Bijou Theatre

KEITH"S THEATRE PHOTO, 1950, FROM MGM REPORT Thanks to Theatre Historical Society of America.

My father, Gilbert Hemenway, was a projectionist and he worked at the Keith and at many of the New Bedford area theaters, starting at the Allen Theater where he and his brother George were trained by their brother Floyd to be projectionists. In those days you had to study electronics and get a license to be a projectionist. Union contracts specified a 2-man booth, as the projection rooms were called. My father started as a ticket-taker and usher and thats how he met my mother.

In New Bedford he worked at the Empire, Capitol, New Bedford, Orpheum, Dartmouth Drive-In, and Fairhaven Drive-In. In Fall River it was the Plaza and the Embassy – and there was the Newport Theater in RI. In about 1948 when I was about 5 year old, my mother and I would go with my father to the Dartmouth Drive-In in our Chevy Coupe and I would sleep on the shelf in the back. I miss all those theaters. Before I was born my father worked other theaters. I think they were the Bailey Square (Arcade) in New Bedford and the Keith in North Fairhaven.

With television causing theaters to go dark, my father was squeezed out of the theaters in New Bedford and found some work with the Fall River Local. When the Fairhaven Drive-In opened, there wasnt a speaker in the projection booth so that the projectionist could hear the sound track. My father took a ramp speaker and ran a wire up along the ceiling and to the big amplifier. In 1990 I went to that booth 35+ years later and noticed his speaker. I now have it, as a momento of my father. I was amazed at the equipment that was still not vandalized. The same with the Dartmouth Drive-In and the Westport Drive-In. I took the reel of film that they played to announce intermission time and the last carbon arcs out of the projectors due to my sentimentality.

The building is for sale at $375,000:
http://tinyurl.com/7lv4ub

The Keith’s in Fairhaven MA at 356 Main St. was included in the MGM Theatre Photograph and Report project, but the photo was not taken until July 1950, 9 years after most of the other project photos were taken. And the Report form was only partially filled out. The photo shows an entrance at the left end of a 2-story business block. There is a triangle marquee with only “Keith’s” on it, no room for attractions to be posted. The Report states that the theatre has been showing MGM product for 3 years, but no other info was included.

The building is still there and it’s empty.

I’m very interested in finding photos of the original facade of the earlier incarnations of this theatre.. the American, New American, Keith, New Keith, or Oxford. Please email me if you have any leads..

The first movie I saw here was Federico Fellini’s And the Ship Sails On (…and on, and on, and on!) on July 24, 1984. When this place re-opened, all fresh and spiffy, there were real high hopes that it would succeed. What a pity, especially since there is no other art house in the New Bedford/Fall River area.

The status should be changed to “Closed”. Is it still standing, and has anyone else moved in?

The Bijou Theatre has just announced that it will be closing. Very sad. See their web site for details.