Comments from DougNoakes

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DougNoakes
DougNoakes commented about Campbell Twin Cinemas on Nov 22, 2005 at 11:20 pm

I remember when it opened on a particular Wednesday I can;t recall in 1971. The movies I saw there the first time it opened (I went that Friday) was a Michael Caine film, “The Last Valley” and a British sci-fi B-movie called “Battle Beneth the Earth”. One of the reasons I remember it so well is because I was 11 years old when It opened and it was the first movie theater I went to without my parents. My friends and I saw many of the Planet of the Apes films there, as well as Westerns like “Something Big” with Dean Martin, “Joe Kidd” with Clint Eastwood and “The Wrath of God ” with Robert Mitchum. I got a big kick out of the action movies but I also remember seeing “chick” films like “A Touch of Class” with George Segal and Glenda Jackson" and “Butterflies are Free ” with Goldie Hawn. Movies like that would first play at the Pruneyard cinemas in downtown Campbell or the Century Theaters on Winchester Blvd in San Jose. After they ran there, then they would show up at the Campbell Twin. I saw a lot of movies twice because I would ride my bike to see a flick one month at the Pruneyard and then see the movie with a second feature a couple months later.
The Campbell Twin showed genre movies and second runs of bigger feature films like “Fiddler on the Roof”, “Paint Your Wagon”, “Patton”, usually paired together. Sometimes a triple was played and as Ted Kupolus mentioned they were one of the theaters that showed all five “Planet of the Apes” film at one time in the Summer of 1974.
One of my favorite double features from the early seventies was “Bonnie and Clyde” and “Bullitt”. This was shortly before the films were shown on CBS. The last time I went to the theaters was in September of 1974. (MASH played with Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid") I remember they had a concession/ticket area that divided the screens so it was hard to sneak into one movie to another.

I left the area and came back in the Fall of 1978. By then the Campbell Twin had closed. It did indeed become a racquetball club.