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Topic: what's your favorite type of theatre?
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Dave Felthous
Member
Posts: 186
From: Seattle, WA
Registered: Jun 2003
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posted July 20, 2003 02:07 PM
My all-time favorite theater is the long-gone Orpheum in Portland, OR (anyone from Portland out there??) It was where the downtown Nordstrom store is now.
The Orpheum had a very steep floor, so there wasn't much risk of the person in front of you blocking your view. Total capacity was probably 1,000, split between the main floor and balcony. The main floor had a coziness to it, yet it was big enough so you didn't feel confined. It had pushback seats, which I hadn't encountered before. People could pass in front of you without your standing up.
The Orpheum was the first CinemaScope venue in Portland. The theater had been remodeled just before Scope was introduced, and it had a wide, curved screen ahead of anybody else. They showed a cropped version of "Shane" in Scope proportions, although the sound was mono. Then "The Robe" played there, in stereo, and it looked and sounded great (for that time.)
I long for the more spacious movie theaters when I go to today's cramped multiplexes. I'm a manager at an elderly sevenplex, built before "incredible shrinking auditoriums." Our largest house has nearly 700 seats. In fact, of the 16 theaters in my company's Seattle district, we have by far the biggest auditorium.
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Jim Rankin
(Jim passed away in December 2006)
Posts: 123
From: Milwaukee, WI
Registered: Oct 2003
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posted December 15, 2003 11:16 AM
My favorite type of theatre is, by far, the Movie Palace, even if there are very few remaining in any condition to recommend them. Here in the Milwaukee area there is still the nationally recognized ORIENTAL with the main auditorium screen intact as is the balcony and the seats in front of the screen. They are a Landmark Theatres outlet and care about projection and other conditions. The RIVERSIDE here can remind me of my youth in the '50s when I saw "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea" and can vivdly remember the rippling deep sea light patterns cast behind the golden opening titles as the velour curtain reflected the light as it drew open to allow the image on the screen. Somehow that haunting music combined with the artistic title sequence in that vast 2500-seat auditorium was somehow magical to a kid of 10 years old. Of course, being a theatre architecture nut, I looked about to see the theatre as much as the film, this long before some idiot threw a cigarette up on the stage in 1966 and caught the draperies on fire and thus burned the entire 13-swag grand drapery (replacement cost then: $250,000 which is why it was not replaced except by a panel of 30% fullness plain red velour). The place was supposedly "restored" in 1984 and I am glad to have its graceful lines still with us, but it is not like it was then, but then no film exhibition is. I recall the last time I was in a large theatre sold out to the walls, and that was in 1970 for "Airport" (yeah, I can't believe it today either!) at the former WARNER which was then the CENTRE which became the GRAND CINEMAS and stands idle today. It was a wonderful experience to FEEL as much as hear thousands of people laugh or gasp as one in harmony with what is on the screen in a place designed to entrance the audience rather than just encase them. I feel sorry for the youger ones today who will never experience such a situation and are cursed to be limited to the dismal megaplex multiplexes of this day. Showmanship is essentially gone, but I envy even more those born before me who saw the phenomenon at its climax before the 2nd World War. How much we have lost. Video just isn't the same experience!
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Ian Williams
New Member
Posts: 4
From: Melbourne, Australia
Registered: Sep 2003
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posted November 19, 2004 04:57 AM
Oh yes! Most certainly my favourite theatres are the American inspired movie palaces which we also have in Australia. In Melbourne we had the three largest theatres in the country. The Eberson atmsopheric State Theatre, 3375 seats, now twinned and the lower part used for rock shows. The Regent, 3253 seats, a copy of the Capitol New York and the United Artists LA foyer. I helped save this, now a live theatre, 2100 seats. Then the mighty 2115 seat Capitol, unique in the world. Look it up under www.caths.org.au Today? Yuk! Small rooms with bland curtains and plain spots for auditorium lighting. And WHY do we have to know who the bus captain and tea ladies are amongst the five minues of credits at the end. No wonder many complexes have done away with screen curtains. No presentation any more! (P.S.) The third largest theatre was the 2968 Palais Theatre at the beach suburb of St Kilda, now live shows!
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