Cinema Kings Highway
711 Kings Highway,
Brooklyn,
NY
11223
711 Kings Highway,
Brooklyn,
NY
11223
13 people
favorited this theater
Showing 151 - 175 of 176 comments
My knowledge of Brooklyn is very limited and rudimentary. Roughly speaking, where is this theater located? And how might one reach it via public transportation from Manhattan? (email replies welcome, via my profile)
I remember going to the Cinema Kings Highway in the early to mid late 60s with my parents. This theater made a foreign film fan out of me! Unusual for Brooklyn, this theater seemed more at home on Manhattans upper East or West side. In those pre multiplex, video, dvd, pay for view, Speilbergian , Dolby, CGI days people seemed to have more intelligence in film going than today. Anyway, I remember seeing films like “Two Women”,“Marriage AND Divorce Italian Style”, the Italian shockumentary"Mondo Cane", French fare like “Umbrellas of Cherbourg”, “Hiroshima Mon Amour”,and “Weekend”, British films like “Alfie”, “The Wrong Box”,“Billy Liar”, and “Bedazzled”. Also those great films from Czechoslovakia from the “Prague Spring” era like “Closely Watched Trains”, “The Fireman1s Ball”, “Lovrs of a Blonde” and the great “Shop on Main Street”. This theater was rather small and nondescript, but it served its purpose well. There was usually a good audience for Saturday and Sunday night shows. Things started to go downhill in late `69 and early 70 when they started to show porn, but I did get to see “Marat/sade” here in March of 1970.After the theater went porn, you had to go to Manhattan to see films like these. In retrospect it was amazing that this theater even showed these films in the first place, but the memories were pricrless.
1960’s adult double feature
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OverCertified: “…There are not too any adult theaters in NYC left at all. This one is the only one I know of that is left in Brooklyn. It has private booths, so something can be worked out. There has always been adult play in this theater…”
Is it ENTIRELY given over to private booths? No multi-person big-screen section(s)?
November 1969, the theatre was already running a lot of porn but played this re-release of South Pacific.
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December 1973 day and dating with the Lido’s. Notice the theatre had a logo then.
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Here is a June 2006 photograph I took of the Cinema Kings Highway:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/kencta/189079112/
There are not too any adult theaters in NYC left at all. This one is the only one I know of that is left in Brooklyn. It has private booths, so something can be worked out. There has always been adult play in this theater, however I have only seen gay men in this place and rarely couples. The guys have always played there, even though posted signs say it is not allowed. Theaters of this type are superceeded by peep shows.
If you want to play in NYC/Brooklyn. look up the Fetish Warehouse on 25th Brooklyn. (By 3rd Avenue). That is a great place to play.
I grew up in the 30’s, 40’s and 50’s on East 7th Street around the corner from the “Jewel”. I remember the celebration when it opened brand new in the late 30’s. it was very art deco and modern. During WW2, we neighborhood kids went to the matinee just about every Saturday fortified with a large sour pickle from Schnipper’s Delicatessen across Kings Highway. Contrary to what someone else reported, the Jewel was NEVER a Century theater.
Each Saturday, we saw a 2nd run double feature, a cartoon, the news, coming attractions and usually a “chapter”. We spent a good deal of time either annoying or hiding from the matron.
I remember in the 50’s when the theater tried to capitalize on the foreign film craze. When they showed “Diabolique”, the line stretched around the corner onto East 7th Street almost to my house.
I have many great memories of time spent in the Jewel!
Karl Bernstein
OK, Rocco came out in 1960, so I goofed on the year.
Why is there no listing for the Jewel? Who’d search for that under Kings Highway? In any event, around 1957 I saw Rocco and His Brothers at the Jewel, and on another occasion W.C. Fields shorts (“tain’t a night fit for man nor beast”). Where else in Brooklyn could you catch such fare?
It is amazing how this theater has survived. A few years after it re-opened (after the Jewel fire) any attempt to open a XXX theater was met with stiff opposition from the local church (St Brendan) and they were shut down.
BYW: As with most NYC XXX theaters, some of you might find it strange that there are normal pictures playing there too. There is a reason. There is a 40/60 rule that says if the establishment is 60% or more non-adult, then it falls under a different law statute. If the amount is less than 60%, it is considered an adult establishment, and has to be so far from schools, residental living, etc – and no grandfathering. This is the law used to clean up Times Square.
A District Manager for the Century chain told me that the Jewel was once a Century house. Difficult to understand how or why this petri dish remains open. I guess you have to be a people person to understand.
Intresting story about theater written in 1988.
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The Film Daily Yearbook, 1941 gives a seating capacity for the Jewel Theatre as 650.
This place does very well, it’s Brooklyns only XXX house.
Amazing in this day and age that a XXX theater still exists. In Brooklyn no less and a heavily Orthodox Jewish neighborhood!
There are five distinct areas now in this theatre. The ground floor has a small straight porno screening room on the right side, a small gay porno screening room on the left, and a small Hollywood and made-for-TV video screening room in the center. These are located in what was the rear of the orchestra. In the front section of the orchestra, taking up most of the auditorium, is a large peepshow/cruising area, with really terrible video screens in the booths, very much out of focus and nearly unwatchable. (But who’s watching anyway?) In the intact balcony, they screen the same type of Hollywood and made for TV videos as downstairs, leaving the
lights on! There is some architural detail left in the auditorium and in the balcony, so it might be worth a look for our more adventurous brothers. When I was there last, Night of the Living Dead was playing, not on the screen but in the audience. A more decrepit bunch of customers would be hard to find.
The description needs to be updated here, the theatre is open with gay porn in the balcony theatre and straight porn on the main level.
Vincent,
Star Wars may have changed the film business but it did not kill the American film or the way we watch movies.. If anything, it revived a dying industry in the 1970’s. How many theatres were closed, showing porn or nearly empty at the time. You can’t live in the past. The fact that SW gets mentioned so much only proves that it has lasting appeal. Perhaps not a true film classic but stil a very important part of film history. Jaws is really the precursor of the ‘event blockbuster’ film. Anyhow, these discussions lead nowhere, it’s been covered a million times and this isn’t the place to do it.
I would love to sit in a single screen movie palace watching the latest release in widescreen with full sound, no commercials and uniformed ushers walking up the aisles with their flashlights, but that’s just not going to happen anymore.
The Cinema Kings Highway never played Star Wars first run, it played the Century’s Avalon in ‘77/78.
Gee I wonder if no one would ever mention Star Wars on this site again. It’s not a real movie. It never was and never will be. It’s a 10 minute serial episode stretched out to 2 hours and its success helped to kill the american film and helped to kill the way we used to watch movies which this site is all about. Let’s face it we’re not getting any smarter and our culture proves it. Take me back to ‘62 and Lawrence. And Robert this is not a put down of you but every once in a while we need a reality check.
Another trivia item that I was told was that they were the only theatre in Brooklyn to open Star Wars in stereo. I wonder if it was 70mm?
The theater closed and reopened. They are still showing porn
Recently I past it, and I believe it was showing THE LAST CASTLE with redford and Golafini. I can’t believe any legit house can make any money running year-old features that are out on Video and DVD—and have played premium cable.