancel a showing of a movie that was doing good business to run your screening. Being located in the middle of a massive office park area, the site also did pretty well as a location for business meetings. It also did well showing limited appeal or “art” movies.
For years there was talk of either expanding the location or building an entirely new facility with a mall entrance. As anyone who was familiar with the GCC of the time knows, GCC was notoriously slow when it came to site choosing and building of theatres. While they were busy thinking, UA opened the Perimeter Point 10 across the street. In the end, nothing was done. As I stated in my post on the theatre at Lenox Square, I believe the mall ownership here was also less than thrilled about having a theatre using their precious parking spaces for people who were only interested in purchasing a movie ticket. This attitude became even harder when MARTA opened a train station next to the mall and riders tried to park in the mall parking lot so they could take the train downtown. An unofficial story that I was told was that the mall would allow GCC to expand or tear down and rebuild the theatre, but that they had to remain in the existing footprint. Also, the traffic situation in the area worked against the site. Ashford Dunwoody Road, which runs in front of the mall was and still is the daily site of a spectacular afternoon rush hour traffic jam. Many times we would stand in the lobby and measure the amount of time it would take for a car to pass the half mile or so stretch in front of the theatre, and 10 to 15 minutes was not unusual. Once, when I was called in during rush hour because of a booth emergency I actually parked at the MARTA station one stop to the south, rode the train to the Perimeter Mall stop, walked through the mall and across the parking lot, and arrived much sooner than I would have if I had waited in traffic.
In the final event, nothing was ever done about the location, and in 1999 the decision was made to close. On the final night, the manager invited those of us who were still in touch to come by and share some old times together. We took some pictures and were allowed to take some mementos that would not be making the trip to the GCC Parkside where anything useful was being sent. I made off with a rewind spindle and a couple of diode pegs from the automation system. My ticket stub from 1973 with its $1.00 bargain matinee price was a big hit. When it closed, the theatre had been in operation for 26 years, an eternity compared to larger and more expensive sites that are still closing today. For the record, the final frame of the movie which closed the last curtain (figuratively speaking of course since the Perimeter Mall never had a real curtain) belonged to Cider House Rules. A few months later I received a call from another former projectionist informing me that the demolition of the theatre was underway. On the way to work the next morning I stopped by and took some pictures. The auditoriums were a pile of rubble but the lobby was still mostly intact.
Anyone who has grown up in Atlanta or even lived here long is used to this sort of thing by now. I can’t say for sure, but I think I probably worked more time at Perimeter Mall Theatre than at any other single location in my entire movie theatre history, and that takes in a lot of theatres and years. The loss of the venue itself was nothing to mourn over. It was outdated and built in the less than impressive 70’s utilitarian style that bridged the gap between the downtown movies palaces of the past and the Close Encounters “spaceship” style of today. The theatre was located at the highly visible corner of Ashford Dunwoody Road and Perimeter Center West, but don’t go there today expecting to see any sign of it. After demolition was complete, the Mall completely reworked the corner and removed the theatres entrance driveway and surrounding trees and landscaping. Now, you could never tell that anything other than the existing parking lot was ever there. This is one the most visible corner lots in Atlanta and I am sure that before long a hotel or office tower will be sitting on the old theatre site.
Unless I have the wrong theatre in mind, I believe that the Delk has closed. The story I heard was that they had already advance sold tickets to the opening midnight showing of Star Wars 3 when the decision was made to close the location at the close of business May 19th 2005. Needless to say, they did not get a Star Wars print for just one day so it fell to the manager, as all dirty jobs do, to go out and inform the ticketholders that they had missed their chance to see the last Star Wars film on its opening 12:01AM premiere showing. Just another fine example of the concern and consideration that big chain movie theatre owners and executives have for the people who work for them.
As I said, I may have the wrong theatre in mind and even if I am right this location might have reopened by now. At the end, the location was managed by Regal following its takeover of the locally owned Storey. The location is still a viable one but it is getting to the point that 10 screens are not worth the trouble to these big chains. Just as an aside, this location was started by the owners of the Kings Cinemas chain which was itself a decendant of the old Septum chain. The site was sold to Storey before construction was complete.
A couple of corrections to my comment above. Aside from the typos, I mistated a couple of dates. Storey took over the management contract in late 1971, not 1970. Also, Weis bought the location in mid 1974, not 1975.
To clarify the information in the post which started this page: The Sandy Springs Theatre and the Sandy Springs Mini Cinema are the same location, namely this one. As for the Cinema 285, it was built in 1971 by Georgia Theatre which operated the site for its entire life. In 1974, the name was changed to Hammond Square Cinema to reflect the new name of its shopping center. As for the confusion about its opening, that may be due to the fact that the shopping center in which Cinema 285 was located had several starts and halts during its construction. During the two to three years it took to build the center, there was a large sign facing Roswell Road listing the proposed tennants, one of which was Sandy Springs Theatre. This was just a generic listing, probably painted before an operator for the proposed theatre space was even signed up. Later a newer sign was put up listing “Georgia Theatre” which undoubtedly referred to Georgia Theatre Company. For the complete story on the Cinema 285 / Hammond Square, I have posted a page on this website, although it has not been listed as yet. Maybe tomorrow.
As for the Comedy Spot, it is located in The Balconies Shopping Center and I believe the address is 220 Hildebrand Drive. That center was built in 1972 although the Comedy Club did not open there until many years later. There was never any movie theatre connection to that site.
There were two different theatres in Sandy Springs, neither of which was located at the Johnson Ferry, Roswell Road, Mt. Vernon Highway intersection. This comment is in regards to the Sandy Springs Mini Cinema which at other times was known as the Sandy Springs Theatre, and the Weis Sandy Springs. The correct address for is was 6125 Roswell Road. This is the shopping center at the intersection of Roswell Road and Hildebrand Drive. The Comedy Spot mentioned above is located across Hildebrand Drive in a shopping area which was built in 1972.
I was not paying attention to movies or theatres at the time the Sandy Springs was built but it appeared in late 1967 or early 1968. It was part of the Modular Cinemas of America chain which went by the name of Mini Cinema. The chain was already operating the Peachtree Battle Minii Cinema, (later known as Weis Peachtree Battle and still later George LeFont’s Silver Screen), and the Ansley Mall Mini Cinema, (later much more famous as George Ellis’s Film Forum.)
When I first attended a movie there is was like no theatre I had ever seen. First is was not built as a theatre, but was just a converted storefront in a strip shopping center. Second was the size. 350 seats might sound like a lot these days, but at the time it hardly seemed like a real theatre. The lobby was very small, running the width of the front. There was a desk just inside the door where the cashier sat. Entrances to the auditorium were on each side. On the left entrance you passed the janitor / storage room. On the right entrance side was the concession stand. From the concession stand was the entrance to the projection booth. There was no office. The manager used a desk in the booth. Rest rooms were located downstairs underneath the booth, something that wouold be illegal in todays post ADA world. The staff consisted of the cashier and a concession attendant. There was seldom enough business to justify an usher and the stand was too small for two people to work at the same time.
The auditorium, while small was a nice shape, almost square. A slope had been cut into the floor so you had to go up steps to exit the back fire escape. except for the exit doors on each side the screen was wall to wall. The projection booth was equipped with 35MM Century projectors, 6000 foot reels and changeover automation. Lights, curtain and masking had to be operated by the projectionist. With the wide screen, short throw and shallow auditorium, the the movies looked and sounded very good. For the most part the first four Mini Cinemas (Doraville becoming the fourth in `969) were very fortunate when it came to theatre management. Modular contracted with the local projectionist union to run the booth, and this included a daily fee for the operator to also manage the location. There were several ex Loews and Georgia Theatre managers in the local and with the good pay and zero oversight by Modular finding good people to fill these jobs was seldom a problem.
Although the Peachtree Battle and Ansley Mall usually ran first run movies, Sandy Springs, Doraville, and the Candler Road Twin, when it opened in 1971, always were second run houses. As with the case of the nearby Cinema 285, earning a living with second run product was hard in this area which contained most of the first run theatres in town. Modular soon tired of the business and in late 1970 contracted out the booking, advertising, and home office duties to the Storey chain. The Mini Cinemas started appearing in the Storey Theatre ads. Sandy Springs, being the only franchise of the group did not go for this and struck out as an independent theatre. Although also using Storey for the mechanics of booking, the theatre manager took on the duties of picking movies and taking out the newspaper ads which appeared under the name of “Sandy Springs Theatre.”
With its low overhead and payroll, the theatre could still make money as an independent. In March of 1973 it booked “Worlds Greatest Athelete” on the day after it left the Fox, and did record business. That summer, “The Sound of Music” was also a big hit in its 1973 reissue. However, its connection to Modular did cause problems. At different times, both Sandy Springs and Modular were somewhat slow to pay bills. Since the vendors were not interested in sorting out just who was who, the credit and billing problems of both parties often spread to each other. By 1972 and 1973, most of the films and concession supplies were on a COD basis only. I can remember several times writing a personal check to get the print released when I went to Benton Brothers to pick up film, later to be reimbursed from the box office receipts. Likewise, I would usually take cash with me when going to Wil-Kin or Blevins to get concession supplies.
Of course no business can operate for long this way. In the summer of 1973, the agreement with Storey ended and all of the theatres except Peachtree Battle , which had been sold to Weis, and Ansley Mall, run by Ellis, were back under the Mini Cinema name. By this time, many film companies would not bother with this chain even under a COD basis after several prints never were run because no one could come up with the cash to pay the COD.
In 1975, Weis bought out the Sandy Springs, Doraville, and Candler Road. This would have been good news at an earlier time but by this time Weis was just a shell of its former self having almost blind bid its way into bankruptcy. Weis' efforts to slash costs and cut payroll led to a dispute with the projectionists union and resulted in a long running picket line. The last movie of note to play at any of these theatres was the Jessica Lange remake of King Kong. Within the year all of the Weis Theatres in Atlanta were either sold off or closed.
The Sandy Springs location was gutted and became a seafood resturant. Later it was converted to an independent resturant known as The Brickery. The Brickery is still going strong after many years, and in a nice turn of events, some of us gather there for our periodic retired / former theatre employees lunches.
Another venue from my past. I attended the Martin (now Carmike)operated Starlite many times during the early 70’s while a student at Georgia College. I do not know the address, but it was located on HWY 441 North on the west side of the road between town and the old Hatcher Square. The last time I was in Milledgeville I had truble finding the exact location. It seems that the site may have been subdivided. A Wal-Mart (the source of destruction of many drive ins) occupies a good part of the site, but they might have bought out other ajoining properties as well, so the store might not sit exactly on the old drive in site. Also, the drive in was located on a hill that seems to have been leveled.
The entrance was off 441, and when sitting on the field you faced NE. The projection booth was located on ground level next to the snack bar. Although I never got a close look, the projectors seemed to be Norelcos with carbon arc lamps. On weekend nights, your admission also got you a “Banko” (as opposed to Bingo) card. Numbers were called out during intermission.
Programs were double features and usually changed twice a week, running Sunday through Tuesday and then Wednesday through Saturday. During that time you had to drive to Macon to see a first run movie. When movies went to second run the usually went to the Martin operated Campus (indoor) in downtown Milledgeville. If the booking schedule was full you might see the lesser of the second runs play at the drive in. The co feature was always something from the previous year or years. Sometimes both features would be years old. My movie log (long since abandoned) shows that some of the movies I saw there were Darling Lilly / Out of Towners, Jesse James, starring a very young Henry Fonda,/2 Mules for Sister Sara / Tell Them Willie Bay Is Here, Winning / Hellfighters, Psyco, (the only single feature I remember seeing there). They obviously had a Universal Pictures connection as did many Martin Theatres during that time including first run theatres in Atlanta. Some other features from that time were Last of the Red Hot Lovers / Play It Again Sam, Paper Moon, Great Northfield Minnesota Raid / Sometimes A Great Notion, The Hospital / Money Talks.
The projection was always borderline. The picture was never especially bright, and differed considerably between projectors, and this was long before the days of radio sound. Also, the projectionist had the supremely aggravating habit of cutting off the show as soon as the credits started to roll.
I later discovered a very nice drive in in a beautiful setting, the Georgia Theatre operated Riverside in Macon and started going there. I have attended and worked in many drive ins in Atlanta, but have never seen the small town, dirt field, informal atmosphere of the Starlite duplicated. It was never the best place to actually see a movie, but it did provide for a very plesant setting and a nice change of pace for this city boy who chose to come to a small town for his education.
Sometime around 1972, Martin opened a single theatre in the new Hatcher Square and started to open the better movies there. This caused a chain reaction where the Campus had to start showing some of the movies the Starlite would have played in the past, and the drive in was left with some very poor programs. The Starlite was still operating when I graduated, but was closed by the late 70’s although the screen was still standing into the 80’s if my memory of post college visits is correct.
A good description above of this very bland location.
The Cobb Cinema and the Twon and Country owed their existance to the odd booking patterns of the Atlanta Georgia area in the late 60’s and early to mid 70’s. Because Cobb County was considered a different city, all of the big releases playing in the first run houses of Atlanta could open day and date with theatres in Cobb County. The old Belmont Hills, Miracle and Strand were soon joined by the whopping 1000 seat Georgia Theatre Company Cobb Center and the two Eastern Federal entries, Cobb Cinema an T&C. Although Cobb was a blockhouse sitting in the parking lot of the Miracle Shopping Center while T&C was added on and connected to the back of the Town and Country Shopping Center they were very much alike. Both booths used Cinemecannica V18s which had all of the film loaded onto one reel positioned in back of the projector itself. Both theatres held about 320 seats.
The only notable thing about these sites was that neither was built with a concession stand. Obviously, EFC did not have a lot of confidence that they would work and tried to spend as little as possible on the construction. A line of vending machines, including popcorn, lined the far lobby wall. On busy nights an employee with a bus driver changer hooked to his belt was there to asist the custiomers. Later makeshift concession stands were added although there was no popcorn popper. Like all EFC theatres they got their popcorn trucked in pre popped from Jacksonville every 6 weeks or so. Since there was little storage space, the pop corn for these sites was stored at the Miracle and they got what they needed every few days. There never were ice machines. Insulated ice bins were added for the concession stands and the Cobb got their ice from the Miracle. T&C had to buy their ice by the bag. This concession history also applies to the concession stand history of the downtown Baronet Theatre.
When Cobb County started to boom, General Cinema and ABC rushed in to open first run multiplexes at Akers Mill and Loehmans Plaza, and Georgia Theatre added two small screens to the existing Cobb Center and later split the big house. Even the Miracle was twinned. This finished these two little houses which was no real loss, as well as the old Belmont Hills, which was a loss. The T&C was later tripled and for years was operated by George LeFont. It is now closed. The Cobb Cinema is now a church. The Cobb Center is locked up and condemmed. The space for the Belmont is now stores. The Stand has been closed for years and a civic group is trying to restore it. Akers Mill ran for about 20 years but closed in the late 90’s. Lohemans lasted about half that long and closed with a citywide reputation of being the worst place in town to see a movie.
A couple of years ago, a movie called BADASSSSSSSSSSSSSS came to Atlanta. It was the story of the making of the Melvin Van Peebles movie Sweet Sweetback’s Badass Song, one of the groundbreaking films that helped pave the way for the Black movie explosion of the early 70’s. The reviewer for the paper wrote a short history of the movie and the Coronet Theatre which is where it played in Atlanta. This is a letter I wroe to him filling in more detail on those days at the Coronet:
Now that I am in my 50’s I do not pay much attention to movies, but as a teenager working at the Cherokee Theatre in the early 70’s I saw every one that came out. Since the same company, Eastern Federal Corporation, owned both theatres I sometimes found myself working at the Coronet and its upstairs mini twin the Baronet, when things were busy there.
The Coronet, located on Peachtree Street between the Atlanta and Fox theatres, was really built with the first run roadshow crowd in mind. It had 600 seats, 35/70MM projectors and a beautiful wall to wall curved screen. By the time it was built those days were about over for downtown theatres. The only movie of this type that played there was a 70MM run of “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.” It looked great on that screen but nobody came to see it. There was a brief time when the Coronet tried to cash in on the brief craze of sex oriented movies that came out in the late 60’s that were produced by some major studios seeing just how far they could push their new found ability to put anything on the screen. The most notable of these was something called “Can Hieronymus Merkin Ever Forget Mercy Humppe and Find True Happiness?” I am not kidding about this. You can look it up in the Internet Movie Data Base. Happily it was long gone by my time, but the people who were there at the time still talked about it.
The first of the successful “Black” movies that played at the Coronet was something called “Watermelon Man” with Godfrey Cambridge. That was an unexpected hit and woke the Eastern Federal people up to the fact that there was a vast untapped market for downtown theatres. Being new, the Coronet did not have a tradition or name like the Roxy, Grand, Rialto, Fox, or Rhodes, and the EFC bookers did not hesitate to go after their new audience. “Sweet Sweetback” soon opened and as you stated in your article was a massive hit and had a long run. It was marketed under that name because in those days the AJC would not print certain words such as sex, seduction, seduce, and especially badassssss in movie advertising. (They also required that some additional clothes be penciled in if the women pictured in the artwork were a little too revealing.)
After “Sweet Sweetback” came “Cotton Comes to Harlem” which was a big hit and “Shaft” which was an even bigger hit. This business encouraged Eastern Federal to take over a small office area just outside the Coronet’s balcony exit and put in the 110 seat Baronet Theatre. Even with their newfound success the Coronet had some slow times as “Shaft” was followed by movies such as “Honky” and “The Bus Is Coming.” It took a while for the black movie pipeline to fill up with quality product. The black audience may have been a new find, but that did not mean that they were any different from the white audiences of the time. If you threw junk up on the screen they stayed home.
1972 was the big year for the Coronet / Baronet. The first hit was “Cool Breeze.” By this time other downtown theatres had caught on to the Coronet’s act and moved in. The Martin chain got the sequel to “Shaft” and announced its entrance into the market with “Shaft’s Big Score.” The Coronet’s luck held though because they were left with the sequel to “Cotton Comes To Harlem.” It seemed that the crowds preferred Gravedigger Jones and Coffin Ed Johnson cleaning up Harlem to John Shaft, who was basically just a black detective inserted into a typical white crime plot. “Come Back Charleston Blue” (a very entertaining movie if you have not seen it)turned out to be the biggest hit of them all. After “Blue” came another monster hit, “Super Fly.”
Although it continued to do well, the biggest days of the Coronet were over. The other downtown theatres had seen the light and started getting the better pictures. The last big hit for the Coronet was “Gordon’s War” in the summer of 1973. I think 1973 was the high water mark of the theme. By this time I was working at the Atlanta Theatre and we broke all of the old “Sound of Music” and “2001” records with “Super Fly TNT” and “Chinese Connection.” The Loews Grand was playing “Coffy” and “Blacula” and the Rialto had “Shaft In Africa.” Even the Fabulous Fox Theatre got in on the act with a Jim Brown movie called “Slaughter’s Big Ripoff.” The Coronet was left with an independent production called “Brother on the Run.”
It was at some point during this time that the Coronet hoped to recapture the magic with the next film by Melvin Van Peebles called “Don’t Play Us Cheap.” Melvin and, I think, Mario were there for the opening and seemed like pretty nice guys. The movie was not a success, at least at the Coronet. It left so fast that I did not get a chance to see it, but the word seemed to be that the market had now changed and people were coming to the movie more for entertainment and not as much for activism.
All of this took place over the course of only three years, but it really did change things. Even James Bond got into the act as the 1973 version “Live and Let Die” had a plot that involved 007 with a Harlem based heroin ring. There were some other good entries like “Across 110th Street” but things got pretty cheap and raunchy after that as the producers found that if you could make the movie cheap enough you could turn a profit on the first weekend gross before the bad word of mouth killed off the movie. (Just like the horror film craze of the early 80’s.) Things hit bottom with a couple of Rudy Ray Moore films, “Dolomite” and “Disco Godfather” and a movie about the most successful pimp in town called “The Mack.” This last one led to an event in Atlanta that outraged everyone from the Mayor to the School Chief. A poll of Atlanta Junior High School students revealed that over 50% of the boys wanted to be Macks when they grew up. This did not cause much news until the administrators found out that a Mack was slang for pimp. You can look it up because I read it in the AJC.
In view of your article on the opening of “Badassssss” I thought you might be interested in the fading memories of someone who saw first hand the changes “Sweet Sweetback” ushered in.
I was at Lenox Square the other day, and noticed that the entire site of the old theatre had been gutted and the slanted floors of the old auditoriums were being filled in. The building permit stated that a Business / Community College was to be built there. Hope they put drip pans over their computers. When I posted this theatre I only gave a bland description. If you are interested, here are some of the more colorful bits of Lenox history:
The Lenox Square shopping center opened in 1959 but I believe that the theatre did not open until 1963 or so. When I was the manager I was told by the owners son that he worked as an usher when the theatre opened and the first two movies were “Come Blow Your Horn” and “The Great Escape”. About 1967 the theatre took over the space next door of an enclosed indoor golf driving range and added another theatre. The original theatre was a beautiful 660 seat showplace with a large screen and spacious lobby. The added theatre was a 320 seat monstrosity that was so long and thin that you had to blast the people on the front rows with sound so the people in the back could hear.
This was the configuration when I started as manager in 1975. That was the busiest year for the theatre up to that time. From its opening until 1977 Ga. Theatre Company had an exclusive marketing agreement with United Artists Pictures (not to be confused with United Artists Theatre Company which later bought the chain) to open all UA pictures exclusive run at the Lenox. That meant that in 1975 we played “Man With The Golden Gun” “Lenny” “Return of the Pink Panther” “Love and Death” and “Rollerball”.
After that agreement ended the company decided they did not need that big theatre but did need more screens. They split the big theatre into two 320 seat shoeboxes which were worse that the old golf range theatre. They took over some vacated mall office space and put in a 220 monstrosity where the screen had to be located off center because there was a support column that the seats had to curve around. Later they put a 200 seat theatre in the little lobby of the old golf range theatre and still later took the lobby of the original theatre and added two 110 “screening rooms”.
As you can imagine, by this time it was a terrible place to see a movie although it still did great business because of its excellent location and the fact that the company was willing to put up the money to get top pictures. They still played a lot of UA product there such as the Rocky and Woody Allen and James Bond films, but also movies like “ET” “Poltergeist” “Airplane” “Top Gun” “Aliens” etc… Starting in 1981 the theatre suffered another blow when the mall enclosed the open air plaza above the theatre and built a three story food and restaurant complex. The plaza had been built with the rain and elements in mind and the theatre rarely leaked. No such precautions were taken when the plaza was enclosed since it was “indoor.” From that moment on, whenever one of the food outlets hosed down their floors or had a stopped up sink or a broken toilet, the water (and everything else) eventually made it down to the theatre.
In the late 80’s Ga. Theatre Company sold most of its assets including all of their Atlanta locations to TCI Inc. which was the owner of several movie chains one of which was Untied Artists Theatres. TCI later spun off all of their theatres into another company which was even later acquired by the Regal chain. I did not have much contact with the theatre after that and had not been to a movie there since “T2” which I think was 1991. The place had really run down by then and it could not compete booking wise with the new 14plex that AMC opened across the street. The mall was always hostile to the presence of the theatre. I always felt that they did not want their precious parking spaces taken up by someone who was only going to spend enough money to buy a movie ticket. Lenox Square considers itself very upscale and I got the feeling that they thought theatre patrons were not up to their standards.
I understand that they were pulling the seats and other equipment out even as the theatre was open for its last day. I am sure the mall would never allow another theatre to operate there, and the location is really not suitable anymore anyway. There might be the day when another theatre opens at Lenox but it would be in a different spot. Parking at Lenox is at a premium, and I am sure the mall would rather save the spaces for shoppers.
A lot of us had some good times at Lenox and have been talking about them lately. It was a great place in its time, but just as with everything else in Atlanta, it was cast aside when that time was over. We have a saying that goes.. “growing up in Atlanta means watching your past hauled off in a dump truck.” In my 27 years of movie theatre work I worked in many theatres here. I only left in 1999 and now with the closing of the Lenox there is only one theatre still operating where I worked, and it is the Starlight, Atlanta’s last drive in. Indeed, not only are the theatres closed, but for the most part the buildings themselves are gone.
The Phipps Plaza Theatre was one of the outstanding movie theatres in Atlanta history, and after reading the two posts on Cinema Treasures I thought that it would be nice if the whole story was told. So, here it is, from the beginning up to the point that the existing posts take over.
The Phipps Plaza Shopping Center was built in 1968-69 across Peachtree Road from the existing Lenox Square which at the time hosted its own fine single screen first run theatre. From the beginning, Phipps Plaza considered itself more upscale than Lenox and it showed in the choice of anchor stores Lord and Taylor and Saks 5th Avenue, and the design of the theatre. The Phipps Theatre bridged a gap in theatre design between the old downtown movie palaces such as the Fox, Roxy, Grand, and Erlanger, and the modern day spaceship look of Rave, Regal, AMC, etc… Phipps could best be described as 1970’s living room. The lobby was not particularly big, but was the full height of both levels of the mall. From the second mall level you could look down onto the open area in front of the boxoffice and into the lobby thanks to the two story glass wall that separated the lobby from the mall itself. The lobby was furnished in ultra modern (for the times) art and seating areas. The lounges were also very swank with a women’s rest room area that did not have stalls as such but actual private rooms with wooden doors. Each stall / room had its own private basin.
Nice as the lobby was, it was the design of the auditorium that really set the theatre apart from its contemporaries. The auditorium held 860 seats, but instead of a shoebox pattern was actually wider than it was deep. Across the front was a wall to wall curved screen. I do not know the dimensions, but it must have been equal to the 34' by 65' Cinerama screen that was in the Atlanta / Erlanger at that time. The layout of the seating area was also curved to the same degree, opposite from the screen. There was no center aisle. Two aisles along the walls provided access to the very long rows of seating. The first time I saw a movie there I sat in the middle and was amazed by the way I could look down the row and see the seats curve out of sight before reaching the wall. Although this provided an outstanding field of view from almost any seat in the house, it did cause problems when the house was full, which it often was. Anyone sitting in the middle had to climb over a minimum of 15 to 20 people if they had to leave during the show. It also made it hard for the theatre to be sold to capacity because of the tendency people have to leave a seat between themselves and their temporary neighbors. Just outside the projection booth there was a small balcony the manager could look off of to spot the gaps in the patrons, and he could then use the PA system to ask the everyone move into the center of the rows so they could free up seats at the ends of the rows. The auditorium was completely covered in medium green drapes while the seats were dark red. The floor was either painted, stained, or poured black.
As with everything else, the projection booth was equipped state of the art. There were two 35 /70 projectors which did not point at the screen, but toward each other into a box known as an Optiverter. This system, which I believe was called Optivision, used a system of mirrors inside the box to adjust and enlarge the picture so that by the time it came out the front it filled up the entire curved screen with amazingly sharp focus and light. This was a new and very delicate system which won an Academy Award for technical achievement, as the theatre was proud to inform you by the way of a plaque posted next to the boxoffice. As with anything of this nature, exact alignment was a must, and that was not always the case. The tech for the Wil-Kin company spent many long hours at the Phipps and the South DeKalb Twin fine tuning their boxes. Despite these problems, when the system was working right it produced a great movie watching experience, especially when coupled with 4 and 6 track magnetic sound. To add to the enjoyment, there was a vertical rack of lights behind the drapes on each edge of the screen which pointed toward the center of the screen. Whenever there was an overture preceding a movie, the curtain would be closed after the previews, the auditorium lights would remain off, and the two racks of screen lights would illuminate the closed curtain. As the overture ended, the screen lights would dim and the curtain would open. Since all previews at that time were flat and most roadshow type movies were scope, this had the added effect of almost doubling the size of the screen. The scope picture used the whole screen of course, but the flat was impressive too, using the full floor to ceiling height of the screen.
ABC Southeastern Entertainment, the operators of the Fox and Roxy in downtown Atlanta as well as the Alabama and Ritz in downtown Birmingham, opened the Phipps Plaza Theatre during the Christmas holidays of 1969. The opening movie was Bob, Carol, Ted, and Alice. The theatre and movie were an immediate hit. BCTA was followed by the not so hit They Shoot Horses Don’t They? which was in turn followed by the biggest hit of those early years, MAS*H. By this time Phipps was established as one of Atlanta’s top theatres, a place where people expected the big films to play. Other big grossing films to play in those years were Klute, What’s Up Doc? and The Getaway. Business was so good that ABC decided to add a screen, and in 1973 The Phipps Penthouse Theatre was built on the upper level of the mall just to the north of the existing theatre. At 550 seats, this house was not as large, or grand as the downstairs location, but was quite a theatre in its own right. Other than sharing a manager and staff, the Penthouse was run as a completely separate theatre with its own boxoffice, concession stand and projectionist. It had a very ugly and distracting loud color scheme for its auditorium walls and seats, but it also had a curved screen with Optivision projection. The Penthouse opened on December 26, 1973 with The Exorcist. This was the height of the glory days for this location, and in fact, it proved to be the beginning of the end.
The success of Phipps convinced the ABC crowd that there was business to support another screen. But, where to put it? There was no more mall space convenient, and besides, that would mean paying more rent. The solution? Split the original downstairs theatre. I know that there is a movie theatre Hell somewhere, heavily populated by theatre owners and execs who spent the 70’s carving up once proud venues into shotguns and shoeboxes, but there should be an especially hot corner reserved for who ever made this decision. In March of 1975, the run of Young Frankenstein was brought to an early end while still doing sellout business. The magnificent, wide, curved screen, curved seating area showplace, was split into two rectangular shoeboxes, each seating about 500 with flat screens and 4-16-4 seating divided by two off center aisles. While not bad theatres when compared to other criminal designs of that era, they were truly pathetic sights for anyone who knew what was destroyed to create them. The tone for the new version of Phipps was set by the premiere engagement of the new Phipps Plaza Twin, none other than At Long Last Love staring Burt Reynolds and Cybill Sheppard. Need I say more?
Despite this beginning, the location continued to do well. The summer of 1975 brought Jaws, which probably made the owners wish they had their 350 lost seats back. Following that were such hits as Logans Run, Omen, A Bridge Too Far, Jaws 2, and Empire Strikes Back. The Penthouse got into the act with the Sensurround release of Midway and in 1977 scored a first with the premiere of Dolby Stereo in Atlanta when Close Encounters opened. (I know there are people who will dispute this. There were a few other Dolby equipped theatres in Atlanta, and some of them were playing movies that had previously opened in mono, like Star Wars, but Close Encounters was the first movie to premiere in Dolby in Atlanta.) Even movies that did not do well overall did well at Phipps due to the demographics of the area. These included Lucky Lady, Barry Lyndon, and The Other Side of Midnight.
In the early 80’s, I am not sure of the exact year, ABC sold out to Plitt Theatres which later sold out to Cineplex, and the handwriting was soon on the wall. I do not know the terms of the Plitt deal with Phipps. They might have just been running the location for a management fee like ABC did for years with the Fox. At any rate, they did not spend one dime on keeping the theatre up. The last movie I saw there was The Verdict in 1983. By that time the Penthouse had lost its name and identity and the place was being run as a triple. The boxoffice of the Penthouse had been turned into a giant planter, complete with plastic plants. All tickets were sold from the downstairs boxoffice, a source of no small amount of irritation to patrons in those pre elevator days. The downstairs theatre had large sections of carpet missing and a small version of Niagara Falls running down the large two story lobby wall and into buckets placed in front of the concession stand. The once proud auditorium was in similar shape with a very musty smell to boot. I never went back until the night before it closed where with the help of the projectionist I shot several rolls of film. Sadly I know of no pictures of the 1969 theatre, but the Penthouse looked pretty much unchanged from the day it opened since my pictures do not show up dirt, torn carpets or reproduce smell.
Phipps Plaza has undergone a complete rebuilding since those days. The AMC 14plex occupies a completely different spot from the old theatre. The area where the theatre was located was completely demolished. If you go to Phipps Plaza today, walk to the far western end of the ground floor of the mall where the two story Parisians Department Store is located. That is roughly the spot. Go to the upper level, stand in front of Parisians upper entrance and look to your right. That is about where the Penthouse was located. As with so much in Atlanta a sad end to a once fine place. I only wish I had time and room to tell all of my Phipps stories.