Kingston Four Cinema
8315 Kingston Pike,
Knoxville,
TN
37919
8315 Kingston Pike,
Knoxville,
TN
37919
2 people
favorited this theater
The Kingston Four Cinema was a very interesting, though short lived, four-plex: built in the 1970’s, opening on December 17, 1976. The four auditoriums were each an octagon, one was larger than the other three. The construction looked like poured concrete. The lobby was was a square that fit into the space where the octagons joined.
There was no marquee as such, but a large signboard stood on the street. The floors were nicely raked and the hall was clean and nicely-if simply-decorated for the period. It was still showing first run pictures in 1993. In 1994 it changed to second run movies and was closed by Carmike May 16, 1996. It was demolished in the late-1990’s. There was a lot of competition in the neighborhood and though the hall backed up to I-40 with a second large signboard facing the interstate and it had plenty of parking, sadly it didn’t make the cut.
Contributed by
Will Dunklin
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Recent comments (view all 22 comments)
tntim, link is dead. This opened on December 17th, 1976. Grand opening ad already posted.
Can anyone remember the seating capacities of each auditorium?
There was a fire that broke out in theater #4 on December 21, 1979 Newspaper article is posted in the photo section.
Can anyone remember what the feature was for the week of 15 July, when Star Wars came to town?
Saw many movies here in the late 1970’s but I remember two in particular. I remember Dad taking my bro and I to see the first Superman movie starring Christopher Reeve here around 1980 on a Sunday night and to the former Darryl’s down the road on Bearden Hill for dinner that night. Also remember my mom and her co-worker taking myself and her daughter to see “Animal House” back in 1978. I was only nine at the time, but that movie was my first introduction to college fraternities, something that would eventually be out of my reach later on in 1989 due to my GPA and lack of funds. Before finding this page, I had completely forgotten about the fire that happened a year after in 1979. Must be why they moved The Rocky Horror Picture Show down the road to the old Capri Terrace Tap House where it ran for many years afterwards and always at midnight. I remember finally getting to take in the “Rocky Horror” experience that I first became aware of from the movie scene in “Fame” in 1993 when I went to see it at a midnight showing and that was only because I had the next day off from work at the time.
Fotomac, The movies playing on July 15, 1977 were “Orca”, “The Island of Dr, Moreau”, “Final Chapter Walking Tall”, and “The Other side of Midnight”.
Apparently, from what I’ve been able to gather on Newspapers.com, the lot was a used car dealership called City Auto Sales (originally The Car King) for a time immediately after the theatre’s closure. Now, it’s a small strip mall known as the Kingston 4, after the former theatre.
Fotomac, the car lot was next door to the west of the theater. The Kingston 4 shopping center is next door to that. A Rooms-To-Go was built on the site of the former theatre in 2010. A Storming Crab seafood restaurant, and a mattress store was built on the old car lot in 2014.
Interesting. I got my info by searching for “8357 Kingston” on Newspapers.com.
According to kgis.org, the theatre was at 8315 Kingston Pike, the car lot was listed at 8349, and the Kingston 4 Center is at 8373. I see where the newspaper ads for the car lot are 8357, but I’m not sure why. I posted a theatre ad showing the correct street address.