Movie Houses, Dumps, and Palaces I Have LovedI went down a very deep rabbit hole of remembrance yesterday, wondering whatever happened to this theatre or that in this town and that one. Now that I'm approaching my Norma Desmond years, I suspect this will happen more than once. For a big chunk of the 1980s, I spent a good deal of time shall we say, "between colleges" and moved around the country a bit. In every city at that time there were at least two rep cinemas, one that showed classics and cult pictures, and another that showed art and independent films. In more than one city, I made friends with one of the projectionists, so I got some free shows, a few posters, and one one occasion, about three feet of Vertigo from a print that broke mid-screening. When I lived and traveled overseas in the 1990s, I spent many hours staving off homesickness or enjoying local film tastes in (formerly) gorgeous remnants of British colonialism I present a short history of my favorite haunts, many of which are gone, but not all. I thank the excellent website cinematreasures.org for helping me remember names and places, and for letting me know the fate of these fine (and not so fine) gems that were once my local movie houses. |