Adult and Art theatres
With times still changing, only a handful of neighborhood theatres still
operated.
Some of these theatres, in order to stay open, changed to adult films.
Some as early as 1965 and into the 1970’s, like:
The Paris ( formally The Dreamland)
Cine Royal
The Toulouse
The Tower Art
The Tiger (later changed to the Grit)
The beautiful Cinerama theatre resorted to porno
The Grand
The Capri
Most of these theatres lasted until the VCR was available.
Foreign films from Europe were imported as far back as the 1920’s.
New Orleans art theatres go back as early as the 1960’s.
The Plaza on Magazine (the former National)
The Gentilly, which was renamed several times during its life (formerly
Gentilly Woods, Gentilly Art, Gentilly Orleans)
The Royal Art – then Gayety
The Prytana – which ran a repertory schedule, then foreign until
Landmark closed it.
The Toulouse – Ran X, then changed its policy to art films
The Sena Mall – and Cine Royal ran art films before changing their
policies.
The Carrollton – ran a repertory schedule before going x-rated and
then closing.
The Canal Place opened in 1988, which is now the premiere art house
in New Orleans.
Another smaller venue was movie pitchers from 1991 – 2000 and
Zeitgeist theatre experiments - which is still operating today.
Besides changing to art or adult features to survive, some tried Spanish
language films like The Famous in the 1960’s, The Gentilly and The
Civic briefly, but The Happy Hour on magazine street ran Spanish films
the longest – from the mid 1960’s until 1983 when it closed.
During the early 1970’s, Hollywood released some big grossing films.
The Joy, who was still playing Universal pictures exclusively, had great
runs of film such as:
“JAWS”
“THE STING”
“EARTHQUAKE”
But it did not last long… By the mid ‘70’s, Universal would have multiple
theatres showing first-run.
As the 70’s progressed, more suburban theatres were built. The
downtown theatres were hit the hardest.
In February 1976, The Loew's State was tri-plexed to attract more of an
audience. This was their plan for survival.
The Saenger closed its doors on March 12, 1978 with “The One and
Only” and “Coma” and would be restored to a performing arts center.
The family run Joy closed on August 31, 1978 with “Jaws 2.”
By 1979, The Orpheum was running karate movies while a developer
was looking at razing the theatre for a hotel.
At this point in time, all film companies were releasing their movies with
3 – 4 runs in the New Orleans area.
The following is a list of theatres built from 1965 until 1978:
Lakeside theatres –
Village Aurora
The late 60’s saw new projection technology with film platter systems
and the Xenon bulb for picture projection. The 1970’s saw the new
Hollywood, the video cassette and Cox cable TV. New Orleans East, as
well as the west bank, saw new multi-plex cinemas built. A younger
youth market was going to the movies. You also saw the family
blockbusters from Steven Spielberg and George Lucas. In addition,
there was new Dolby stereo introduced with four channels of sound,
which became the standard. Also, there was new management at the
studios and a crop of new actors. Attendance at the movies was
growing again.
