Comments from Gerald A. DeLuca

Some movies I saw here were “The Madwoman of Chaillot,” “Fantasia” (badly cropped), “The Conformist,” “The Learning Tree,” Peter Brook’s “King Lear,” and, I think, Andy Warhol’s “Lonesome Cowboys.” The programming became very haphazard until the place, always sloppily run, switched to gay and straight porno. When they closed, they were replaced as a porno house by the nearby VIP Luxury Cinema on Westminster Mall (q.v.) That one, a video projection house, didn’t last long.

I’m curious about the “Paris Cinema” name. A number of places here and there were called “Paris Cinema” and featured the same exterior design resembling, heaven help us, the truly classy Paris in New York. Many were or became porno houses. There is one in Worcester, Massachusetts still operating with screening rooms and a porno retail shop…built into a former movie palace. Can anyone illuminate?

Ron,
Forgive any trivia here, but this sort of thing intrigues me. In that terrific photo of 1947, linked above, the film might most likely have been the 1941 “Mr. Dynamite” rather than “Dynamite” (1929…unlikely) or the 1949 “Dynamite” (not yet made.) “Call of the Jungle” hails from 1944. So this was probably a revival B-film double-bill culled from a Boston exchange. Notice that the word “Dynamite” is to the right of the Victory marquee. A sign obscures the left side which would have provided enough space for “Mr.”

But hardly earth-shattering!

Here is a photo of the Darlton from 1975.
View link

Here is a photo I took of the Royal when driving through Archer City in 1973.
View link

Here is a photo from the summer of 2004.
View link

Yes, I know Via Rasella. Partisans set off a bomb there in March, 1944, killing a number of German soldiers. In reprisal the Nazis rounded up and shot ten Italians (randomly picked, plus any Jews around) for every German. The story is told in the 1962 Italian film “Dieci italiani per un tedesco” and in the 1973 Richard Burton/Marcello Mastroianni film “Massacre in Rome” (“Rappresaglia.”) I don’t think Rossellini shot the round-up sequence for “Open City” there, but it was based on that and other similar Gestapo atrocities.

The unlucky Italians were taken to and shot near the catacombs on the outskirts of Rome at a place called the Fosse Ardeatine, the Ardeatine Caves. Then the Germans blew up the caves hoping to hide the massacre. I have visited the beautiful memorial at the caves. I think President George W. Bush was taken there on a visit to Rome.

When I visited Rome recently I went to the Allied cemetery for fallen British/British Empire soldiers. It is located inside the Aurelian Wall between Testaccio and Porta San Paolo. Lovely peaceful place, well-maintained, as is the Fosse Ardeatine site.

Here is a photo that shows the Cinema Barberini in relationship to Bernini’s Triton fountain in Piazza del Tritone. I took it in April of 2001 when leading a group of students around Rome. The Barberini was only caught accidentally in the shot. It is to the left of the photo, behind the M (for Metro) sign.
View link

…and an interior shot.
View link

Here’s an exterior view of Criterion Cinemas taken a few months ago.
View link

Here are a couple of photos of the Colonial taken during the summer of 2004.

View link
View link

Here’s a photo of the Palace Theatre in its current incarnation as a church.
View link

Here’s a photo of the Ritz taken in January, 2004.
View link