The Majestic Building, with theatre, opened in 1901, to replace a previous building on the same spot that had burned. A 1927 city directory lists four town theatres: Majestic, Gem, Palace, Thornton’s. I have found newspaper ads for all except the Majestic. Also, the Star, in the Natick section of West Warwick, remains a mysterious early-silent-era cinema.
No ads seen for 1950 either. Right now I’m guessing the Gem closed in the late 1940s. As a matter of policy the theatre used to close during the summer months.
Here is a 1989 photo I took of the theatre. It appears to have been a two-screener before it closed. In this photo it already is being used as a church, with its name, VIE ET REVEIL, on the marquee.
Yes, the Midway was previously called the Scenic Theatre. A photo of the building that had the Midway address, 830 Oakland Beach Road, appears in the volume Warwick’s 350 Year Heritage – A Pictorial Survey. The building, now housing J.O.N.A.H., is identified as the former Scenic. The building was donated to the Oakland Beach Congregational Church by Joseoph Carrolo (spelling?) and his daughter Alice Rounds. It is now operated by the City of Warwick as a community and senior center.
In the 1960 volume History of East Greenwich, Rhode Island: 1877-1960, Martha R. McPartland wrote:
“The year of 1909 saw the advent of the first movie theatre in town, when P. J. McCahey opened the Star Theatre, near where the Big Star Market now stands. High class entertainment was advertised, including pictures of the Hudson River Celebration and the Pittsburg-Detroit world championship baseball game. Reserved seats were fifteen cents, and regular seats were ten cents. In 1917 the Star Theatre was showing the silent movie version of "Snow White,” starring Marguerite Clarke and featuring a local boy, “Blue” Rice, as one of the seven dwarfs. All seats were then twelve cents. Joe Gorman was the owner of the theatre at the time.
I’m guessing that this is the theatre that actress Hildegard Knef mentions in her autobiography The Gift Horse when she talks about the disastrous premiere of her 1958 film for director Wolfgang Staudte, Madeleine und der Legionär. Someone correct me if I err.
She wrote, “The première took place in the newly-built UFA Palast am Zoo. The publicity and public relations offices had excelled themselves and the evening was launched with colossal pomp and ceremony; when the houselights went up at the end, however, the atmosphere was very similar to Pankow in 1946, at the premiere of Love at First Sight. Gingerly I took my bow and was heaped with UFA flowers by the cinema attendants and then sat in the manager’s office behind the stage listening to the doleful reporters' sporadic efforts to say something conmforting. No other representative of UFA was present at this conference…. Friends called and said how sorry they were that the papers, which, in a fit of self-preservation, I had not read, had placed the blame for the UFA catastrophe on me, surmising that the poor director had not a chance against the headstrong star and that therefore the bad script, amateurish camera work, inferior lighting and sets, could also be held against me.”
Anna starred the luscious Silvana MÃ ngano of Bitter Rice fame, and the two films later played together in some engagements. Here she was a woman with a tainted past who decides to become a nun…for a time. There is a famous song/dance scene in the movie when Mangano sings the catchy “El negro Zumbon,” a bajon sung in Spanish. It became a popular song hit on records even in America. The movie played many drive-ins. I don’t think a subtitled version played widely, if at all, though I have one on video.
I just looked at a program booklet in my files (actually a collection of beautifully printed individual booklets) of the “Salute to Italian Films Week” at the Little Carnegie October 6-12, 1952. This was a series of seven films shown before their regular releases.
The booklet stated it was an I.F.E. (Italian Film Export) Unitalia event. Bosley Crowther of the Times provided a long essay extolling “the great renascence of cinema art and expression in Italy.” On the lengthy list of sponsorship credits were included names like Ralph Bellamy (Pres. Actors Equity), Rudolph Bing (Director Metropolitan Opera), Moss Hart (Pres. Dramatists Guild), Helen Hayes (Pres. American Theatre Wing), Ronald Reagan (Pres. Screen Actors Guild) et. al.
The seven films programmed (I cannot speak to any eventual changes) were: The Overcoat, Times Gone By, Umberto D, Anna, The Little World of Don Camillo, Europe ‘51, Two Cents Worth of Hope. All received later distribution, several under I.F.E.’s distribution wing. De Sica’s Umberto D did not get a regular release until three years late in 1955. Rossellini’s Europe '51 was retitled “The Greatest Love.”
Mention should be made of the unconscionable practice of some theatres to pretty much ignore proper ratio on ‘Scope films. They have to use the correct lens, yes, but they crop the right and left sides of the image simply because there is not enough screen space. There is a theatre here in Providence notorious for doing it all the time. In New York, I believe the Little Carnegie, yes the Little Carnegie, used to do that. Death in Venice, when shown there, was cropped on the right and left. It was not shown in proper 'Scope (Panavision.) Then too, some theatres show 'Scope in the correct ratio, but at the same width as 1:1.85 presentations. If there is masking, you can see it drop. This, of course, defeats the purpose of 'Scope, which is meant to increase width, while not sacrificing height.
In her autobiography The Gift Horse, German-born actress Hildegard Knef recalls her arrival in and time spent in the United States shortly after World War II and being offered a Hollywood studio contract. Here she describes a visit to what may have been the Roxy. I originally posted this on the Radio City Music Hall page, thinking it was RCMH, but I’ve been told that some aspects of her description suggest the Roxy instead. Anyway, it’s an interesting description:
“The packed movie house is a cross between the public baths and a set for an operetta, between a temple and a railway station; in the balcony they’re making love, smoking, and chewing brown-white balloons of absorbent cotton from cardboard cartons; they run in and out during the film, during the stage show, whistle like crazy when the chorus girls kick their legs, jitterbug in the aisles; girls with mottled frozen legs sticking out of tennis shoes and white ankle socks squeak and faint, crawl about among the flower boxes on the front of the stage, cry with the crooner who’s singing something in Spanish. Now there’s a preview: a bulldog face bursting out of a German officer’s uniform barks orders in English; behind him there’s a swastika hanging the wrong way round; on comes a soldier in an SS jacket and an SA cap, clicks his heels and yells ‘Donner and Blitzen,’ ‘Jawoll!’ and ‘Heil die Führer!’ The reclining couples break apart and join the stalls in a chorus of boos.”
You could be absolutely right. It was just my first reaction. I wish she had named the place. It’s an evocative description, though, and I may re-post it on the Roxy page.
The Anthology entrance is located on 2nd Street, at the corner of Second Avenue. At Second Avenue and 10th Street is the famed 2nd Avenue Deli, an esteemed kosher eatery.
The RKO Boston advertised its 1949 in-person appearance of Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy even in the Providence paper. The program included a “big stage show” and, on the screen, the distinctly-B-movie Strange Bargain.
In her autobiography The Gift Horse, German-born actress Hildegard Knef recalls her arrival in and time spent in the United States shortly after World War II and being offered a Hollywood studio contract. Here she describes a visit to what must have been Radio City Music Hall:
“The packed movie house is a cross between the public baths and a set for an operetta, between a temple and a railway station; in the balcony they’re making love, smoking, and chewing brown-white balloons of absorbent cotton from cardboard cartons; they run in and out during the film, during the stage show, whistle like crazy when the chorus girls kick their legs, jitterbug in the aisles; girls with mottled frozen legs sticking out of tennis shoes and white ankle socks squeak and faint, crawl about among the flower boxes on the front of the stage, cry with the crooner who’s singing something in Spanish. Now there’s a preview: a bulldog face bursting out of a German officer’s uniform barks orders in English; behind him there’s a swastika hanging the wrong way round; on comes a soldier in an SS jacket and an SA cap, clicks his heels and yells ‘Donner and Blitzen,’ ‘Jawoll!’ and ‘Heil die Führer!’ The reclining couples break apart and join the stalls in a chorus of boos.”
An article in the New Haven Register on June 29, 2005, mentions owner Robert Spodick reflecting on the imminent closing of the York Square Cinema and recalls the Lincoln, which he had also run:
Robert Spodick said, “I’m sad, that’s all. I’ve closed other theaters, but we always were moving on to something else.”
He and his former partner, Leonard Sampson, who died last year, came to New Haven in 1945 to open the Lincoln Theater. They specialized in foreign art films and revivals of classics until they closed the Lincoln in 1982.
This link takes you to the first location of the Anthology, which was at the Public Theatre. The Public later became a film venue not associated with Anthology. There are a number of comments there pertaining to the Anthology’s early years.
A good number of years ago, I was actually contacted by Jonas Mekas and P. Adams Sitney to loan them a rare Italian film I owned for one of their showings…which I gladly did.
For all the work they do with alternative programming and in championing the work of “experimental” film artists, this institution deserves a reel of applause and an archive of patronage.
It really wouldn’t help you, since I am from Providence and most of the movies I saw at the time were seen locally or in Boston. Besides, it’s a handwritten mess. I saw movies in New York sporadically only beginning around 1964…a lot more in the 1970s and 1980s. If I do note something along the line of this interest, I will relay it to you.
Most anamorphic (squeezed-image) wide-screen processes tend to be referred to as CinemaScope or ‘Scope by film-buffs. I do it all the time. I admit it’s not precise, but it suggests to the user a generic characteristic, as do the words Kleenex or Xerox…whether the tissue is really a Kleenex or not or the copier is in fact made by Xerox.
Jerry, I don’t “remember” them as such. I simply wrote them down. I’ve kept a log of all the movies I’ve seen since 1958. Since you are interested, the movies I saw during that stay were: Blow-Up, Chushingura, Les Carabiniers, Throne of Blood & Drunken Angel, Seven Days in May, The Chelsea Girls, Fahrenheit 451, The Railroad Man & The Shameless Old Lady, Night Games, Eric Soyas “17”, Le Bonheur & Judex. The specific theatres follow the sequence in my previous comment.
The Majestic Building, with theatre, opened in 1901, to replace a previous building on the same spot that had burned. A 1927 city directory lists four town theatres: Majestic, Gem, Palace, Thornton’s. I have found newspaper ads for all except the Majestic. Also, the Star, in the Natick section of West Warwick, remains a mysterious early-silent-era cinema.
No ads seen for 1950 either. Right now I’m guessing the Gem closed in the late 1940s. As a matter of policy the theatre used to close during the summer months.
Hard to believe that Black Jesus is actually a 1968 Italian film called Seduto alla sua destra, (“Seated on his Right”), directed by Valerio Zurlini.
According to the 1919 Providence Journal Almanac, the Casino seated 584 persons and its manager was J. E. Bolan.
Here is a 1989 photo I took of the theatre. It appears to have been a two-screener before it closed. In this photo it already is being used as a church, with its name, VIE ET REVEIL, on the marquee.
Yes, the Midway was previously called the Scenic Theatre. A photo of the building that had the Midway address, 830 Oakland Beach Road, appears in the volume Warwick’s 350 Year Heritage – A Pictorial Survey. The building, now housing J.O.N.A.H., is identified as the former Scenic. The building was donated to the Oakland Beach Congregational Church by Joseoph Carrolo (spelling?) and his daughter Alice Rounds. It is now operated by the City of Warwick as a community and senior center.
In the 1960 volume History of East Greenwich, Rhode Island: 1877-1960, Martha R. McPartland wrote:
“The year of 1909 saw the advent of the first movie theatre in town, when P. J. McCahey opened the Star Theatre, near where the Big Star Market now stands. High class entertainment was advertised, including pictures of the Hudson River Celebration and the Pittsburg-Detroit world championship baseball game. Reserved seats were fifteen cents, and regular seats were ten cents. In 1917 the Star Theatre was showing the silent movie version of "Snow White,” starring Marguerite Clarke and featuring a local boy, “Blue” Rice, as one of the seven dwarfs. All seats were then twelve cents. Joe Gorman was the owner of the theatre at the time.
I’m guessing that this is the theatre that actress Hildegard Knef mentions in her autobiography The Gift Horse when she talks about the disastrous premiere of her 1958 film for director Wolfgang Staudte, Madeleine und der Legionär. Someone correct me if I err.
She wrote, “The première took place in the newly-built UFA Palast am Zoo. The publicity and public relations offices had excelled themselves and the evening was launched with colossal pomp and ceremony; when the houselights went up at the end, however, the atmosphere was very similar to Pankow in 1946, at the premiere of Love at First Sight. Gingerly I took my bow and was heaped with UFA flowers by the cinema attendants and then sat in the manager’s office behind the stage listening to the doleful reporters' sporadic efforts to say something conmforting. No other representative of UFA was present at this conference…. Friends called and said how sorry they were that the papers, which, in a fit of self-preservation, I had not read, had placed the blame for the UFA catastrophe on me, surmising that the poor director had not a chance against the headstrong star and that therefore the bad script, amateurish camera work, inferior lighting and sets, could also be held against me.”
Anna starred the luscious Silvana MÃ ngano of Bitter Rice fame, and the two films later played together in some engagements. Here she was a woman with a tainted past who decides to become a nun…for a time. There is a famous song/dance scene in the movie when Mangano sings the catchy “El negro Zumbon,” a bajon sung in Spanish. It became a popular song hit on records even in America. The movie played many drive-ins. I don’t think a subtitled version played widely, if at all, though I have one on video.
I just looked at a program booklet in my files (actually a collection of beautifully printed individual booklets) of the “Salute to Italian Films Week” at the Little Carnegie October 6-12, 1952. This was a series of seven films shown before their regular releases.
The booklet stated it was an I.F.E. (Italian Film Export) Unitalia event. Bosley Crowther of the Times provided a long essay extolling “the great renascence of cinema art and expression in Italy.” On the lengthy list of sponsorship credits were included names like Ralph Bellamy (Pres. Actors Equity), Rudolph Bing (Director Metropolitan Opera), Moss Hart (Pres. Dramatists Guild), Helen Hayes (Pres. American Theatre Wing), Ronald Reagan (Pres. Screen Actors Guild) et. al.
The seven films programmed (I cannot speak to any eventual changes) were: The Overcoat, Times Gone By, Umberto D, Anna, The Little World of Don Camillo, Europe ‘51, Two Cents Worth of Hope. All received later distribution, several under I.F.E.’s distribution wing. De Sica’s Umberto D did not get a regular release until three years late in 1955. Rossellini’s Europe '51 was retitled “The Greatest Love.”
Mention should be made of the unconscionable practice of some theatres to pretty much ignore proper ratio on ‘Scope films. They have to use the correct lens, yes, but they crop the right and left sides of the image simply because there is not enough screen space. There is a theatre here in Providence notorious for doing it all the time. In New York, I believe the Little Carnegie, yes the Little Carnegie, used to do that. Death in Venice, when shown there, was cropped on the right and left. It was not shown in proper 'Scope (Panavision.) Then too, some theatres show 'Scope in the correct ratio, but at the same width as 1:1.85 presentations. If there is masking, you can see it drop. This, of course, defeats the purpose of 'Scope, which is meant to increase width, while not sacrificing height.
In her autobiography The Gift Horse, German-born actress Hildegard Knef recalls her arrival in and time spent in the United States shortly after World War II and being offered a Hollywood studio contract. Here she describes a visit to what may have been the Roxy. I originally posted this on the Radio City Music Hall page, thinking it was RCMH, but I’ve been told that some aspects of her description suggest the Roxy instead. Anyway, it’s an interesting description:
“The packed movie house is a cross between the public baths and a set for an operetta, between a temple and a railway station; in the balcony they’re making love, smoking, and chewing brown-white balloons of absorbent cotton from cardboard cartons; they run in and out during the film, during the stage show, whistle like crazy when the chorus girls kick their legs, jitterbug in the aisles; girls with mottled frozen legs sticking out of tennis shoes and white ankle socks squeak and faint, crawl about among the flower boxes on the front of the stage, cry with the crooner who’s singing something in Spanish. Now there’s a preview: a bulldog face bursting out of a German officer’s uniform barks orders in English; behind him there’s a swastika hanging the wrong way round; on comes a soldier in an SS jacket and an SA cap, clicks his heels and yells ‘Donner and Blitzen,’ ‘Jawoll!’ and ‘Heil die Führer!’ The reclining couples break apart and join the stalls in a chorus of boos.”
You could be absolutely right. It was just my first reaction. I wish she had named the place. It’s an evocative description, though, and I may re-post it on the Roxy page.
The Anthology entrance is located on 2nd Street, at the corner of Second Avenue. At Second Avenue and 10th Street is the famed 2nd Avenue Deli, an esteemed kosher eatery.
The RKO Boston advertised its 1949 in-person appearance of Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy even in the Providence paper. The program included a “big stage show” and, on the screen, the distinctly-B-movie Strange Bargain.
In her autobiography The Gift Horse, German-born actress Hildegard Knef recalls her arrival in and time spent in the United States shortly after World War II and being offered a Hollywood studio contract. Here she describes a visit to what must have been Radio City Music Hall:
“The packed movie house is a cross between the public baths and a set for an operetta, between a temple and a railway station; in the balcony they’re making love, smoking, and chewing brown-white balloons of absorbent cotton from cardboard cartons; they run in and out during the film, during the stage show, whistle like crazy when the chorus girls kick their legs, jitterbug in the aisles; girls with mottled frozen legs sticking out of tennis shoes and white ankle socks squeak and faint, crawl about among the flower boxes on the front of the stage, cry with the crooner who’s singing something in Spanish. Now there’s a preview: a bulldog face bursting out of a German officer’s uniform barks orders in English; behind him there’s a swastika hanging the wrong way round; on comes a soldier in an SS jacket and an SA cap, clicks his heels and yells ‘Donner and Blitzen,’ ‘Jawoll!’ and ‘Heil die Führer!’ The reclining couples break apart and join the stalls in a chorus of boos.”
An article in the New Haven Register on June 29, 2005, mentions owner Robert Spodick reflecting on the imminent closing of the York Square Cinema and recalls the Lincoln, which he had also run:
Robert Spodick said, “I’m sad, that’s all. I’ve closed other theaters, but we always were moving on to something else.”
He and his former partner, Leonard Sampson, who died last year, came to New Haven in 1945 to open the Lincoln Theater. They specialized in foreign art films and revivals of classics until they closed the Lincoln in 1982.
This link takes you to the later and current 2nd Avenue location of Anthology Film Archives.
This link takes you to the first location of the Anthology, which was at the Public Theatre. The Public later became a film venue not associated with Anthology. There are a number of comments there pertaining to the Anthology’s early years.
As I was posting this listing, I tried to remember some of the films I’d seen over the years at this Anthology location. They were not a lot, because I live in Rhode Island. One I do remember very well is the Italian film La valigia dei sogni (“The Suitcase of Dreams”) shown in June of 1998. And it’s truly an appropriate one to remember. Directed by Luigi Comencini in 1953, it is about an aging ex-star of the Italian silent cinema. He shows silent films from his collection to young people and others and eventually is given help to start a film museum. Many silent clips appear in the movie, a real “film buff’s film.” The print they showed came from the Cinémathèque Française, had French subtitles, and, to my knowledge, the picture never or rarely received other screenings in the U.S.
A good number of years ago, I was actually contacted by Jonas Mekas and P. Adams Sitney to loan them a rare Italian film I owned for one of their showings…which I gladly did.
For all the work they do with alternative programming and in championing the work of “experimental” film artists, this institution deserves a reel of applause and an archive of patronage.
It really wouldn’t help you, since I am from Providence and most of the movies I saw at the time were seen locally or in Boston. Besides, it’s a handwritten mess. I saw movies in New York sporadically only beginning around 1964…a lot more in the 1970s and 1980s. If I do note something along the line of this interest, I will relay it to you.
Most anamorphic (squeezed-image) wide-screen processes tend to be referred to as CinemaScope or ‘Scope by film-buffs. I do it all the time. I admit it’s not precise, but it suggests to the user a generic characteristic, as do the words Kleenex or Xerox…whether the tissue is really a Kleenex or not or the copier is in fact made by Xerox.
Jerry, I don’t “remember” them as such. I simply wrote them down. I’ve kept a log of all the movies I’ve seen since 1958. Since you are interested, the movies I saw during that stay were: Blow-Up, Chushingura, Les Carabiniers, Throne of Blood & Drunken Angel, Seven Days in May, The Chelsea Girls, Fahrenheit 451, The Railroad Man & The Shameless Old Lady, Night Games, Eric Soyas “17”, Le Bonheur & Judex. The specific theatres follow the sequence in my previous comment.
A small photo of the Rialto appears on this web page of the Roslindale Historical Society.
Comments on this theatre have been made on the Village Cinema page.