Atlantic City Weekly

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This special “Then And Now” edition of Atlantic City Weekly has made me think a lot about my childhood and how the region has adapted and changed over the decades. For the generation of Absecon Island dwellers who were born from about 1980 on, the notion that there were movie theaters on the island must seem quaint.

When I was a youngster growing up in Ventnor in the 1960s, the great movie palaces were dying out, but there were still a few that fed my fascination for movies. My family wasn’t big on moviegoing, but I remember us getting dressed in our Sunday best to go see The Sound of Music at the Virginia Theater in 1965. The Virginia was one of the wonderful roadshow palaces that showed films in 70mm format. The Virginia is also where I became a big fan of Bob Fosse’s choreography, when I saw the 70mm version of his musical Sweet Charity, starring Shirley MacLaine, in 1968. For some big films, mostly musicals, you were given as glossy program book with pictures and information on the film. Eleven years later, while a film critic for the Philadelphia Journal, I got a chance to meet Bob Fosse and he graciously signed my Sweet Charity program book.

Steel Pier, the “Showplace of the Nation,” began showing motion pictures in the early 1900s. My family went to the Steel Pier as often as possible in the summer. In 1965 my brothers and I sat through the King Family Singers twice in the Music Hall Theater in order to get good seats to see the Beatles movie Help, which followed the live show.

Saturday mornings, after a bike ride on the Boardwalk to see the sea lions at Captain Starn’s, we would often spend the afternoon at the kids matinee at the Margate Theater. We walked to the theater so we could play “army” or “cowboys and Indians” along the winding streets of Marven Gardens, the famously misspelled locale in Monopoly (and in the 1972 film The King of Marvin Gardens).

When I was old enough to be trusted to take a bus into Atlantic City, I would often spend afternoons at the theaters on Atlantic Avenue in Atlantic City, the Hollywood, the Embassy and the Center. I believe it was at the Hollywood where I saw Jason and the Argonauts (1963) at least six times. The film, though cheesy, remains one of my favorite examples of Ray Harryhausen’s stop action animation. I also remember being fascinated by the poster for True Grit (1969), featuring Kim Darby as pre-teen heroine Mattie Ross. I loved the film (still do) and thought I looked like Darby, who became one of my favor actors of my early movie buff career. Unfortunately, her movie career did not last beyond the 1970s.

By the late 1980s, most of the theaters were gone. Atlantic City had no movie theaters left and only the Margate and the Ventnor held on into the early 1990s. The Ventnor is still there on Ventnor avenue near Nashville avenue, but the Margate was torn down to make way for condominiums. What was left of the closed movie theaters on the Atlantic City Boardwalk were torn down for casino construction.

Today the only theater on the island is the IMAX at the Tropicana. Like so much else during the era of the 1960s-’80s, moviegoing was relegated to the suburbs.

The Glory Years

According to the wonderful picture book, South Jersey Movie Houses by Allen F. Hauss, Atlantic City was a prime location to release blockbuster summer movies. At one time Atlantic City had over 30 movie theaters.

The huge Warner Theater (2,626 orchestra seats, 1,251 balcony seats, 310 loge seats and a Wurlitzer pipe organ) had once been a showroom for live theater before its conversion to movies. Only the original façade remains, as part of Bally’s Boardwalk entrance. The Virginia was another major venue, and the Steel Pier showed motion pictures as part of its total entertainment package. The Globe Theater, a former vaudeville house, was the first in the city to install Vitaphone sound technology for the first Warner Brothers sound film, Don Juan (1926). It became a burlesque house in 1928. The 600-seat Alan Theatre, at Kentucky and Arctic avenues, played movies by black directors for black audiences.

Other movie theaters in town included the Charles, the Hollywood, the Center, the Capitol (later the home for “Miss 56,” stripper Busty Russell), the Beach (which showed X-rated movies from the 1970s to 1983 when it closed), the Astor, Embassy, Bijou and the Colonial. —LH

(Photos courtesy of Acadia Publishing)