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Old 12-10-2015, 03:05 PM
 
Location: San Antonio
1,691 posts, read 4,092,199 times
Reputation: 2691

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Quote:
Originally Posted by GWhopper View Post
I grew up in Colonies North and remember that theater well!. I saw the Last Flight of Noah's, Return to Boggy Creek and many other now forgotten movies. Then they turned it in an arcade. It's all gone now, swallowed up the long-form retail stores.
I probably ran those movies for you GWhopper! By the time those movies hit the screen, I had joined the projectonist's union and was assigned many times to the Colonies North. The theatre was very nice. It was the last single screen theatre built in San Antonio. It was built and operated as the Cinematex Theatre by Tommy Reynolds, a local TV personality from the early days of television. Tommy also emceed the grand premiere of "The Alamo" at the Woodlawn Theatre in 1960. He built the Cinematex with a stage in front of the screen and we ran a few stage shows before the movies. They were not well received and we stopped that. The theatre never did much business. We booked in "Airport" third run on the week of the academy awards that year. We had our first sell out due to new interest in "Airport" after the Oscar presentation. As luck would have it, the shoe store next door had a fire and we had to evacuate the theatre and refund everyone's money! We went belly up in late 1971. John Santikos bought the theatre the summer of 1972 and ran it for a while, then selling it to Movie One Theatres in 1977 or so.

The theatre did modest business throughout it's life at best. Movie One even tried running X rated pictures there for a while, much to the neighborhood's chagrin! It was a bit ahead of it's time when it opened in 1970 and never caught on what with the multiplex craze. It was one of my favorite theatres.

BTW, Tommy Reynolds and I remained friends until he died. He was a true gentleman and showman. I learned a lot from him.
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Old 12-10-2015, 03:15 PM
 
2,721 posts, read 4,360,098 times
Reputation: 1536
Default Return to Boggy Creek ll ?

Hard to believe someone would post this title here, of that ancient movie. Definitely a forgotten film , hell I never, even could bear to watch it; this sequel to the original. Too fakey. The original Legend of Boggy Creek wasn't so bad and was supposed to have been true according to multiple eyewitnesses, a Sheriff's report, and, that poor Bigfoot victim whom was allegedly manhandled pretty roughly by the Boggy Creek monster in the Arkansas backwoods close to Texarkana. An emergency room visit was necessary for this guy, he went into shock after his physical assault by Bigfoot.
Infinitely better than Godzilla was the legendary Faulk Monster. A very cheaply made movie it surely was, with some of the actual residents of Arkansas, from Faulk, playing themselves in the old flick. Poor and blurry photography even for that period. Early seventies ?
Quote:
Originally Posted by GWhopper View Post
I grew up in Colonies North and remember that theater well!. I saw the Last Flight of Noah's, Return to Boggy Creek and many other now forgotten movies. Then they turned it in an arcade. It's all gone now, swallowed up the long-form retail stores.
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Old 12-14-2015, 09:53 AM
 
Location: San Antonio
2,953 posts, read 5,265,835 times
Reputation: 1730
Quote:
Originally Posted by huckster View Post
Hard to believe someone would post this title here, of that ancient movie. Definitely a forgotten film , hell I never, even could bear to watch it; this sequel to the original. Too fakey. The original Legend of Boggy Creek wasn't so bad and was supposed to have been true according to multiple eyewitnesses, a Sheriff's report, and, that poor Bigfoot victim whom was allegedly manhandled pretty roughly by the Boggy Creek monster in the Arkansas backwoods close to Texarkana. An emergency room visit was necessary for this guy, he went into shock after his physical assault by Bigfoot.
Infinitely better than Godzilla was the legendary Faulk Monster. A very cheaply made movie it surely was, with some of the actual residents of Arkansas, from Faulk, playing themselves in the old flick. Poor and blurry photography even for that period. Early seventies ?
I can only recall one scene from Return to Boggy Creek. The kids are trapped in house on the Bayou, and the monster pulls if off it's pilings and drags it into the swamp. As a little kid that terrified me.
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Old 12-14-2015, 09:59 AM
 
Location: San Antonio
2,953 posts, read 5,265,835 times
Reputation: 1730
Quote:
Originally Posted by outafocus View Post
I probably ran those movies for you GWhopper! By the time those movies hit the screen, I had joined the projectonist's union and was assigned many times to the Colonies North. The theatre was very nice. It was the last single screen theatre built in San Antonio. It was built and operated as the Cinematex Theatre by Tommy Reynolds, a local TV personality from the early days of television. Tommy also emceed the grand premiere of "The Alamo" at the Woodlawn Theatre in 1960. He built the Cinematex with a stage in front of the screen and we ran a few stage shows before the movies. They were not well received and we stopped that. The theatre never did much business. We booked in "Airport" third run on the week of the academy awards that year. We had our first sell out due to new interest in "Airport" after the Oscar presentation. As luck would have it, the shoe store next door had a fire and we had to evacuate the theatre and refund everyone's money! We went belly up in late 1971. John Santikos bought the theatre the summer of 1972 and ran it for a while, then selling it to Movie One Theatres in 1977 or so.

The theatre did modest business throughout it's life at best. Movie One even tried running X rated pictures there for a while, much to the neighborhood's chagrin! It was a bit ahead of it's time when it opened in 1970 and never caught on what with the multiplex craze. It was one of my favorite theatres.

BTW, Tommy Reynolds and I remained friends until he died. He was a true gentleman and showman. I learned a lot from him.
Yes, I can see how hard it would be for a single screen theater to make a profit, with competition with the new multi-screens. Today there are 12 movies going on at anytime of the day. If one bombs, you still have others going on to hedge your losses. For a single screen, if the movie is a bomb, you're still stuck showing it for the two hours and losing money every second it's playing
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Old 12-14-2015, 12:34 PM
 
Location: San Antonio
1,691 posts, read 4,092,199 times
Reputation: 2691
Quote:
Originally Posted by GWhopper View Post
Yes, I can see how hard it would be for a single screen theater to make a profit, with competition with the new multi-screens. Today there are 12 movies going on at anytime of the day. If one bombs, you still have others going on to hedge your losses. For a single screen, if the movie is a bomb, you're still stuck showing it for the two hours and losing money every second it's playing

Movies to run can be a crapshoot, too. I was managing an independently owned theatre in Dallas in 1993. We booked in "Jurassic Park" in January to run in June upon it's release. To book in "Jurassic Park", Universal insisted on a big guarantee with a 90% film rental which was tough for my boss to risk, but he booked it in. Around May a friend of his saw a rough screening of the film and reported that it was going to be a disaster. He called it "Howard The Dinosaur", likening it to Universal's earlier mega flop "Howard The Duck", which lost a lot of money for everyone. My boss got cold feet and cancelled it. In it's place he booked another print of "The Last Action Hero" to run on the screen "Jurassic Park" would have played. Well, "Jurassic Park" made TONS of money, and "The Last Action Hero" died a very quick death. We only ran it on one screen to a handful of Schwarzenegger fans each show. We just turned the lights and air conditioning off in the other Last Action auditorium to save the electricity!


That summer, everyone went to see "Jurassic Park" many times at our competitor's theatres, and stayed away from our movies in droves. Finally we caught a break in August when "The Firm" did brisk business for us.
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Old 12-15-2015, 10:18 AM
 
Location: San Antonio
2,953 posts, read 5,265,835 times
Reputation: 1730
Outafocus,
The Colonies North theater reminds me of another small theater, but not in SA. We were driving back from the east coast and stopped for a few days at my Uncle's house on the way home. We went to see Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade at a Little Rock, Arkansas. The theater was tiny, smaller then even one of those old auditoriums that they had at Wonderland Theaters, or the other one behind Central Park mall. The theater in Little Rock was also a single screen theater. What's funny is that the movie was shot in 70mm, but the screen was too small for the format, so at least a third of movie was bleeding along the sides of the theater walls and all you could really see was the exact center of the movie with both ends cut off. Worse than pan & scan! I couldn't understand what was going on at the time because the field of vision was so small.

When I got back to SA, I saw it again on a 70mm screen with proper surround sound. I swear, I think the Little Rock theater's sound system was comprised of 6 boom boxes from Montgomery Wards hung up on hooks around the theater!
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Old 12-16-2015, 10:21 PM
 
Location: San Antonio
1,691 posts, read 4,092,199 times
Reputation: 2691
Quote:
Originally Posted by GWhopper View Post
Outafocus,
The Colonies North theater reminds me of another small theater, but not in SA. We were driving back from the east coast and stopped for a few days at my Uncle's house on the way home. We went to see Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade at a Little Rock, Arkansas. The theater was tiny, smaller then even one of those old auditoriums that they had at Wonderland Theaters, or the other one behind Central Park mall. The theater in Little Rock was also a single screen theater. What's funny is that the movie was shot in 70mm, but the screen was too small for the format, so at least a third of movie was bleeding along the sides of the theater walls and all you could really see was the exact center of the movie with both ends cut off. Worse than pan & scan! I couldn't understand what was going on at the time because the field of vision was so small.

When I got back to SA, I saw it again on a 70mm screen with proper surround sound. I swear, I think the Little Rock theater's sound system was comprised of 6 boom boxes from Montgomery Wards hung up on hooks around the theater!

They probably didn't have a 70MM print, but a 35MM CinemaScope print, but no CinemaScope screen. Few theatres were ever equipped with 70 MM equipment. In San Antonio, the Broadway was the first theatre equipped to run 70MM for the film "Oklahoma" in 1954. The Woodlawn had 70MM installed for the world premiere of "The Alamo in 1960. North Star Cinema had 70MM equipment installed in Cinema II when it was built in 1964, and the Wonder had 70MM equipment when it opened in 1966 (The Wonder was a big beautiful theatre before they twinned it in 1976). When the Woodlawn was twinned in 1975, and new 35 MM automated equipment was installed, the 70MM equipment was moved to the Northwest and Galaxy. I am sure you saw Indiana Jones in one of those theatres.


It was 70MM that got me to make my first trip up to the projection room. When I started working at North Star Cinema, they were running "2001: A Space Odyssey" in Cinema II. I had never seen a picture so beautiful and clear, and the stereo sound (6 track) was unbelievable. After we got rid of 2001, it later played at the Josephine. I had a girlfriend at the time that had not seen it at North Star, and I asked her out to see it at the Josephine. I bragged up the grandeur of the picture and sound. We were both disappointed by the Josephine's presentation. They were running it in 35 MM mono and CinemaScope (they at least had a CinemaScope screen). The next day I went up to the projection room and asked the projectionist why our presentation was so much better. He explained it to me, and then gave me the grand tour of the projection room and it's equipment. I was hooked. I knew that is what I wanted to do. I ran projectors or serviced projection rooms all over the state for 25 years!


Some of the old drive ins like the Alamo, Fredericksburg Road, Mission, Trail, Lackland, Kelly, and Fiesta were built prior to the 1953 release of the first CinemaScope movie. "The Robe". They couldn't or wouldn't add on to their screens when CinemaScope became popular. They fitted their projectors with CinemaScope lenses, but the sides of that nice wide picture just went out into the night. The theatre in Arkansas could have had a custom aperture plate cut for the theatre. It was very unprofessional to overshoot the screen.
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Old 12-17-2015, 02:26 PM
 
Location: San Antonio
2,953 posts, read 5,265,835 times
Reputation: 1730
Quote:
Originally Posted by outafocus View Post
They probably didn't have a 70MM print, but a 35MM CinemaScope print, but no CinemaScope screen. Few theatres were ever equipped with 70 MM equipment. In San Antonio, the Broadway was the first theatre equipped to run 70MM for the film "Oklahoma" in 1954. The Woodlawn had 70MM installed for the world premiere of "The Alamo in 1960. North Star Cinema had 70MM equipment installed in Cinema II when it was built in 1964, and the Wonder had 70MM equipment when it opened in 1966 (The Wonder was a big beautiful theatre before they twinned it in 1976). When the Woodlawn was twinned in 1975, and new 35 MM automated equipment was installed, the 70MM equipment was moved to the Northwest and Galaxy. I am sure you saw Indiana Jones in one of those theatres.


It was 70MM that got me to make my first trip up to the projection room. When I started working at North Star Cinema, they were running "2001: A Space Odyssey" in Cinema II. I had never seen a picture so beautiful and clear, and the stereo sound (6 track) was unbelievable. After we got rid of 2001, it later played at the Josephine. I had a girlfriend at the time that had not seen it at North Star, and I asked her out to see it at the Josephine. I bragged up the grandeur of the picture and sound. We were both disappointed by the Josephine's presentation. They were running it in 35 MM mono and CinemaScope (they at least had a CinemaScope screen). The next day I went up to the projection room and asked the projectionist why our presentation was so much better. He explained it to me, and then gave me the grand tour of the projection room and it's equipment. I was hooked. I knew that is what I wanted to do. I ran projectors or serviced projection rooms all over the state for 25 years!


Some of the old drive ins like the Alamo, Fredericksburg Road, Mission, Trail, Lackland, Kelly, and Fiesta were built prior to the 1953 release of the first CinemaScope movie. "The Robe". They couldn't or wouldn't add on to their screens when CinemaScope became popular. They fitted their projectors with CinemaScope lenses, but the sides of that nice wide picture just went out into the night. The theatre in Arkansas could have had a custom aperture plate cut for the theatre. It was very unprofessional to overshoot the screen.
Agreed. Do you remember when Empire Strikes Back came out? I seem to recall it did not open in San Antonio until several weeks after it opened across the country for precisely the reason there were no (or maybe just a few) 70mm theaters at the time. The theaters had to update their equiment before the studio would let them show it,
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Old 12-17-2015, 02:55 PM
 
Location: San Antonio
1,691 posts, read 4,092,199 times
Reputation: 2691
Quote:
Originally Posted by GWhopper View Post
Agreed. Do you remember when Empire Strikes Back came out? I seem to recall it did not open in San Antonio until several weeks after it opened across the country for precisely the reason there were no (or maybe just a few) 70mm theaters at the time. The theaters had to update their equiment before the studio would let them show it,
"The Empire Strikes Back" was the first 70MM film I ever ran. It was at the Northwest 10 (at the time). We also ran it in 35MM in another auditorium. The 70MM projector came from the Woodlawn, but we installed a very sophisticated 6 track amplification system complete with Altec Lansing Voice Of The Theatre speakers in the auditorium!
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Old 12-17-2015, 03:15 PM
 
Location: Southwest
457 posts, read 655,566 times
Reputation: 425
Outafocus,

Who owned the Majestic theater? I've heard several variations, from Red McCombs to the Phantom of The Opera!

I'll never forget dozing off just before the shower scene in "Psycho" at the Majestic, and my
girlfriend screaming and grabbing my arm just as Mrs Bates pulled back the shower curtain!
( I will NEVER forget that one!) ...think I may still have the indention on my arm...!!
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