Movie City 5

My wife and I lived at an apartment complex nearby in the early 1980’s and went to these theaters a few times. The price was cheap but the screens weren’t very large. I preferred going to Menlo Park or the Woodbridge theaters for the first run movies we wanted to see even though the price was more. We would go here for the movies that were not on our ‘must see’ list.

Saw a lot of limited distribution horror films at this one, including DAY OF THE DEAD (first film I saw here,) and EVIL DEAD 2. My most vivid non-genre memory of MC5 was seeing GOOD MORNING, VIET NAM in a sold out screening, with a column directly in front of my seat, obscuring half of the screen.

I grew up in Iselin and saw many movies here. For some reason, I distinctly remember watching “Back to the Future Part III” here in 1990. I was familiar with its history, first becoming a second-run theater, then exclusively showing Bollywood or other South Asian films, but I didn’t know it had closed.

I also always found it odd that the entrance was in the back of the building and virtually unseen from Route 1. I remember there always being a crowd, so I guess it didn’t hurt business too much throughout the years.

Anyway, thanks for posting this, and for the memories.

I too worked part time at Movie City 5 as a teenager in 1986. I was an OK job at the time. I got to see a lot of movies as an usher, but we were forbidden to sit down.
From what I recall the general manager was a rather cut-throat businessman and was the main reason my employment only last a few short months.

I remember this place – it wasn’t the cleanest or most modern, but it was cheap and accessible. I think the last film I saw here was “Sleepy Hollow”, I also recall seeing “The Shadow” and “The Phantom” at Movie City

Movie City 5 opened as a 5 plex. The owners had the option of building the theatre on the Rt 1 side, but for some reason opted to build in the rear of the old S. Klein’s building. Theatres 3, 4 & 5 used a periscope system to get the projected image to the screen. So when you were in the booth, the projector shot into a mirror, which projected to a mirror below and then out the port. The booth was higher than the theatre’s ceilings. I remember seeing “Modern Problems” in #4 there not long after the theatre opened. From what I remembered, each theatre’s doors were different colors which corresponded to colored lines outside the building. These were the cueing lines for the next show. Up until recent, the overhead heaters were still in place over the lines. The theatre has currently been converted to a health club after years sitting closed. Clearview Cinemas took over the business somewhere in the late 90’s and ultimately closed the theatre.

I worked at this theater from 1991-1997 and during that time it was always a 2nd run theater and had been for some time prior so it’s highly possible that it split the 80s by starting out as 1st run but going to 2nd run later on. Indeed it was a bit of a dumpy theater, but for less than $3 a ticket (both adult and children) you couldn’t expect much. It was part of the Movie City chain with 2 locations in East Brunswick (one on Route 18 and the other tucked away in the Brusnwick Square Mall), Edison on Oak Tree Road and another small theater in Tenafly, NJ. All locations were sold to Clearview in the late 90s with the exception of the Brunswick Square theater which was renovated by the owners and turned into MegaMovies. Movie City 5 in Woodbridge did occasionally show a ‘Bollywood’ movie, usually on a Saturday or Sunday late morning before the theater was open to the general public. Otherwise it was a strictly 2nd run theater until it closed in ‘03.

There was an affiliated theater, also named Movie City, on the northbound side of Rt. 18 in East Brunswick during the late ‘70s and '80s. Multi-screen, second-run.

I think it was a second-run house during the 80s, switching to first-run from 1986 to the 1990s.