Regarding the ad that Rivest was kind enough to provide, I noticed that they managed to get the showtimes wrong from day one. Lucky Lady was a 2 hour movie and the evening showtimes are listed as 7:30 and 9:15. Probably meant 9:45. I am sure all of us who were managers, projectionists or both have plenty of horror stories related to mistakes like this.
As for this location, the GCC address that we mailed all of our paperwork to was 22 Flutie Pass which referred to Doug Flutie’s game wining heave against Miami. Could the GCC offices mentioned in the overview be at this location with a different address? I see on the map that this is very close to Boston College so that would seem to make sense.
During the first season of the TV show “Rockford Files” one of the episodes has Jim traveling to Vegas on a case. One of the interlude sequences that they always used to make the running time fit (usually a pointless car chase) had Rockford driving down the Fremont strip. There is a nice view of the Portal on the right as he drives by. The marquee showed that the current attraction was “Jeremiah Johnson.”
This episode was broadcast in the spring of ‘75 so it was probably filmed in late '74. In Georgia where I live, “JJ” was given a wide 4wall re-release in the spring and summer of '74. Since that short lived but very successful practice was usually done on a regional basis maybe it was the turn of the Southwest to get its run.
I will see if I can get the episode name and air date.
Nicest drive in setting I have ever been in. In the early 70’s we had to make the drive from school in Milledgeville to Macon for most of the first run movies. Sometimes there were more movies available than indoor screens and both the Riverside and Weis would get an occasional first run.
After my first visit to see a first run of Life And Times of Judge Roy Bean, I came back several times. They even ran triple features occasionally so I would make a night of it with a stop at Shanes Steak House on Riverside Drive, followed by a triple feature at the drive in and then on home to Atlanta for the weekend.
In June of 1972, I was attending college in Milledgeville and made the drive to Macon because I wanted to see just what an air conditioned drive in was. The field had several large air conditioning units per row, each with about 8 grill capped hoses attached. This allowed the cars parked next to the unit and the ones parked next to them to hook the grill to their windows and enjoy a/c in the summer and heat in the winter.
This was not a very successful set up even in those pre energy crunch days. There were only enough units to serve about a third of the lot, and they made so much noise that it distracted from the movie. I was working for Georgia Theatre Company in the late 70’s when they bought out the Weis operations in Macon, and the first thing they did was remove these units.
As for my visit, I enjoyed the show. It was first run Play It Again Sam, doubled with Odd couple. The theatre itself was nice and well kept up. I believe that there was an identical theatre to this one built by Weis in Augusta. There was also a weis Drive In in their hometown of Savannah.
The closest I have ever come to Savannah was watching “Midnight In The Garden…” so I do not know much about this theatre. However, I did work for Georgia Theatre Company in the 70’s and can supply a little information. ABC was the main builder of Ultravision equipped theatres, but the opening of the Phipps Plaza Theatre in Atlanta must have impressed the GTC folks. In 1970 they opened an Ultravision twin in the new South Dekalb Mall in Decatur.
http://cinematreasures.org/theaters/11762
I am sure that it was around this time that the Oglethorpe was built as the Ultravision fad did not last long. That is too bad because with the curved screen, curved seating area, square auditoriums, and sharp focus, the presentation was outstanding. I always thought that the South DeKalb was the best looking theatre with the best picture of any I ever managed.
In 1977 the South DeKalb was twinned and I am sure that this was about the time the Oglethorpe was as well. This turned these once beautiful theatres into long shoeboxes with poor presentation and no personality. It still pains me to think of the day that I saw the optiverters from the South DeKalb loaded into the metal recycle truck along with the frames for the curved screens and the 6000' reel magazines.
Savannah was home to the Weis Theatre chain and during this time they dominated the market there. I think that the Oglethorpe was the only GTC effort and other then twinning it they did nothing else in this town until they sold out to United Artists Theatres in 1987. UA ran it for a while but I am sure that it was closed before the sell out to Regal.
GTC had a strong relationship with United Artists Pictures (not to be confused with United Artists Theatres, a completely different company) so it is probable that all of the Bonds, Pink Panthers, Woody Allen’s and any other UA features played here whenever the screen was available. James Barringer, the manager who followed me at the Lenox Square Theatre left Lenox to come here in 1976 and managed here for several years.
Russell: I first met Steve Crisp in 1972 when he was the manager of the Capri in Buckhead when it was a Weis theatre. In 1975 he followed me as manager of the Loews 12 Oaks. A couple of years later he joined GCC at Akers Mill. Within a few years I was working as a projectionist and worked for him there as his regular operator. He was a great guy, both as a friend and manager. He left Akers to open Merchants and a few years later, against his better judgement, moved to Parkside after a long series of managers failed to tame that place. He left in ‘97 after 20 years with GCC and retired to Ashville. I am sad to report that he died a couple of years ago of a heart attack, much like your friend Craig.
I knew Larry and Stu when we were all managers for Loews. Larry took Webb’s place at PM when Webb went to booking. Stu took PM when Larry went to Akers. I was not working in theatres in the late ‘70’s but would occasionally work for Stu at this location when he needed crowd control help. I always got along with Stu, but I know what you mean. He liked to do things his own way. The last time I saw him was in the late 80’s. He was working for NCN, the outfit that sold the slide projector ads, when he came by a booth I was working to check the presentation.
Larry left GCC as a DM to be COO of the Septum chain. I knew that would not last and sure enough he was back within a year, still as a DM. He later left and went to work for Storey shortly before they were sold to Regal. Last I heard he was in NC.
Aaron and Jim Williams both left Northlake to go to the new Gwinnett Place theatre and that is when I went to work at Northlake. The manager then was Lex Austin. In 1997 I took Aaron’s place at Gwinnett when he retired. Sad to say that he died a couple of years later. Jim is still alive and I see him when we have our retiree lunches.
I am afraid that most of this has nothing to do with the Perimeter Mall page, but there is not one for GCC itself. Hope this brought back some old memories.
Man, I hate to start down this road, but here it goes. I believe that Dune was a Christmas ‘84 release. At that time I was working the GCC Northlake and do not recall working Perimeter Mall at any time during the Dune run. I do not recall if Dune ran at Perimeter Mall or not but if it did is had to have been in 35 since PM never had 70MM equipment.
As I stated in my first long post on this page, I worked at PM more than any other single location during my projectionist years, at least up until the time it closed in 1999. I appreciate all of the work that came my way because of GCC, and not once did I ever have a paycheck bounce, unlike other companies I worked for. That said, I must be honest and also say that the GCC theatres of that era (Perimeter, Northlake, Southlake, and Akers Mill) had as bad a presentation as any I ever put on the screen. Shotgun theatres, shadowbox masking which left the sides of the flat picture raw, very slow installation of Dolby, and the atrocious two position seats made for a very poor movie going experience. Not that the public seemed to care since it obviously did not keep them from coming back.
My point is that none of these locations ever had 70MM projectors. PM got 4 track Dolby for Star Trek in 1979, and in 1995 Dolby Digital, but that was it as far as projection upgrades. The first GCC theatre in Atlanta to get 70MM capability was Gwinnett Place which opened in 1984. By then, GCC, in another downgrade in presentation, had quit equipping booths with Century projectors and had switched to Cinemeccanica’s. One house at Gwinnett was equipped with a Vic 8 35/70 as was one house of Merchants Walk and Parkside a few years later.
I wish I could tell you which if any theatres had a 70MM run of Dune. For a city of this size Atlanta played very little 70MM. The closest theatres to PM with 70MM were Phipps Plaza and Holcombe Woods. Next time that I am in the film room of the library I will try to find the Dune ads and see which theatres had a 70MM engagement.
We ran Times Square at Lenox Square in the fall of 80. I was worried that it may become another Rocky Horror with all of the attendant crowd problems, but it bombed out after only two weeks.
All of these people that are sure that they saw Star Wars here makes me wonder sometimes. However, I have never known Michael Coate to make a mistake on this kind of topic, especially when Star Wars is concerned as he has some type of official release record. Also, just to make sure, I went back and looked at the newspaper ads for those days. No doubt that it did not play here during its initial release of summer 1977. After that, starting in spring of 78, who knows. It might have been brought back as a second run filler like so many theatres used to do with Gone With The Wind, 2001, Zhivago, etc…
I think that the all time record holder for Perimeter Mall was Driving Miss Daisy, followed by Forrest Gump and My Best Friends Wedding. As far as busiest seasons, the summer of ‘87 comes to mind with Roxanne, Predator, LaBamba, and the one that kept bringing them back time after time, Lost Boys.
Edisaurus: Nice memories, especially the last two paragraphs. The theatre itself was still in pretty good shape into the 80’s, but there was also retail on the Peachtree sidewalk frontage and the old Barnett Sign Shop space in the rear facing Piedmont. Also there was a huge basement area that was impossible to secure from the outside. There were constant homeless living there who would occasionally smoke the theatre up with their camp fires to say nothing of the rat attracting garbage they would leave.
Your first paragraph is also nice and accurate as far as the movie goes, however, you have the wrong theatre. Song of Norway payed at the original Phipps Plaza Theatre in 70MM Christmas 1970. It did so poorly I do not recall it ever getting a sub run in the neighborhood theatres.
I hope you will post some more of your movie theatre experiences here. I think that all of the Cobb County theatres from that era have pages.
Ed: Martin was a big chain in the southeastern US. and is known as Carmike today although it has been through bankruptcy and ownership changes over the years. Martin had several drive-ins and a couple of indoors in Cobb County, which would be like Long Island is to NYC. In 1961 they purchased the old Rialto in the center of downtown Atlanta, tore it down and rebuilt it as a first run theatre. (The Zieg in your town is almost an exact duplicate of the layout and floorplan.) They also bought the old Tower Theatre across the street from the Fox and turned it into the Martin Cinerama. A couple of years later they built a new single strip 70MM house, the Georgia Cinerama in the suburbs.
Those nice screen shots you have posted could have been used at any of these theatres. I think that this theatre (Martin’s Cinerama) opened with Brothers Grimm followed by HTWWW and then on to IAMMMMW in 70MM. After that it was Mary Poppins and Sound of Music while most of the single strip Cinerama played at the Georgia.
Alice opened the same day as Lenny, 2/14/75. It did very well on its own, and even better from the overflow on the shows that Lenny sold out. A couple of times Lenox played the same movie in both houses with alternating show times, something common today but unheard of back then. As Cliff said, movies would sometimes move to #2 when still doing well when they had to leave the big house. Cliff is incorrect on another point. No Russ Meyer film ever ran here. I think that Midnight Cowboy was the only X to run at Lenox. They even passed on Last Tango In Paris.
Great picture from VJ day 1945. On the far right, Loew’s Grand, next to it is the Paramount / Howard, and up Peachtree on the left is the Roxy marquee. Just below the Roxy sign you can just make out the top of the marquee of the Capitol.
I saw LOA in the fall of 1963 when I was 12 and still too young to enjoy this movie. As was our custom, the entire family went to what was a sparsely attended Saturday afternoon showing. We usually went to the movies on Friday nights, so I assume that this was due to the long running time. Seeing this on a Saturday afternoon when I would have been playing neighborhood football while my parents worked around the house and yard is probably the reason I even remember LOA at all from that first viewing. I would have much rather stayed at home or gone to whatever Walt Disney movie was available. Within a couple of years I would be old enough to appreciate this type of movie as I did with Sound Of Music, and most especially my favorite of all of the Lean films, Doctor Zhivago.
In 1971 I saw the reissue at the Loew’s 12 Oaks Theatre in Atlanta, my first visit to this theatre that I would find myself managing one day. I enjoyed the movie, but did not think that it was in the same class as Zhivago, which is what I was hoping for. The presentation was only fair with the huge 1200 seat auditorium sounding pretty hollow since the theatre only had mono sound.
I finally saw LOA in 70MM at the Fox Theatre during the 1978 Fall Film Festival, and the great picture and sound made it much more entertaining. In 1996 I started working in the Fox booth and have had the pleasure of running LOA twice, once in 70MM, which led to one of the more disgraceful episodes of my booth days. Like all projectionists, I have had my share of snafu’s, but for the most part I was able to recover to the point that the audience rarely noticed. And, as I was once told, if no one sees your mistake it didn’t happen. In this case, 2000 people noticed when I managed to trip over the return film path. Under the glass of my desk I keep a four frame strip of Omar sitting at the oasis, with one of the frames burned out. I find it a good reality check.
This link has an article in Boxoffice about the opening of this theatre. Really nothing about the theatre that Christofer did not relate, but it does give some information about the history of Modular Cinemas.
Yes Mike, Weis did buy out the remaining Minis in Atlanta during the summer of 1974. The first two, Peachtree Battle and Ansley Mall had already been sold, so Weis got Sandy Springs, Doraville, Candler Road, and the under construction site that became the Franklin Road, later renamed Cinema 75.
I remember your grandfather well. Along with Mr. Carmichael and Reuben Woods, he was on the crew when I started working there as an usher in 1972. After I became a projectionist I never worked with him in a theatre but did work with him often running AV shows at hotels and the Congress Center.
After all of that type of work ended I would still see Reuben at the occasional lunch where many of us would get together and trade stories about the good old days. In fact, I saw him at one of those about a month before he died, and was one of several former or retired projectionists at the graveside service.
I recall that he lived on Aruba Circle and was part of that first big real estate buy out that resulted in the construction of the king and queen buildings in Sandy Springs. While I was going through some old union files I found his transfer card from the Key West FL. local and gave it to him at one of our lunches.
Reuben was a good guy and fun to work with. Even when I was just an usher he would always welcome me in the booth when I wanted to show someone around. Those were some good days when the projection business was a craft and you had to pass a test and be licensed by the city to work in a booth. By the late 80’s it had degenerated to the point of sending which ever doorman or concession attendant was available to thread up the projectors. Sure, they would lose a show now and then and occasionally tear up a print, but it was better than paying a responisble person a living wage to do the job right.
I first saw this great movie in December 1970 at the old Martin Cinerama which by then was operated by Walter Reade under the name “The Atlanta.” I was only an occasional moviegoer for most of the 60’s and had not even heard of this movie until the previous May when, for some unknown reason, the song “Somewhere” was chosen by some unknown person to be the class song that we sang during our high school graduation. When it appeared at the Atlanta as a two week pre Christmas filler, I stopped by to see it on my way home from class at Georgia State.
In those days, the Cinerama ribbon screen was still in use, and although 35MM, especially scope, always looked a little fuzzy with that deep curve, the size of the picture and the four track mag sound gave it an impressive presentation. However, it was the choreography, which I had never seen anything like, that impressed me the most. And Natalie Wood on the 68 X 34 foot screen of course. I enjoyed it so much I stayed for another show since it was continuous performances. I was puzzled by a movie that had no credits, but I did enjoy what I assumed was walkout music as well as the overture. (15 months later I was working at this theatre and asked the projectionist why they did not show the credits. Answer: To save carbons of course.)
Two months later WSS showed up at the Candler Road Mini Cinema, a little hole in the wall neighborhood theatre. The screen was tiny, the sound mono, and the quality of the projection poor, but I did experience something that few patrons of this movie can claim; an intermission. I do not know why this movie is never presented with an intermission since the place for it, right after the war council, is so obvious. Maybe it was there during the roadshow. Anyway, the Candler had one, though not in the correct spot. Instead, they waited one more reel, until the end of a 6000' reel thus avoiding all of that heavy work associated with an extra changeover. That reel ended right in the middle of the rumble. So, with Riff pinned against the fence, an astrodater, with sound no less, appeared and I (the only one in the house) had to wait 10 minutes for the fight to resume. In one respect, the Candler showed itself to be able to equal and even exceed the magnificent Atlanta Theatre. Not only did they kill the light at the end fadeout, they cut off the projector as well depriving me of the pleasure of the music.
In June 1971, again as a filler, WSS returned to the site of its Atlanta premiere, the Rhodes Theatre. Here I finally got to see the entire movie the way it was meant to be seen. Not only did I get to see that great credit sequence, but I found out that the overture was actually supposed to have something on the screen while it was playing. The film was only 35, but it was mag, and seeing it this way was almost like seeing it in a real theatre for the first time. When business was so good it was held over for a second week, I helped myself to another showing, this time talking the family into seeing it with me.
In the fall of 1972 WSS made its network premiere It was considered such an event that, in Atlanta at least, an ad, complete with artwork, was placed in the movie section of the paper with the TV station logo where the theatre would normally be.
When the Fox Theatre started showing a summer movie series after being saved from the wrecking ball, WSS was an occasional attraction and I was always there to see it. When it returned in 1996 I was working in the Fox booth, my only experience with this movie as projectionist. As it turned out, my love for this film, and my numerous viewings of it paid off in a big way. While not new, the print was a recent one with a Dolby soundtrack, and in pretty good shape. However, some previous “projectionist” had not only shown a lack of technique by cutting the heads and tails without leaving a frame attached, they had also shown their lack of interest by swapping the leaders and tail on two of the reels. As anyone who has worked in a booth will confirm, unless it happens with the first or last reel there is no way to catch this mistake if you do not know the movie. Since I did know it, I was able to catch it and avoid having hundreds of people cursing me.
This was not a ground breaking movie for me when it comes to being exposed to a whole new medium. As far as musicals go, that honor belongs to Sound of Music. However, coming when it did, just as I was leaving home and going to college, it caused me to take much more interest in movies. Within a year I was tearing tickets at a theatre beginning the first of my 40 or so years in this business.
I believe the name of the manager you replaced was Bob Harmon, or something close to that. In those days, Walter Reed Org. subbed out their concession operation and Bob was a concession manager in NYC. He moved over to theatre manager to return to Georgia. I am sure that he must have wondered what he had gotten himself into when he arrived at the magnificent looking but somewhat chaotic operation he was now responsible for. He was a nice guy to work for and certainly deserved better than what he got from some of the employees he inherited. I left for college in September of 1973, just a couple of weeks before the sale to Weis, something that no one saw coming. It was just a couple of weeks after that the shooting occurred.
Bob stayed on with Weis although I am sure by then he was counting the days to retirement. I remember a Saturday I stopped by to see him while I was home from school. This would have been in the spring of 1974. I was surprised to find him working the box office desk. Seems that Weis had a strange set up in Atlanta where the city manager, a very good man named Sidney Katz, was in charge of the Capri, Fine Art, both Broadviews, Weis Cinema and Peachtree Battle. The newer pick ups, the mini cinemas and the Atlanta, were under the supervision of the Macon city manager, Wayne Cobb. One Saturday, Wayne showed up and not liking the attitude of some of the employees, started giving orders as soon as he walked in the door. The first Mr. Harmon knew of the presence of the city manager was when all of his staff showed up in his office to tell him they were quitting.
Cobb, who at that time at least, did not understand the politics of running a business in Atlanta, sent out a call for all available Weis employees in the city, and also called up some from Macon. I guess that got them through the weekend, but the next time I was by there I was told by the projectionist, Jim Williams, that Bob was gone. I guess you were there by then. I did run into Wayne Cobb a year or so later. At that time I was working for ABC and we played Sunday morning football with some of the other theatre company employees. After we beat the Weis team one week, Wayne sent out a call for help from some of his Macon people. They were a worthy opponent, but they had spent the 90 mile drive up drinking the after game beer stash, and it was the roughest, wildest game I was ever involved in before degenerating into a brawl at the end.
For me, Raiders was one of those rare chances to see a movie without any hype or expectations. I had seen it on the Paramount release schedule listed in the chart at the back of the Boxoffice magazine, but in those days of limited previews and no internet, I knew nothing about it. I was working at the Lenox Square Theatre at the time and at 10 AM on Tuesday 5/19/81 we hosted the southeast regional bid screening. We ran a lot of those and most were of scant interest to me or the bookers and there was seldom more than half a dozen present. On this day a much larger crowd showed up and I decided to watch some of it although my main interest was making it across the street to Phipps Plaza that night to see an advance screening of Outland. By the time the opening sequence was over I was hooked and poor Outland never did have a chance.
We ran the 6/5 advance preview to a sold out house and opened it on 6/12 to overwhelming business. Lenox, which had once been a great place to see a movie was by now a pathetic venue with long, thin, auditoriums, keystoned projection, postage stamp screens, seats not pointed towards the screen, and hollow sound. Raiders at least opened in the only Dolby house which really only added volume since the house was too narrow for proper balance. Three weeks later it did not even have that since it moved to a mono house to make way for For Your Eyes Only. However, Atlanta audiences never seemed to care about presentation any more than the theatre owners did, and Raiders did huge business, as did Bond, Clash of the Titans, and Eye of the Needle.
Raiders lasted until Christmas then left to make way for Sharkeys Machine. By February, it was in the dollar houses although Phipps Plaza brought it back for its first 70MM Atlanta engagement. Although it may be damming it with faint praise, Phipps did have the best presentation in Atlanta, and one of the very few 70MM houses. Regardless, I finally got to see it the way so many people in these comments have described it, and it was a real treat. In July, the Fox Theatre brought it back as part of their summer film series, and again in March of 1983 for a five day engagement, all in 70MM. Huge crowds for both engagements. In 1996 I was working in the booth at the Fox and ran Raiders as the middle feature of our well attended Spielberg day of Jaws, Raiders, and CE3K.
I don’t have an all time Top Ten. I doubt that Raiders would be in it if I did, but I have always enjoyed watching it, and that day in May of 1981 when I saw it with absolutely no preconceptions will always go down as one of my most memorable movie going experiences.
Thanks for those great pictures Alonzo. They really bring back some good memories. From the look of them they might be from opening day. The interchange in the background does not look very heavily developed, and the overhead shot shows the field extending only to the point of the concession stand. When I first attended a movie here in 1971, the field extended a good ways further back. I also did not know that there was a picnic area on top of the concession stand. I can say for certain that it was not there in 1974 when I first worked here.
The shot of the marquee is nice, but in later years a second marquee was added underneath and was used to list coming attractions. Looking under the marquee and at the picture with the truck, it is easy to see that the house for the manager was located in the screen structure. It was a very nice, good sized house, but the screen area was so big there was plenty of room in the left side for a speaker repair shop and yard equipment storage. Look closely and you will see that you could just walk in the front door from lot level. Also notice that the truck is sitting on a bridge. In the early 70’s the creek under the bridge rose out of its banks and flooded the house and boxoffice. To protect the managers house, a wall was built around the front entrance up to the window level.
That worked well until March 25th, 1975, when a much bigger flood washed over the wall and through the windows, once again flooding the manager out. This was an especially cruel twist of fate in that the managers house from the recently closed Bolton Drive In had been moved onto the back corner of the lot and within a week would have been ready for the manager to move to higher ground. The manager, Mr. Lewis Vickery, took it all in stride.
It was during this time that construction was underway to twin the place by regrading the back half of the lot so the ramps faced south. Again, the lot would have been repaved in another week, but when the water receded it took most of the new ramps with it. The twinning was eventually finished and this was the way the place looked until about 1982 or so. Then, the I-285 / I-85 interchange was rebuilt and greatly expanded. This expansion took out the access road, the bridge, the marquee, boxoffice, entrance, and then entire screen complex. A smaller steel frame screen was built much closer to the projection booth and a new box office and entrance was built at the end of a new access road cut from Northcrest Road.
Also at this time a steel storage building was built between the concession stand and the managers house to house Georgia Theatre Company archives. In the late 80’s, after GTC had sold itself out to United Artists Theatres, I heard that all of that material had been scooped into the dumpster when UA closed all of the drive ins. I am glad to see that Alonzo has managed to find a few images from some of these places that I enjoyed working in during the days when theatre work could be a pleasure as well as a job.
Thanks for the list Michael. I am pleased to see that you got your Birmingham and Atlanta information for your Sound of Music article before you decided to restrict it to reserved seat engagements. Three things about that list stand out for me.
First, I see that the engagements at Lakewood and North DeKalb started the same day as the one I described attending at the Ritz Theatre in Birmingham on its page. I wonder if this was some type of regional or nationwide Christmas (unofficial) reissue to take advantage of the holiday business. It might have been what amounted to a moveover in Atlanta, but in Birmingham it had been over a year since the end of the roadshow engagement.
Second, I attended the June 1968 engagement at the North 85 Drive In. I recall the field being crowded and it must have done well to stay for two weeks, a very rare event at a drive in.
Third, I recall the ad in the Storey ladder for the August 1969 Emory engagement. They had block lettering over the title reading “Going Out of Release Until 1973.” I thought that was just some angle to try to get people to attend, but turns out it was true.
I guess that about wraps the SOM discussion here, but there was one other thing I thought of while looking at the microfilm the other day. In those days when newspaper movie ads had some character instead of looking like the phone book, it was the norm to see the artwork in the ads updated with new scenes and a fresh look as the run lengthened. In all of the SOM ads then and later I do not recall anything other than the classic Julie Andrews “dancing” pose. Just like with the Scarlett and Rhett picture on the GWTW ads, it was all you needed to see to know what was playing.
Thanks to JB, Mike, and Michael for starting this thread on the Sound Of Music booking at the Lakewood. The question of the length of the run gave me an excuse to engage in one of my guilty pleasures, namely going to the library and looking through microfilm newspapers ads of theatres from ages past. The ads from those days indicate the following: Sound Of Music opened 12/23/66 and ran 10 weeks, leaving on 3/2/67. On 3/3/67, both theatres (North DeKalb and Lakewood) opened a movie called Quiller Memorandum. It must have been a bomb because on 3/10 the Lakewood opened a return of Born Free although Quiller did continue at the North DeKalb. I did not go much further, but it does not appear that Sound Of Music was brought back as a filler which might have been the cause of some confusion.
Two items of interest here. The quality of the microfilm is not good enough to read the text lineup, but looking through the ads I could not find any other theatres playing Sound Of Music during the 10 week run, so it looks as if these two might have had an exclusive booking for this intermediate break. Also, starting on 3/3/67 no other theatres picked it up. Michael, do any of your notes shed any light on this? Maybe Fox decided that after 100 weeks of constant availability it was time to give it a rest.
JB: Do not start to doubt yourself because of this. As I have said before on other pages on this site, I have posted several theatre stories that I remember participating in just as clearly as if they happened yesterday only to have Michael post a correction. Only once among these events have I even been close to being right, and that was only because of a matter of talking about Atlanta bookings in terms of the city limits as opposed to Atlanta as a regional booking zone. Once I was even foolish enough to dispute a correction he made on a comment of mine regarding Star Wars. I was wrong of course.
Here is a link to a newspaper article about the episode I described in my first comment involving George Ellis getting locked out. I was under the impression that Lewis Osteen, the guy who did this, was the GM of the chain. The article indicates that Osteen had purchased the mini cinema chain from it founders. I never cared for Osteen but thought Gentry and Maddox, the founders of the company, were good people to work for. I was suprised that this event ever took place.
The article clears this up since it seems that Osteen was not a hired gun working for the owners, but was the actual owner. During the Osteen years I would sometimes go to the film depot but come back empty handed because there was a COD tag on the print and Osteen had not paid the up front money or the rent from a previous booking.
To add to the bad times that Joe is going through lately comes news that his friend Cecil Whitmire died last week. Cecil can rightly be called the Joe Patten of the Alabama Theatre in Birmingham. The Alabama is a little over half the size of the Fox, both in seating and stage area. When it closed as a movie theatre is too was faced with demolition. Joe advised Cecil and his group on their efforts to save the Alabama and offered them the lessons he had learned at the Fox.
A few years ago the three of us who worked in the Fox projection booth attended a showing of “Its A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, World” at the Alabama. I had attended the Alabama many times while growing up in Birmingham and Cecil was nice enough to give us a top to bottom tour of the theatre. He was very complimentary of Joe and told us the story of how Joe helped them with the paperwork for setting up the non profit that purchased the Alabama. During the intermission Cecil doubled as the organ player.
I am glad all of this mess involving Joe waited until after Cecil was gone as I am sure he would have found it upsetting.
I wrote Joe a letter explaining my take on the weeks events but decided to not send it. I was afraid that with all that has happened he might misunderstand and miss the sarcastic style. Here it is for the CT readers:
So long Joe.
Since you did not show Atlanta Landmarks the simple courtesy of dying, preferably offsite, or moving out, you have forced them to terminate the agreement that allows you to live in the Fox for the rest of your life. How ungra…teful of you. Do you not realize how many Fox and Atlanta Landmarks big shots have lusted after your apartment all of these years? Sure, you took the old Georgia Theatre Company executive office space, gutted it, cleaned it up, and furnished it at your own expense. Same with your bedroom upstairs. But that was 30 years ago. Times have changed old man. Surely you do not expect this new breed of execs and trustees, some of whom were not alive when you helped save this facility they have so much fun playing with, to put up with your presence any longer.
Face it Joe. Your time has passed. The Fox is saved. Not only that, it has been thoroughly reconditioned, restored, and updated with the latest technology. Except for you that is. Don’t you realize that you are just an embarrassing anachronism of a bygone era when the Fox was a run down shell in danger of being torn down like the New York Roxy to make way for some bland office building. It was good of you to help save the Fox so that all of these people would have jobs and seats of prominence on a board that would enhance the resume and social standing of even the lowest form of humanity. Your work is now done. Go away. Leave.
I know you feel that you have been treated unfairly by the current management of the Fox and Atlanta Landmarks, but wake up. This is 21st century America you are living in. Do you really expect anyone to do what is right, ethical, or just plain decent when they are not legally required to? Do you think that they would have even offered you that farce of an extension if it had not been a PR necessity? In your place I would have accepted it if for no other reason than to aggravate them and deny them your apartment space they so desperately desire for whatever purpose they can think of. (Apartment for deserving Fox officials, wine tasting wing of the Grand Salon, rental space for Lincoln Bedroom style sleepovers, … I had better stop there. Don’t want to give them any ideas.)
No Joe. All of us who were part of those great years of the late 70’s to early 80’s are now being dispatched by our successors to the landfill of history. We served our purposes, but now it is time for a new generation to come in and carry on. We should not be so presumptions as to expect them to adhere to any obligations of the past, be them legal, moral, or ethical. There is no room in today’s America for this type of sentimental hogwash. How can we expect the people now in charge to be successful if they have to waste precious time, effort, and resources fulfilling obligations to old codgers like yourself. Be a man. Ride off into the sunset with your integrity and pride intact. You will be in good company. Remember, the “grateful” British voters kicked Winston Churchill out of office two months after the war in Europe ended.
The friends of the Fox called on you when they were scared. Now that the crisis is over and a new generation that sees no need for you has come to power you are just an aggravation. It is time for you to go.
Enjoyed working with you my friend. Were it not for you and others like you I would have missed out on the enjoyment of running movies at the Fox.
A lot has been written and broadcast recently about the actions of Atlanta Landmarks concerning their desire for Joe Patten to give up his Fox apartment, and their response to his declining to do so. That story is available to anyone via the internet so I will not rehash it here. I will, however, give my take on the whole sorry episode.
In the dark days of 1975-1978 thousands of Atlantans united behind a drive to save the Fox Theatre by donating to the “Save The Fox” campaign. Hundreds actually invested their time and talents in keeping the wrecking ball away. A select few used their considerable legal, technical, and PR skills, and a good bit of personal influence to see that this effort was successful. While Joe Patten did not save the Fox by himself, it is safe to say that without him 660 Peachtree Street would be the address of the (then) Southern Bell HQ.
Personally, I do not think that the Fox was in danger after news of the attempt to obtain a demolition permit became public. Southern Bell did not want to take the PR hit. Georgia Theatre Company was willing to absorb the ill will and tear the place down thus allowing Southern Bell to say that all they did was buy a clean lot. That still would have engendered a flood of hard feelings. Also, local Atlanta companies like Coca Cola and Delta Air Lines might have put up the needed funds, but all that would have gotten them was a closed up downtown movie theatre. The people of Atlanta needed to demonstrate that they wanted the Fox to survive and the Save The Fox campaign gave them a stake in its success.
Even after the non profit Atlanta Landmarks was formed and it became more evident every day that the money to save the theatre would be raised, there was still a long road to travel to transform this run down shell of a downtown movie house into the theatre palace it is today. Joe Patten, with his technical knowledge of the organ, projection booth, and mechanics of the Fox was invaluable in this effort. He also gave up his dream of owning his own theatre. He had recently bought the closed East Point Theatre, installed an organ, and with help from fellow ATOS members was in the process of turning it into a mini Fox. (The story is available here: /theaters/11377/ ) In appreciation of his role, the board of Atlanta Landmarks granted Joe free use for life of the space formerly occupied by the executive suite of the Georgia Theatre Company offices which were located in what is now the Grand Salon. At his own expense, Joe gutted the offices, cleaned up the area and installed the necessary equipment and furnishings.
Now, 30 years later, a new generation sits at the controls of Atlanta Landmarks and the Fox Theatre. This new generation knows nothing but what they have read of the days when the survival of the Fox was in question. They know the Fox only as a pristine, money generating show palace. They obviously have no appreciation of the effort and dedication people like Joe put into the Fox so they could sit behind their desks and say with pride “I am with the Fox Theatre in Atlanta.” I am sure they would disagree with this, but their actions in the matter of ridding themselves of Joe’s presence speak louder than their press releases.
I have seen so many movies, especially in my younger years, that with every experience in life I can find a scene from a movie that relates to it. In this case, two come to mind. The first is from Doctor Zhivago, one of my all time favorites, and the first movie I ever saw at the Fox. The scene is Moscow, 1918. Yuri is on his way home from the war. As he runs into his house and hugs his wife he notices a lot of strange faces. A stern looking woman comes forward and informs him that she is the head of the district housing committee. She tells him that there was room for 18 families in his house. He is welcome to stay in a corner apartment if he abides by the rules of the commissariat. Welcome home comrade. Thanks for your service.
The second is from Aliens, number two in the Alien series. Ripley has once again narrowly escaped death by alien intubation. She discovers that company sleazeball Carter Burke is responsible via his effort to sneak an alien past quarantine and sell it to the bio-weapons division. Despite the aliens wiping out her original crew, killing all but one person of an entire colony, and the bulk of the Marines sent to restore order, she tells Burke “…I don’t know which species is worse. You don’t see them (the aliens) *ing each other over for a damn percentage.” I will leave it to the reader to decide which species is which in relation to this story.
Regarding the ad that Rivest was kind enough to provide, I noticed that they managed to get the showtimes wrong from day one. Lucky Lady was a 2 hour movie and the evening showtimes are listed as 7:30 and 9:15. Probably meant 9:45. I am sure all of us who were managers, projectionists or both have plenty of horror stories related to mistakes like this.
As for this location, the GCC address that we mailed all of our paperwork to was 22 Flutie Pass which referred to Doug Flutie’s game wining heave against Miami. Could the GCC offices mentioned in the overview be at this location with a different address? I see on the map that this is very close to Boston College so that would seem to make sense.
During the first season of the TV show “Rockford Files” one of the episodes has Jim traveling to Vegas on a case. One of the interlude sequences that they always used to make the running time fit (usually a pointless car chase) had Rockford driving down the Fremont strip. There is a nice view of the Portal on the right as he drives by. The marquee showed that the current attraction was “Jeremiah Johnson.”
This episode was broadcast in the spring of ‘75 so it was probably filmed in late '74. In Georgia where I live, “JJ” was given a wide 4wall re-release in the spring and summer of '74. Since that short lived but very successful practice was usually done on a regional basis maybe it was the turn of the Southwest to get its run.
I will see if I can get the episode name and air date.
Nicest drive in setting I have ever been in. In the early 70’s we had to make the drive from school in Milledgeville to Macon for most of the first run movies. Sometimes there were more movies available than indoor screens and both the Riverside and Weis would get an occasional first run.
After my first visit to see a first run of Life And Times of Judge Roy Bean, I came back several times. They even ran triple features occasionally so I would make a night of it with a stop at Shanes Steak House on Riverside Drive, followed by a triple feature at the drive in and then on home to Atlanta for the weekend.
Oh to be young again.
In June of 1972, I was attending college in Milledgeville and made the drive to Macon because I wanted to see just what an air conditioned drive in was. The field had several large air conditioning units per row, each with about 8 grill capped hoses attached. This allowed the cars parked next to the unit and the ones parked next to them to hook the grill to their windows and enjoy a/c in the summer and heat in the winter.
This was not a very successful set up even in those pre energy crunch days. There were only enough units to serve about a third of the lot, and they made so much noise that it distracted from the movie. I was working for Georgia Theatre Company in the late 70’s when they bought out the Weis operations in Macon, and the first thing they did was remove these units.
As for my visit, I enjoyed the show. It was first run Play It Again Sam, doubled with Odd couple. The theatre itself was nice and well kept up. I believe that there was an identical theatre to this one built by Weis in Augusta. There was also a weis Drive In in their hometown of Savannah.
The closest I have ever come to Savannah was watching “Midnight In The Garden…” so I do not know much about this theatre. However, I did work for Georgia Theatre Company in the 70’s and can supply a little information. ABC was the main builder of Ultravision equipped theatres, but the opening of the Phipps Plaza Theatre in Atlanta must have impressed the GTC folks. In 1970 they opened an Ultravision twin in the new South Dekalb Mall in Decatur.
http://cinematreasures.org/theaters/11762
I am sure that it was around this time that the Oglethorpe was built as the Ultravision fad did not last long. That is too bad because with the curved screen, curved seating area, square auditoriums, and sharp focus, the presentation was outstanding. I always thought that the South DeKalb was the best looking theatre with the best picture of any I ever managed.
In 1977 the South DeKalb was twinned and I am sure that this was about the time the Oglethorpe was as well. This turned these once beautiful theatres into long shoeboxes with poor presentation and no personality. It still pains me to think of the day that I saw the optiverters from the South DeKalb loaded into the metal recycle truck along with the frames for the curved screens and the 6000' reel magazines.
Savannah was home to the Weis Theatre chain and during this time they dominated the market there. I think that the Oglethorpe was the only GTC effort and other then twinning it they did nothing else in this town until they sold out to United Artists Theatres in 1987. UA ran it for a while but I am sure that it was closed before the sell out to Regal.
GTC had a strong relationship with United Artists Pictures (not to be confused with United Artists Theatres, a completely different company) so it is probable that all of the Bonds, Pink Panthers, Woody Allen’s and any other UA features played here whenever the screen was available. James Barringer, the manager who followed me at the Lenox Square Theatre left Lenox to come here in 1976 and managed here for several years.
Russell: I first met Steve Crisp in 1972 when he was the manager of the Capri in Buckhead when it was a Weis theatre. In 1975 he followed me as manager of the Loews 12 Oaks. A couple of years later he joined GCC at Akers Mill. Within a few years I was working as a projectionist and worked for him there as his regular operator. He was a great guy, both as a friend and manager. He left Akers to open Merchants and a few years later, against his better judgement, moved to Parkside after a long series of managers failed to tame that place. He left in ‘97 after 20 years with GCC and retired to Ashville. I am sad to report that he died a couple of years ago of a heart attack, much like your friend Craig.
I knew Larry and Stu when we were all managers for Loews. Larry took Webb’s place at PM when Webb went to booking. Stu took PM when Larry went to Akers. I was not working in theatres in the late ‘70’s but would occasionally work for Stu at this location when he needed crowd control help. I always got along with Stu, but I know what you mean. He liked to do things his own way. The last time I saw him was in the late 80’s. He was working for NCN, the outfit that sold the slide projector ads, when he came by a booth I was working to check the presentation.
Larry left GCC as a DM to be COO of the Septum chain. I knew that would not last and sure enough he was back within a year, still as a DM. He later left and went to work for Storey shortly before they were sold to Regal. Last I heard he was in NC.
Aaron and Jim Williams both left Northlake to go to the new Gwinnett Place theatre and that is when I went to work at Northlake. The manager then was Lex Austin. In 1997 I took Aaron’s place at Gwinnett when he retired. Sad to say that he died a couple of years later. Jim is still alive and I see him when we have our retiree lunches.
I am afraid that most of this has nothing to do with the Perimeter Mall page, but there is not one for GCC itself. Hope this brought back some old memories.
Man, I hate to start down this road, but here it goes. I believe that Dune was a Christmas ‘84 release. At that time I was working the GCC Northlake and do not recall working Perimeter Mall at any time during the Dune run. I do not recall if Dune ran at Perimeter Mall or not but if it did is had to have been in 35 since PM never had 70MM equipment.
As I stated in my first long post on this page, I worked at PM more than any other single location during my projectionist years, at least up until the time it closed in 1999. I appreciate all of the work that came my way because of GCC, and not once did I ever have a paycheck bounce, unlike other companies I worked for. That said, I must be honest and also say that the GCC theatres of that era (Perimeter, Northlake, Southlake, and Akers Mill) had as bad a presentation as any I ever put on the screen. Shotgun theatres, shadowbox masking which left the sides of the flat picture raw, very slow installation of Dolby, and the atrocious two position seats made for a very poor movie going experience. Not that the public seemed to care since it obviously did not keep them from coming back.
My point is that none of these locations ever had 70MM projectors. PM got 4 track Dolby for Star Trek in 1979, and in 1995 Dolby Digital, but that was it as far as projection upgrades. The first GCC theatre in Atlanta to get 70MM capability was Gwinnett Place which opened in 1984. By then, GCC, in another downgrade in presentation, had quit equipping booths with Century projectors and had switched to Cinemeccanica’s. One house at Gwinnett was equipped with a Vic 8 35/70 as was one house of Merchants Walk and Parkside a few years later.
I wish I could tell you which if any theatres had a 70MM run of Dune. For a city of this size Atlanta played very little 70MM. The closest theatres to PM with 70MM were Phipps Plaza and Holcombe Woods. Next time that I am in the film room of the library I will try to find the Dune ads and see which theatres had a 70MM engagement.
We ran Times Square at Lenox Square in the fall of 80. I was worried that it may become another Rocky Horror with all of the attendant crowd problems, but it bombed out after only two weeks.
All of these people that are sure that they saw Star Wars here makes me wonder sometimes. However, I have never known Michael Coate to make a mistake on this kind of topic, especially when Star Wars is concerned as he has some type of official release record. Also, just to make sure, I went back and looked at the newspaper ads for those days. No doubt that it did not play here during its initial release of summer 1977. After that, starting in spring of 78, who knows. It might have been brought back as a second run filler like so many theatres used to do with Gone With The Wind, 2001, Zhivago, etc…
I think that the all time record holder for Perimeter Mall was Driving Miss Daisy, followed by Forrest Gump and My Best Friends Wedding. As far as busiest seasons, the summer of ‘87 comes to mind with Roxanne, Predator, LaBamba, and the one that kept bringing them back time after time, Lost Boys.
Edisaurus: Nice memories, especially the last two paragraphs. The theatre itself was still in pretty good shape into the 80’s, but there was also retail on the Peachtree sidewalk frontage and the old Barnett Sign Shop space in the rear facing Piedmont. Also there was a huge basement area that was impossible to secure from the outside. There were constant homeless living there who would occasionally smoke the theatre up with their camp fires to say nothing of the rat attracting garbage they would leave.
Your first paragraph is also nice and accurate as far as the movie goes, however, you have the wrong theatre. Song of Norway payed at the original Phipps Plaza Theatre in 70MM Christmas 1970. It did so poorly I do not recall it ever getting a sub run in the neighborhood theatres.
I hope you will post some more of your movie theatre experiences here. I think that all of the Cobb County theatres from that era have pages.
Ed: Martin was a big chain in the southeastern US. and is known as Carmike today although it has been through bankruptcy and ownership changes over the years. Martin had several drive-ins and a couple of indoors in Cobb County, which would be like Long Island is to NYC. In 1961 they purchased the old Rialto in the center of downtown Atlanta, tore it down and rebuilt it as a first run theatre. (The Zieg in your town is almost an exact duplicate of the layout and floorplan.) They also bought the old Tower Theatre across the street from the Fox and turned it into the Martin Cinerama. A couple of years later they built a new single strip 70MM house, the Georgia Cinerama in the suburbs.
Those nice screen shots you have posted could have been used at any of these theatres. I think that this theatre (Martin’s Cinerama) opened with Brothers Grimm followed by HTWWW and then on to IAMMMMW in 70MM. After that it was Mary Poppins and Sound of Music while most of the single strip Cinerama played at the Georgia.
Alice opened the same day as Lenny, 2/14/75. It did very well on its own, and even better from the overflow on the shows that Lenny sold out. A couple of times Lenox played the same movie in both houses with alternating show times, something common today but unheard of back then. As Cliff said, movies would sometimes move to #2 when still doing well when they had to leave the big house. Cliff is incorrect on another point. No Russ Meyer film ever ran here. I think that Midnight Cowboy was the only X to run at Lenox. They even passed on Last Tango In Paris.
http://www.atlantatimemachine.com/downtown/vj_day.htm
Great picture from VJ day 1945. On the far right, Loew’s Grand, next to it is the Paramount / Howard, and up Peachtree on the left is the Roxy marquee. Just below the Roxy sign you can just make out the top of the marquee of the Capitol.
I saw LOA in the fall of 1963 when I was 12 and still too young to enjoy this movie. As was our custom, the entire family went to what was a sparsely attended Saturday afternoon showing. We usually went to the movies on Friday nights, so I assume that this was due to the long running time. Seeing this on a Saturday afternoon when I would have been playing neighborhood football while my parents worked around the house and yard is probably the reason I even remember LOA at all from that first viewing. I would have much rather stayed at home or gone to whatever Walt Disney movie was available. Within a couple of years I would be old enough to appreciate this type of movie as I did with Sound Of Music, and most especially my favorite of all of the Lean films, Doctor Zhivago.
In 1971 I saw the reissue at the Loew’s 12 Oaks Theatre in Atlanta, my first visit to this theatre that I would find myself managing one day. I enjoyed the movie, but did not think that it was in the same class as Zhivago, which is what I was hoping for. The presentation was only fair with the huge 1200 seat auditorium sounding pretty hollow since the theatre only had mono sound.
I finally saw LOA in 70MM at the Fox Theatre during the 1978 Fall Film Festival, and the great picture and sound made it much more entertaining. In 1996 I started working in the Fox booth and have had the pleasure of running LOA twice, once in 70MM, which led to one of the more disgraceful episodes of my booth days. Like all projectionists, I have had my share of snafu’s, but for the most part I was able to recover to the point that the audience rarely noticed. And, as I was once told, if no one sees your mistake it didn’t happen. In this case, 2000 people noticed when I managed to trip over the return film path. Under the glass of my desk I keep a four frame strip of Omar sitting at the oasis, with one of the frames burned out. I find it a good reality check.
http://www.boxoffice.com/the_vault/issue_page?issue_id=1969-3-24&page_no=39#page_start
This link has an article in Boxoffice about the opening of this theatre. Really nothing about the theatre that Christofer did not relate, but it does give some information about the history of Modular Cinemas.
Yes Mike, Weis did buy out the remaining Minis in Atlanta during the summer of 1974. The first two, Peachtree Battle and Ansley Mall had already been sold, so Weis got Sandy Springs, Doraville, Candler Road, and the under construction site that became the Franklin Road, later renamed Cinema 75.
I remember your grandfather well. Along with Mr. Carmichael and Reuben Woods, he was on the crew when I started working there as an usher in 1972. After I became a projectionist I never worked with him in a theatre but did work with him often running AV shows at hotels and the Congress Center.
After all of that type of work ended I would still see Reuben at the occasional lunch where many of us would get together and trade stories about the good old days. In fact, I saw him at one of those about a month before he died, and was one of several former or retired projectionists at the graveside service.
I recall that he lived on Aruba Circle and was part of that first big real estate buy out that resulted in the construction of the king and queen buildings in Sandy Springs. While I was going through some old union files I found his transfer card from the Key West FL. local and gave it to him at one of our lunches.
Reuben was a good guy and fun to work with. Even when I was just an usher he would always welcome me in the booth when I wanted to show someone around. Those were some good days when the projection business was a craft and you had to pass a test and be licensed by the city to work in a booth. By the late 80’s it had degenerated to the point of sending which ever doorman or concession attendant was available to thread up the projectors. Sure, they would lose a show now and then and occasionally tear up a print, but it was better than paying a responisble person a living wage to do the job right.
the job right.
I first saw this great movie in December 1970 at the old Martin Cinerama which by then was operated by Walter Reade under the name “The Atlanta.” I was only an occasional moviegoer for most of the 60’s and had not even heard of this movie until the previous May when, for some unknown reason, the song “Somewhere” was chosen by some unknown person to be the class song that we sang during our high school graduation. When it appeared at the Atlanta as a two week pre Christmas filler, I stopped by to see it on my way home from class at Georgia State.
In those days, the Cinerama ribbon screen was still in use, and although 35MM, especially scope, always looked a little fuzzy with that deep curve, the size of the picture and the four track mag sound gave it an impressive presentation. However, it was the choreography, which I had never seen anything like, that impressed me the most. And Natalie Wood on the 68 X 34 foot screen of course. I enjoyed it so much I stayed for another show since it was continuous performances. I was puzzled by a movie that had no credits, but I did enjoy what I assumed was walkout music as well as the overture. (15 months later I was working at this theatre and asked the projectionist why they did not show the credits. Answer: To save carbons of course.)
Two months later WSS showed up at the Candler Road Mini Cinema, a little hole in the wall neighborhood theatre. The screen was tiny, the sound mono, and the quality of the projection poor, but I did experience something that few patrons of this movie can claim; an intermission. I do not know why this movie is never presented with an intermission since the place for it, right after the war council, is so obvious. Maybe it was there during the roadshow. Anyway, the Candler had one, though not in the correct spot. Instead, they waited one more reel, until the end of a 6000' reel thus avoiding all of that heavy work associated with an extra changeover. That reel ended right in the middle of the rumble. So, with Riff pinned against the fence, an astrodater, with sound no less, appeared and I (the only one in the house) had to wait 10 minutes for the fight to resume. In one respect, the Candler showed itself to be able to equal and even exceed the magnificent Atlanta Theatre. Not only did they kill the light at the end fadeout, they cut off the projector as well depriving me of the pleasure of the music.
In June 1971, again as a filler, WSS returned to the site of its Atlanta premiere, the Rhodes Theatre. Here I finally got to see the entire movie the way it was meant to be seen. Not only did I get to see that great credit sequence, but I found out that the overture was actually supposed to have something on the screen while it was playing. The film was only 35, but it was mag, and seeing it this way was almost like seeing it in a real theatre for the first time. When business was so good it was held over for a second week, I helped myself to another showing, this time talking the family into seeing it with me.
In the fall of 1972 WSS made its network premiere It was considered such an event that, in Atlanta at least, an ad, complete with artwork, was placed in the movie section of the paper with the TV station logo where the theatre would normally be.
When the Fox Theatre started showing a summer movie series after being saved from the wrecking ball, WSS was an occasional attraction and I was always there to see it. When it returned in 1996 I was working in the Fox booth, my only experience with this movie as projectionist. As it turned out, my love for this film, and my numerous viewings of it paid off in a big way. While not new, the print was a recent one with a Dolby soundtrack, and in pretty good shape. However, some previous “projectionist” had not only shown a lack of technique by cutting the heads and tails without leaving a frame attached, they had also shown their lack of interest by swapping the leaders and tail on two of the reels. As anyone who has worked in a booth will confirm, unless it happens with the first or last reel there is no way to catch this mistake if you do not know the movie. Since I did know it, I was able to catch it and avoid having hundreds of people cursing me.
This was not a ground breaking movie for me when it comes to being exposed to a whole new medium. As far as musicals go, that honor belongs to Sound of Music. However, coming when it did, just as I was leaving home and going to college, it caused me to take much more interest in movies. Within a year I was tearing tickets at a theatre beginning the first of my 40 or so years in this business.
I believe the name of the manager you replaced was Bob Harmon, or something close to that. In those days, Walter Reed Org. subbed out their concession operation and Bob was a concession manager in NYC. He moved over to theatre manager to return to Georgia. I am sure that he must have wondered what he had gotten himself into when he arrived at the magnificent looking but somewhat chaotic operation he was now responsible for. He was a nice guy to work for and certainly deserved better than what he got from some of the employees he inherited. I left for college in September of 1973, just a couple of weeks before the sale to Weis, something that no one saw coming. It was just a couple of weeks after that the shooting occurred.
Bob stayed on with Weis although I am sure by then he was counting the days to retirement. I remember a Saturday I stopped by to see him while I was home from school. This would have been in the spring of 1974. I was surprised to find him working the box office desk. Seems that Weis had a strange set up in Atlanta where the city manager, a very good man named Sidney Katz, was in charge of the Capri, Fine Art, both Broadviews, Weis Cinema and Peachtree Battle. The newer pick ups, the mini cinemas and the Atlanta, were under the supervision of the Macon city manager, Wayne Cobb. One Saturday, Wayne showed up and not liking the attitude of some of the employees, started giving orders as soon as he walked in the door. The first Mr. Harmon knew of the presence of the city manager was when all of his staff showed up in his office to tell him they were quitting.
Cobb, who at that time at least, did not understand the politics of running a business in Atlanta, sent out a call for all available Weis employees in the city, and also called up some from Macon. I guess that got them through the weekend, but the next time I was by there I was told by the projectionist, Jim Williams, that Bob was gone. I guess you were there by then. I did run into Wayne Cobb a year or so later. At that time I was working for ABC and we played Sunday morning football with some of the other theatre company employees. After we beat the Weis team one week, Wayne sent out a call for help from some of his Macon people. They were a worthy opponent, but they had spent the 90 mile drive up drinking the after game beer stash, and it was the roughest, wildest game I was ever involved in before degenerating into a brawl at the end.
Were you there for that one?
For me, Raiders was one of those rare chances to see a movie without any hype or expectations. I had seen it on the Paramount release schedule listed in the chart at the back of the Boxoffice magazine, but in those days of limited previews and no internet, I knew nothing about it. I was working at the Lenox Square Theatre at the time and at 10 AM on Tuesday 5/19/81 we hosted the southeast regional bid screening. We ran a lot of those and most were of scant interest to me or the bookers and there was seldom more than half a dozen present. On this day a much larger crowd showed up and I decided to watch some of it although my main interest was making it across the street to Phipps Plaza that night to see an advance screening of Outland. By the time the opening sequence was over I was hooked and poor Outland never did have a chance.
We ran the 6/5 advance preview to a sold out house and opened it on 6/12 to overwhelming business. Lenox, which had once been a great place to see a movie was by now a pathetic venue with long, thin, auditoriums, keystoned projection, postage stamp screens, seats not pointed towards the screen, and hollow sound. Raiders at least opened in the only Dolby house which really only added volume since the house was too narrow for proper balance. Three weeks later it did not even have that since it moved to a mono house to make way for For Your Eyes Only. However, Atlanta audiences never seemed to care about presentation any more than the theatre owners did, and Raiders did huge business, as did Bond, Clash of the Titans, and Eye of the Needle.
Raiders lasted until Christmas then left to make way for Sharkeys Machine. By February, it was in the dollar houses although Phipps Plaza brought it back for its first 70MM Atlanta engagement. Although it may be damming it with faint praise, Phipps did have the best presentation in Atlanta, and one of the very few 70MM houses. Regardless, I finally got to see it the way so many people in these comments have described it, and it was a real treat. In July, the Fox Theatre brought it back as part of their summer film series, and again in March of 1983 for a five day engagement, all in 70MM. Huge crowds for both engagements. In 1996 I was working in the booth at the Fox and ran Raiders as the middle feature of our well attended Spielberg day of Jaws, Raiders, and CE3K.
I don’t have an all time Top Ten. I doubt that Raiders would be in it if I did, but I have always enjoyed watching it, and that day in May of 1981 when I saw it with absolutely no preconceptions will always go down as one of my most memorable movie going experiences.
Thanks for those great pictures Alonzo. They really bring back some good memories. From the look of them they might be from opening day. The interchange in the background does not look very heavily developed, and the overhead shot shows the field extending only to the point of the concession stand. When I first attended a movie here in 1971, the field extended a good ways further back. I also did not know that there was a picnic area on top of the concession stand. I can say for certain that it was not there in 1974 when I first worked here.
The shot of the marquee is nice, but in later years a second marquee was added underneath and was used to list coming attractions. Looking under the marquee and at the picture with the truck, it is easy to see that the house for the manager was located in the screen structure. It was a very nice, good sized house, but the screen area was so big there was plenty of room in the left side for a speaker repair shop and yard equipment storage. Look closely and you will see that you could just walk in the front door from lot level. Also notice that the truck is sitting on a bridge. In the early 70’s the creek under the bridge rose out of its banks and flooded the house and boxoffice. To protect the managers house, a wall was built around the front entrance up to the window level.
That worked well until March 25th, 1975, when a much bigger flood washed over the wall and through the windows, once again flooding the manager out. This was an especially cruel twist of fate in that the managers house from the recently closed Bolton Drive In had been moved onto the back corner of the lot and within a week would have been ready for the manager to move to higher ground. The manager, Mr. Lewis Vickery, took it all in stride.
It was during this time that construction was underway to twin the place by regrading the back half of the lot so the ramps faced south. Again, the lot would have been repaved in another week, but when the water receded it took most of the new ramps with it. The twinning was eventually finished and this was the way the place looked until about 1982 or so. Then, the I-285 / I-85 interchange was rebuilt and greatly expanded. This expansion took out the access road, the bridge, the marquee, boxoffice, entrance, and then entire screen complex. A smaller steel frame screen was built much closer to the projection booth and a new box office and entrance was built at the end of a new access road cut from Northcrest Road.
Also at this time a steel storage building was built between the concession stand and the managers house to house Georgia Theatre Company archives. In the late 80’s, after GTC had sold itself out to United Artists Theatres, I heard that all of that material had been scooped into the dumpster when UA closed all of the drive ins. I am glad to see that Alonzo has managed to find a few images from some of these places that I enjoyed working in during the days when theatre work could be a pleasure as well as a job.
Thanks for the list Michael. I am pleased to see that you got your Birmingham and Atlanta information for your Sound of Music article before you decided to restrict it to reserved seat engagements. Three things about that list stand out for me.
First, I see that the engagements at Lakewood and North DeKalb started the same day as the one I described attending at the Ritz Theatre in Birmingham on its page. I wonder if this was some type of regional or nationwide Christmas (unofficial) reissue to take advantage of the holiday business. It might have been what amounted to a moveover in Atlanta, but in Birmingham it had been over a year since the end of the roadshow engagement.
Second, I attended the June 1968 engagement at the North 85 Drive In. I recall the field being crowded and it must have done well to stay for two weeks, a very rare event at a drive in.
Third, I recall the ad in the Storey ladder for the August 1969 Emory engagement. They had block lettering over the title reading “Going Out of Release Until 1973.” I thought that was just some angle to try to get people to attend, but turns out it was true.
I guess that about wraps the SOM discussion here, but there was one other thing I thought of while looking at the microfilm the other day. In those days when newspaper movie ads had some character instead of looking like the phone book, it was the norm to see the artwork in the ads updated with new scenes and a fresh look as the run lengthened. In all of the SOM ads then and later I do not recall anything other than the classic Julie Andrews “dancing” pose. Just like with the Scarlett and Rhett picture on the GWTW ads, it was all you needed to see to know what was playing.
Thanks to JB, Mike, and Michael for starting this thread on the Sound Of Music booking at the Lakewood. The question of the length of the run gave me an excuse to engage in one of my guilty pleasures, namely going to the library and looking through microfilm newspapers ads of theatres from ages past. The ads from those days indicate the following: Sound Of Music opened 12/23/66 and ran 10 weeks, leaving on 3/2/67. On 3/3/67, both theatres (North DeKalb and Lakewood) opened a movie called Quiller Memorandum. It must have been a bomb because on 3/10 the Lakewood opened a return of Born Free although Quiller did continue at the North DeKalb. I did not go much further, but it does not appear that Sound Of Music was brought back as a filler which might have been the cause of some confusion.
Two items of interest here. The quality of the microfilm is not good enough to read the text lineup, but looking through the ads I could not find any other theatres playing Sound Of Music during the 10 week run, so it looks as if these two might have had an exclusive booking for this intermediate break. Also, starting on 3/3/67 no other theatres picked it up. Michael, do any of your notes shed any light on this? Maybe Fox decided that after 100 weeks of constant availability it was time to give it a rest.
JB: Do not start to doubt yourself because of this. As I have said before on other pages on this site, I have posted several theatre stories that I remember participating in just as clearly as if they happened yesterday only to have Michael post a correction. Only once among these events have I even been close to being right, and that was only because of a matter of talking about Atlanta bookings in terms of the city limits as opposed to Atlanta as a regional booking zone. Once I was even foolish enough to dispute a correction he made on a comment of mine regarding Star Wars. I was wrong of course.
On the general subject of Sound Of Music itself, Michael has written a very nice article on this site. http://cinematreasures.org/news/23149_0_1_0_C/
Here is a link to a newspaper article about the episode I described in my first comment involving George Ellis getting locked out. I was under the impression that Lewis Osteen, the guy who did this, was the GM of the chain. The article indicates that Osteen had purchased the mini cinema chain from it founders. I never cared for Osteen but thought Gentry and Maddox, the founders of the company, were good people to work for. I was suprised that this event ever took place.
The article clears this up since it seems that Osteen was not a hired gun working for the owners, but was the actual owner. During the Osteen years I would sometimes go to the film depot but come back empty handed because there was a COD tag on the print and Osteen had not paid the up front money or the rent from a previous booking.
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To add to the bad times that Joe is going through lately comes news that his friend Cecil Whitmire died last week. Cecil can rightly be called the Joe Patten of the Alabama Theatre in Birmingham. The Alabama is a little over half the size of the Fox, both in seating and stage area. When it closed as a movie theatre is too was faced with demolition. Joe advised Cecil and his group on their efforts to save the Alabama and offered them the lessons he had learned at the Fox.
A few years ago the three of us who worked in the Fox projection booth attended a showing of “Its A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, World” at the Alabama. I had attended the Alabama many times while growing up in Birmingham and Cecil was nice enough to give us a top to bottom tour of the theatre. He was very complimentary of Joe and told us the story of how Joe helped them with the paperwork for setting up the non profit that purchased the Alabama. During the intermission Cecil doubled as the organ player.
I am glad all of this mess involving Joe waited until after Cecil was gone as I am sure he would have found it upsetting.
I wrote Joe a letter explaining my take on the weeks events but decided to not send it. I was afraid that with all that has happened he might misunderstand and miss the sarcastic style. Here it is for the CT readers:
So long Joe.
Since you did not show Atlanta Landmarks the simple courtesy of dying, preferably offsite, or moving out, you have forced them to terminate the agreement that allows you to live in the Fox for the rest of your life. How ungra…teful of you. Do you not realize how many Fox and Atlanta Landmarks big shots have lusted after your apartment all of these years? Sure, you took the old Georgia Theatre Company executive office space, gutted it, cleaned it up, and furnished it at your own expense. Same with your bedroom upstairs. But that was 30 years ago. Times have changed old man. Surely you do not expect this new breed of execs and trustees, some of whom were not alive when you helped save this facility they have so much fun playing with, to put up with your presence any longer.
Face it Joe. Your time has passed. The Fox is saved. Not only that, it has been thoroughly reconditioned, restored, and updated with the latest technology. Except for you that is. Don’t you realize that you are just an embarrassing anachronism of a bygone era when the Fox was a run down shell in danger of being torn down like the New York Roxy to make way for some bland office building. It was good of you to help save the Fox so that all of these people would have jobs and seats of prominence on a board that would enhance the resume and social standing of even the lowest form of humanity. Your work is now done. Go away. Leave.
I know you feel that you have been treated unfairly by the current management of the Fox and Atlanta Landmarks, but wake up. This is 21st century America you are living in. Do you really expect anyone to do what is right, ethical, or just plain decent when they are not legally required to? Do you think that they would have even offered you that farce of an extension if it had not been a PR necessity? In your place I would have accepted it if for no other reason than to aggravate them and deny them your apartment space they so desperately desire for whatever purpose they can think of. (Apartment for deserving Fox officials, wine tasting wing of the Grand Salon, rental space for Lincoln Bedroom style sleepovers, … I had better stop there. Don’t want to give them any ideas.)
No Joe. All of us who were part of those great years of the late 70’s to early 80’s are now being dispatched by our successors to the landfill of history. We served our purposes, but now it is time for a new generation to come in and carry on. We should not be so presumptions as to expect them to adhere to any obligations of the past, be them legal, moral, or ethical. There is no room in today’s America for this type of sentimental hogwash. How can we expect the people now in charge to be successful if they have to waste precious time, effort, and resources fulfilling obligations to old codgers like yourself. Be a man. Ride off into the sunset with your integrity and pride intact. You will be in good company. Remember, the “grateful” British voters kicked Winston Churchill out of office two months after the war in Europe ended.
The friends of the Fox called on you when they were scared. Now that the crisis is over and a new generation that sees no need for you has come to power you are just an aggravation. It is time for you to go.
Enjoyed working with you my friend. Were it not for you and others like you I would have missed out on the enjoyment of running movies at the Fox.
Stan
A lot has been written and broadcast recently about the actions of Atlanta Landmarks concerning their desire for Joe Patten to give up his Fox apartment, and their response to his declining to do so. That story is available to anyone via the internet so I will not rehash it here. I will, however, give my take on the whole sorry episode.
In the dark days of 1975-1978 thousands of Atlantans united behind a drive to save the Fox Theatre by donating to the “Save The Fox” campaign. Hundreds actually invested their time and talents in keeping the wrecking ball away. A select few used their considerable legal, technical, and PR skills, and a good bit of personal influence to see that this effort was successful. While Joe Patten did not save the Fox by himself, it is safe to say that without him 660 Peachtree Street would be the address of the (then) Southern Bell HQ.
Personally, I do not think that the Fox was in danger after news of the attempt to obtain a demolition permit became public. Southern Bell did not want to take the PR hit. Georgia Theatre Company was willing to absorb the ill will and tear the place down thus allowing Southern Bell to say that all they did was buy a clean lot. That still would have engendered a flood of hard feelings. Also, local Atlanta companies like Coca Cola and Delta Air Lines might have put up the needed funds, but all that would have gotten them was a closed up downtown movie theatre. The people of Atlanta needed to demonstrate that they wanted the Fox to survive and the Save The Fox campaign gave them a stake in its success.
Even after the non profit Atlanta Landmarks was formed and it became more evident every day that the money to save the theatre would be raised, there was still a long road to travel to transform this run down shell of a downtown movie house into the theatre palace it is today. Joe Patten, with his technical knowledge of the organ, projection booth, and mechanics of the Fox was invaluable in this effort. He also gave up his dream of owning his own theatre. He had recently bought the closed East Point Theatre, installed an organ, and with help from fellow ATOS members was in the process of turning it into a mini Fox. (The story is available here: /theaters/11377/ ) In appreciation of his role, the board of Atlanta Landmarks granted Joe free use for life of the space formerly occupied by the executive suite of the Georgia Theatre Company offices which were located in what is now the Grand Salon. At his own expense, Joe gutted the offices, cleaned up the area and installed the necessary equipment and furnishings.
Now, 30 years later, a new generation sits at the controls of Atlanta Landmarks and the Fox Theatre. This new generation knows nothing but what they have read of the days when the survival of the Fox was in question. They know the Fox only as a pristine, money generating show palace. They obviously have no appreciation of the effort and dedication people like Joe put into the Fox so they could sit behind their desks and say with pride “I am with the Fox Theatre in Atlanta.” I am sure they would disagree with this, but their actions in the matter of ridding themselves of Joe’s presence speak louder than their press releases.
I have seen so many movies, especially in my younger years, that with every experience in life I can find a scene from a movie that relates to it. In this case, two come to mind. The first is from Doctor Zhivago, one of my all time favorites, and the first movie I ever saw at the Fox. The scene is Moscow, 1918. Yuri is on his way home from the war. As he runs into his house and hugs his wife he notices a lot of strange faces. A stern looking woman comes forward and informs him that she is the head of the district housing committee. She tells him that there was room for 18 families in his house. He is welcome to stay in a corner apartment if he abides by the rules of the commissariat. Welcome home comrade. Thanks for your service.
The second is from Aliens, number two in the Alien series. Ripley has once again narrowly escaped death by alien intubation. She discovers that company sleazeball Carter Burke is responsible via his effort to sneak an alien past quarantine and sell it to the bio-weapons division. Despite the aliens wiping out her original crew, killing all but one person of an entire colony, and the bulk of the Marines sent to restore order, she tells Burke “…I don’t know which species is worse. You don’t see them (the aliens) *ing each other over for a damn percentage.” I will leave it to the reader to decide which species is which in relation to this story.