This looks like a relevant and interesting documentary: The Last Picture Shows. It’s about all those small town movie houses that still exist, even as Hollywood tries to strangle us all.
Filmmaker Rustin Thompson journeys into the American West on a search for traces of what was once a center of small-town life: the movie theater. On the trip, he finds long abandoned and forgotten cinemas; movie houses that have fallen into disrepair; theaters recently closed, theaters struggling to hold on, and theaters that—thanks to their thoughtful caretakers—are not only surviving but thriving. Between the stops along the way, Rustin poetically intersperses excerpts from Peter Bogdanovich’s 1971 classic film The Last Picture Show, as well as reflections on past and present hardships facing the film exhibition industry. The Last Picture Shows is not only a timely portrait of an industry in crisis, one facing the headwinds of consolidation, streaming, and the diminishing theatrical experience, but it also reminds viewers that even in vast cinema deserts, there are oases of community and gathering that remain, where the movie house continues to be a place of wonder, contemplation, and connection.
There were actually two centers of small-town life in Morris, the railroad station and the theater. The railroad station is a wreck right now, with no passenger rail service to our town. The theater probably fits into the category of “struggling to hold on,” but we are currently in the black, just barely. We’ve got costly plans to revitalize the theater right now, mostly mundane stuff like a $30,000 expense to repair the roof, and further down the road we plan to remodel the run-down restrooms, and update the marquee. These are daunting costs, especially for an institution only this year boasted a net profit of about $5000. We figure if we keep plugging away, pennies at a time, we’ll eventually get there.
Meanwhile, the next closest theater in the small town of Benson, the DeMarce Theater, has a “For Sale” sign posted. I don’t know if they’re failing, or if the owners are just aware of how much work it takes to keep these businesses afloat.
The Brentwood neighborhood in Jacksonville where I lived in until I was 7 had a neighborhood movie theater. It’s where the kids went on Saturday morning to see Roy Rogers and Gene Autry and whatever else was playing. The theater closed in 1956, which would be shortly after I stopped going because we moved. The building still stands and is a library now.
The San Francisco area has quit a few local theater operations. In Marin County alone, there are three or four old movie houses still showing films. Of course there are plenty of mainstream, first run movie houses, too.
There are two of those in my local area.
One was a historic old art deco theatre that was last owned by one of the chains.
It needed a lot of renovation so they donated it to a local group as a nonprofit community theatre on the condition that they never show first run movies.
They have an active schedule with old movies, rock concerts, punk rock concerts, plays, comedy shows, and whatever else they can book. They are apparently making enough to stay open but they have renovations planned that they can’t pay for either.
The other is further away and I don’t know much about them.
Apparently it is owned by someone who just wants to run an old movie theatre.
It was remodeled a few decades ago and seems to be in good condition.
I’ve never been to a movie there but am keeping on eye on the schedule for something I want to see.
It is currently showing the same movie as the Morris theater, Resident Evil.
The one I have been in a few times and really like, is the McDonald theatre in Eugene.
It’s big at 800 seats and has kept a lot of its art deco construction.
They book mostly music acts, rock and contemporary pop music,
I just checked and in October they have Judy Collins and Steel Pulse (reggae).
Too bad. Morris was once on the route of the Great Northern’s Empire Builder. Amtrak’s version of that train now runs through Staples to Fargo.
Eagle River, WI, the closest town to where I spend my summer months, has two old-time theaters on the main street, which is called Wall St for some reason. Both have been converted to touristy shopping centers.
I actually, thought the one on the south side of the street was still a theater because I remember my daughter bringing her two kids there to see a movie on a rainy day when they were little. But I checked a recent street view to be sure and it looks like that one is now a craft and hobby center, among other things.
I did look up the website of the DeMarce Theater, and was impressed a ticket is 7$.
In Berlin, Germany, this is over 10€.
I remember in the mid 90s an old movie theater had been converted to a night club catering to the younger 20s set. Played rave electronica stuff. And the dance floor was partially where the theater seating had been. So an incline. Didn’t seem a good idea given the mind altering substances kids who went to those places were taking at the time…beans, mollies, or whatever.
In another town an old dilapidated twin theater was demolished alongside the ghost own zombie mall to make way for an open air shopping venue that’s not quite a mall. Actually nicer than what it replaced. Has one of those over the top state of the art theaters now.
Some theaters probably aren’t worth saving, but those with some history, that are in good enough condition and have a vintage vibe are.
I miss the old draft houses. One of them got condemned after the 2004 hurricanes if I recall correctly.
Amherst, Massachusetts, where I work, has a movie theater that was saved from demolition by a group of locals, including faculty at UMass Amherst and the four liberal arts colleges in the area (Amherst, Mount Holyoke, Smith, and Hampshire [RIP]), who created a nonprofit to raise funds and operate it. It’s doing pretty well. But then, it’s an affluent area with a lot of support for the arts.
My in-laws live in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where there is a similar story of a local movie theater on Wealthy Street that has been revived for occasional events. When I first started visiting the area in the late 1980s, “Wealthy Street” was ironic; that stretch was a row of boarded up businesses, taverns, and run-down houses, with the occasional dollar store. After gentrification, which was gradual but really took off after 2000, a lot of new businesses opened, including restaurants, a wine and tableware store, a good bakery, etc. Heck, you now have to pay at a meter (or use an app) to park on the street! A group was able to revive the cinema. It doesn’t show first-run movies, but it has a number of events every month.
There was another theater in our area that was popular when I was a wee youngster. Saw Moonraker there. It became a (shudder) church. The architecture was cooptable (exaptation) for that. I wonder of all the functional shifts movie theater structures that haven’t been demolished for redevelopment have undergone what is most common. Theater to church seems suitable enough to make it common though more horrific than the movies that may have been shown there.
There was also an attempt to turn our theater into a church about, I think, 15 years ago. Fortunately, we got our coop in place instead.
It is the same in the UK, however we do have a glimmer of hope in some places.
PZ, if you get a chance have a look at what could be done with some investment.
https://odysseypictures.co.uk/
In Stockport, Greater Manchester we have the Plaza, which has been very impressively renovated after a period of decline, then use as a Bingo Hall for decades. When Rank decided to close the bingo hall locals got together and formed a trust to buy it, then got a large Heritage Lottery Fund award along with significant funding from the local Council and Regional Development Agency to fund the renovation, reopening in 2000. It originally opened in 1932 as a Super Cinema and Variety Hall, so has a long history of showing films as well as having live performances which continues today. We saw Robert Plant there a few years ago, and it really is a lovely example of Deco architecture. It’s unusual in being set into a cliff, with tons of rock having been hacked out to make room for it. Oh it also has a particularly fine Compton organ, installed as part of the original build and still working including the appropriate ‘special effects’ to go with silent films, like a howling gale or bird song!
https://stockportplaza.co.uk/whats-on/
When I was a kid in Manor Park in London and then Romford there was only the chains like Odeon or Gaumont or Regal I remember the Saturday morning kids shows with Hopalong Cassidy or the Cisco Kid. The one that stick in my mind was Lash Larue because his weapon of choice was a bullwhip and this was well before Indiana Jones. But by my admittedly vague memory going to the flicks was short-lived as TV soon took over.
[anecdotal nostalgia]
Back in the late 1960s, I lived in Calle General Mola, apartment 5A of the south side of a square hollow complex (our garden was the plants on the windowsill facing the hollow inner area), and there was a cinema next door. Used to cost a pittance to get in, and once in one could stay as long as one cared to. Usually two features back to back, with rousing patriotic stuff and sorta promos in between. Could watch the same movie multiple times!
The air would be hazy with tobacco smoke, and every chair had an ashtray.
(When I came to Oz in the early 70s, I was surprised at how very pricey tickets were, in comparison)
Ah well, days of yore. Things change.
[addendum: huh. I’d sorta forgotten: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No-Do ]
I grew up in Benson. Spend almost every weekend at the DeMarce theater. It closed during the pandemic. New owners bought it in 2021. It’s for sale now because they’re retiring.
Back in the 1930s my grandma had a hair salon in the basement of the theater.
The pandemic hit a lot of small theaters hard. Yes, I heard that the reason the theater was on the market was so the owners could retire — no one knows what will happen next.
In the mid-70s, buying a theater ticket meant you could sit there as long as you wanted and watch as many movies as you wanted, or as long as you could handle living on a diet of popcorn, pop, and candy.
Speaking of The Last Picture Show, I lived in Wichita Falls for 20+ years, about half an hour north of Archer City, where TLPS was filmed. I never spent much time there other than passing through, but that’s where Larry McMurtry was from, and he started a big, 4 building book store that I made the time to stop at once. I always told myself I wanted to stop in again, but half an hour is just far enough that you don’t do it on a whim. It closed down after McMurtry died, but I hear local authors bought the property and are keeping a slightly revised version still going in his memory.
And I guess a little more in the theme of this post, we went to a wedding at their local theater, the same one that featured in the movie. Though by the time we went, it had been renovated after sitting derelict for decades after a fire, and it’s now for live performances, not movies.