Bantam’s art house may close its doors without new owner
By Doug McKinney NEWS-TIMES FILM CRITIC
If somebody doesn’t come along soon to save it, the screen will go dark and the light will go out on a singular cultural resource in the region.
Unless a buyer is found by the end of the year, Bantam’s Cinema IV theater will be closed and sold as commercial real estate.
“If it’s not sold as a theater by Christmas, it’ll break my heart but I’ll have to close and sell it for its real estate value,” says James Bohnen, a Chicago-based stage director and the Bantam theater’s owner since late 1984. “I just can’t afford the conditions of its long-distance operation anymore.”
What makes Cinema IV special is its booking of movies outside the commercial mainstream. In addition to playing the best current American films, Cinema IV is virtually the only place in the region to see recent foreign films and feature documentaries.
Apart from the Sono Cinema in South Norwalk, which pursues a similar exhibition policy, Cinema IV has made it possible for people in the greater Danbury area as well as in Litchfield to see films such as Kenneth Branagh’s “Henry V,” Jim Jarmusch’s “Mystery Train” and Bruno Nuytten’s “Camille Claudel” — worthwhile movies which otherwise wouldn’t appear on a screen much closer than New York City.
Coming attractions in June and July include Percy Adlon’s “Rosalie Goes Shopping,” this year’s Best Foreign Film Oscar-winner from Italy, “Cinema Paradiso,” and the controversial British film by Peter Greenaway, “The Cook, The Thief, His Wife & Her Lover.”
The theater has maintained this type of program since February 1969, when previous owner Michael Mabry of Litchfield took it over.
“It was built as a theater and has been run as one since 1928, except for brief periods of renovation,” Mabry says. “It’s the oldest continuously operated movie theater in Connecticut. At least, that’s what my research turned up, which no one has ever challenged.”
About 40 minutes north of Danbury, the 255-seat theater is one of the last to use carbon-arc lighting in its projectors, a once-standard system which requires greater skill to operate but provides a brighter light and a sharper, warmer image than the xenon-arc lamps generally used in theaters today.
Beyond the films shown, Cinema IV is also special for its attention to the entire moviegoing experience. Notable differences in the lobby include program notes for coming films, an easel pad for filmgoers to register suggestions or critical comments about the movie they’ve just seen and a concession counter which offers coffee, Swiss chocolate and homemade chocolate-chip cookies.
It was Mabry who named the theater “Cinema IV,” a pun on the idea of the theater being “for” its audience and a joke pointed at the horrible practice of cutting up old theaters into shoebox-sized screening rooms. There never was a Cinema I, II or III in Bantam.
When he was unable to continue running the theater in 1984, Mabry didn’t want to sell to just anybody. Fortunately, Bohnen was eager to carry on the atmosphere Mabry had established.
“I was encouraged that Jim continued things as he did,” Mabry says. “The theater has served an important function; I believe its loss would be felt by a great many people in Litchfield County, and would be missed sorely.”
A director of stage plays by profession, Bohnen moved to Chicago in late 1986 but kept Cinema IV running with the help of manager Alan Goldsmith, a free-lance photographer and videographer who lives in Washington. Goldsmith, who will shortly finish his stint as manager because of the demands of his career, has contributed much to the theater’s program.
On a number of occasions, he has organized public forums with guest speakers as special events at the theater linked to films being shown.
Among other programs, he invited a panel of Vietnam veterans to speak after a screening of “Platoon”; a debate among a panel of clergy took place after a showing of “The Last Temptation of Christ”; and a week of special presentations and speakers on the crisis of homelessness accompanied recent showings of the movie “Sidewalk Stories.”
“Alan and the rest of the staff have done a great, great job,” says Bohnen. “Being an absentee owner has been a strain of sorts, and Alan’s efforts have made it workable. I’ve continued to do the programming; seeing, reading, writing the notes for and ordering films for the theater takes me about 50 hours a month.
“But it’s always there demanding attention, and it’s time for me to move on with other things. Running Cinema IV the way we have is a labor of love; it has some potential, but showing the kind of film we do is always tight financially. It’s an unusual situation; the theater has a loyal, supportive core audience, but it’s a few hundred too small.”
Indeed, Cinema IV’s blessing is also its curse. “Art houses,” as such movie theaters have been referred to, are a dying breed. Except for surviving ones in major cities, the “art cinema” is an anachronism from a time before videocassettes and cable television.
“The theater has been on the market for about six months,” Bohnen says. “There have been a number of inquiries, but nothing serious. People have also expressed interest in the property as real estate for other purposes in that time, but there have been no substantive offers.”
“Cinema IV is on a .4-acre, commercially-zoned lot, and is on the market now at $295,000,” says Sue Doyle of Sue Doyle Country Properties and the broker handling the sale of the theater. A Litchfield resident for over 30 years, Doyle thinks it would be a great loss to the area if Cinema IV ceased to operate.
“I’m always amazed at how large an area the theater draws from. There are a lot of people who drive 45 minutes or more to come to it. It would be awful if it closed. If, God forbid, it’s not sold as a theater, my hope is to be able to band together a group of interested parties to save it, purchasing it outright to be run as a non-profit institution, perhaps. A lot of people are interested in seeing Cinema IV continue, and I’m keeping a list.”
Cinema IV, on Route 209 in Bantam, is about a half-mile south of the intersection with Route 202. For a film schedule and other information, call 567-0006.
I show this theatre still open as of 2008, operated by Silver Cinemas. Awaiting further digitization of newspaper archive to get the closing date of this cinema.
Laredoans are movie-goers and to keep up with their entertainment demands, United Artists Theatres, has opened four new viewing screens in the UA Cinema Del Norte.
Box office hits have made it difficult to accommodate the large crowds attracted in the past. No more, four screens of different sizes have been built at Mall Del Norte, adding to the list of local theatres with United Artists interests.
A computer system, a United Artists innovation, make box office operation more efficient.
Already, thousands of Laredoans have visited the mall cinema since its opening this summer. Premier attractions such as “Star Wars,” and “Band News Bears Breaking Training,” were featured.
The comfortable seating and snack areas at Mall Del Norte’s cinema have already added to Laredo’s diversifying entertainment scenario.
United Artists continues to supply the entertainment demands of Laredoans by planning the restructuring of the present Plaza theatre downtown.
Grand preopening ad posted as well as an aerial.
To Close?
May 27th, 1990
Bantam’s art house may close its doors without new owner
By Doug McKinney
NEWS-TIMES FILM CRITIC
If somebody doesn’t come along soon to save it, the screen will go dark and the light will go out on a singular cultural resource in the region.
Unless a buyer is found by the end of the year, Bantam’s Cinema IV theater will be closed and sold as commercial real estate.
“If it’s not sold as a theater by Christmas, it’ll break my heart but I’ll have to close and sell it for its real estate value,” says James Bohnen, a Chicago-based stage director and the Bantam theater’s owner since late 1984. “I just can’t afford the conditions of its long-distance operation anymore.”
What makes Cinema IV special is its booking of movies outside the commercial mainstream. In addition to playing the best current American films, Cinema IV is virtually the only place in the region to see recent foreign films and feature documentaries.
Apart from the Sono Cinema in South Norwalk, which pursues a similar exhibition policy, Cinema IV has made it possible for people in the greater Danbury area as well as in Litchfield to see films such as Kenneth Branagh’s “Henry V,” Jim Jarmusch’s “Mystery Train” and Bruno Nuytten’s “Camille Claudel” — worthwhile movies which otherwise wouldn’t appear on a screen much closer than New York City.
Coming attractions in June and July include Percy Adlon’s “Rosalie Goes Shopping,” this year’s Best Foreign Film Oscar-winner from Italy, “Cinema Paradiso,” and the controversial British film by Peter Greenaway, “The Cook, The Thief, His Wife & Her Lover.”
The theater has maintained this type of program since February 1969, when previous owner Michael Mabry of Litchfield took it over.
“It was built as a theater and has been run as one since 1928, except for brief periods of renovation,” Mabry says. “It’s the oldest continuously operated movie theater in Connecticut. At least, that’s what my research turned up, which no one has ever challenged.”
About 40 minutes north of Danbury, the 255-seat theater is one of the last to use carbon-arc lighting in its projectors, a once-standard system which requires greater skill to operate but provides a brighter light and a sharper, warmer image than the xenon-arc lamps generally used in theaters today.
Beyond the films shown, Cinema IV is also special for its attention to the entire moviegoing experience. Notable differences in the lobby include program notes for coming films, an easel pad for filmgoers to register suggestions or critical comments about the movie they’ve just seen and a concession counter which offers coffee, Swiss chocolate and homemade chocolate-chip cookies.
It was Mabry who named the theater “Cinema IV,” a pun on the idea of the theater being “for” its audience and a joke pointed at the horrible practice of cutting up old theaters into shoebox-sized screening rooms. There never was a Cinema I, II or III in Bantam.
When he was unable to continue running the theater in 1984, Mabry didn’t want to sell to just anybody. Fortunately, Bohnen was eager to carry on the atmosphere Mabry had established.
“I was encouraged that Jim continued things as he did,” Mabry says. “The theater has served an important function; I believe its loss would be felt by a great many people in Litchfield County, and would be missed sorely.”
A director of stage plays by profession, Bohnen moved to Chicago in late 1986 but kept Cinema IV running with the help of manager Alan Goldsmith, a free-lance photographer and videographer who lives in Washington. Goldsmith, who will shortly finish his stint as manager because of the demands of his career, has contributed much to the theater’s program.
On a number of occasions, he has organized public forums with guest speakers as special events at the theater linked to films being shown.
Among other programs, he invited a panel of Vietnam veterans to speak after a screening of “Platoon”; a debate among a panel of clergy took place after a showing of “The Last Temptation of Christ”; and a week of special presentations and speakers on the crisis of homelessness accompanied recent showings of the movie “Sidewalk Stories.”
“Alan and the rest of the staff have done a great, great job,” says Bohnen. “Being an absentee owner has been a strain of sorts, and Alan’s efforts have made it workable. I’ve continued to do the programming; seeing, reading, writing the notes for and ordering films for the theater takes me about 50 hours a month.
“But it’s always there demanding attention, and it’s time for me to move on with other things. Running Cinema IV the way we have is a labor of love; it has some potential, but showing the kind of film we do is always tight financially. It’s an unusual situation; the theater has a loyal, supportive core audience, but it’s a few hundred too small.”
Indeed, Cinema IV’s blessing is also its curse. “Art houses,” as such movie theaters have been referred to, are a dying breed. Except for surviving ones in major cities, the “art cinema” is an anachronism from a time before videocassettes and cable television.
“The theater has been on the market for about six months,” Bohnen says. “There have been a number of inquiries, but nothing serious. People have also expressed interest in the property as real estate for other purposes in that time, but there have been no substantive offers.”
“Cinema IV is on a .4-acre, commercially-zoned lot, and is on the market now at $295,000,” says Sue Doyle of Sue Doyle Country Properties and the broker handling the sale of the theater. A Litchfield resident for over 30 years, Doyle thinks it would be a great loss to the area if Cinema IV ceased to operate.
“I’m always amazed at how large an area the theater draws from. There are a lot of people who drive 45 minutes or more to come to it. It would be awful if it closed. If, God forbid, it’s not sold as a theater, my hope is to be able to band together a group of interested parties to save it, purchasing it outright to be run as a non-profit institution, perhaps. A lot of people are interested in seeing Cinema IV continue, and I’m keeping a list.”
Cinema IV, on Route 209 in Bantam, is about a half-mile south of the intersection with Route 202. For a film schedule and other information, call 567-0006.
I show this theatre still open as of 2008, operated by Silver Cinemas. Awaiting further digitization of newspaper archive to get the closing date of this cinema.
This opened on October 13th, 2006. English and Spanish language grand opening ads posted.
Grand opening article
Closed December 30th, 1953.
Final listings for the Arlyne theatre was on September 7th, 1975 with “Take a Hard Ride”
Grand opening ad posted and I enhanced the photo via Nano Banana 2 in the ad and posted it as well.
Grand opening ads posted.
December 21st, 1930 grand opening ad posted.
1st 3 screens opened on June 24th, 1994. Grand opening ad posted.
Trouble with the unions:
Closed September 6th, 1983 per the Laredo Times from the 9th on page 28th.
Closed February 1st, 2000.
Arcade Theatre, Kissimmee, Closing. Feb 4, 2000 The Orlando Sentinel (Orlando, Florida) Newspapers.com
Final ads appeared for it and the UC 7 appeared on October 18th, 2001.
Final appearance for showtimes for the Regal UC 7 in the Sentinel: October 18th, 2001
More info and a picture
Listings for the Royal theatre ended in 1976.
Laredoans are movie-goers and to keep up with their entertainment demands, United Artists Theatres, has opened four new viewing screens in the UA Cinema Del Norte.
Box office hits have made it difficult to accommodate the large crowds attracted in the past. No more, four screens of different sizes have been built at Mall Del Norte, adding to the list of local theatres with United Artists interests.
A computer system, a United Artists innovation, make box office operation more efficient.
Already, thousands of Laredoans have visited the mall cinema since its opening this summer. Premier attractions such as “Star Wars,” and “Band News Bears Breaking Training,” were featured.
The comfortable seating and snack areas at Mall Del Norte’s cinema have already added to Laredo’s diversifying entertainment scenario.
United Artists continues to supply the entertainment demands of Laredoans by planning the restructuring of the present Plaza theatre downtown.
Closed on May 18th, 1971 after its final performance of a horror triple bill.
Last newspaper listings were on March 23rd, 1962 for the Rialto theatre.
Grand opening ad from June 30th, 1933 posted.
Grand opening ad
Look like it closed around 1973 as a adult drive in, the newspaper imposed an ban on adult film ads.
Opened April 29tn, 1955. Grand opening ad posted.