Bantam Cinema & Arts Center
115 Bantam Lake Road,
Bantam,
CT
06750
115 Bantam Lake Road,
Bantam,
CT
06750
1 person
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Related Websites
Bantam Cinema (Official)
Additional Info
Functions: Movies (First Run)
Previous Names: Rivoli Theatre, Cinema IV, Bantam Cinema
Phone Numbers:
Box Office:
860.567.0006
Nearby Theaters
The Bantam Cinema, according to its website, is the oldest continuously operated movie theatre in the state of Connecticut.
Originally opened as the Rivoli Theatre in 1927, it was later known as the Cinema IV, despite the fact it had only one screen at the time, it was later split in two. The Bantam Cinema still looks like a little red barn on a country road. It showed first run films and mostly art house fare. It was renovated in June 1997.
It was closed on March 15, 2020 due to the mandatory closing of all cinemas due to Covid-19 Pandemic. It was announced in June 8, 2020 that it would be closed permanently. A group has been formed to operate the cinema as a non-profit and it reopened in October 2021.
Contributed by
Roger Katz
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Recent comments (view all 17 comments)
They used to have revivals into the ‘80’s such as The Marx Brothers and Bogart. I certainly doubt that it is the only continuously operating movie house in CT…for years it was only open on Fridays and Saturdays. The theatre in Watertown deserves that title.
It was a comfortable place until they sliced in half sideways. The screens are too high.
edguinea
The Bantam Cinema was just sold by longtime owner Lisa Hedley to Syndey Koch earlier this week. He plans to continue to run it as an art cinema.
In 1970 the operator was Lightstone Theater Enterprises, Inc. President was Morty Lightstone, booker was Hank Lightstone.
I used to own a house in Litchfield (2000-2006)and would go to the Bantam Cinema every now and then. It was often drafty and cold, the sound wasn’t the greatest, but what it lacked in technology it more than made up in charm. It seemed as if the treats at the concession stand were all homemade…old fashioned bags of popcorn, home baked cookies and that sort of thing. I havent been back in a few years but hope it never changes.
According to the website, the Bantam has gone digital.
OPENED AS RIVOLI THEATRE
I wonder if the barn-like, utilitarian exterior remodeling can be undone, and the handsome brick front the Bantam sported when it opened in 1927 as the Rivoli restored?
The Bantam is for sale.
The Bantam Cinema reopened for occasional showings in October and November of 2021. It appears they are ramping up to their full schedule beginning in December. Their new website is https://www.bantamcinema.org/.
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.