|  IP: Logged

 |  IP: Logged

It was built by another company and was purchased by Regal after a week or so of operation in 1996.

Regal is telling their employees there that the reason that nothing is being repaired or replaced or maintained in the building is that Regal is going to tear down the building and replace it with a new "Regal-style" theater, whatever that is. The place is getting pretty grimey and ugly. Heaven help the customers!

After taking over Cobb theatres, instead of building new theatres all over the place, Regal should have put their money into fixing the deficiencies in the old Cobb theatres. Let's face it: did Regal really need to build another 16-plex in Birmingham? For the cost of building that thing, couldn't have Regal installed top masking and installed the proper lenses and aperture plates in all the Cobb theatres?

I'm really wondering what will happen if Regal gets in such bad shape that they're unable to continue operating. The busiest theatre in Huntsville is the Regal Hollywood 18 (we have two Regals and one Carmike). When there is a good supply of movies that people want to see, all of our theatres are busy and do good business. Of course, lately, all the theatres have been hurting except on weekends. If Regal had to stop operating, would another company immedaitely take over operations of the most profitable theatres?

Lesson learned: take care of existing theatres before building new ones? Don't build new theatres or take over others if you can't even take care of the ones you have?

Evans A Criswell http://home.hiwaay.net/~criswell/theatre/

These theatres were the basis for Cobb's expansion, and Centerpoint and Hoover Square in B'ham and many others were built on the revenues.

Huntsville couldn't be redesigned effectively, even though it was discussed.
The wall and roof structure precluded a lot of things there. I know, I attended some of the meetings.

My personal opinion is that Madison was built as cheaply as possible, although I don't fully remember the logic behind it. I do know that R.C. wanted to practically relocate the circuit to Florida about the time Madison was built and there were a lot of projects at the time. R.M. didn't like movable masking at the time. You'll have to ask him why.

My point is that the first generation Cobb multiplexes served their communities well for many years, and offered a choice of movies that wouldn't have otherwise been available in a southern cities that were just emerging into modern times. They didn't need movable masking to be revolutionary, and they weren't designed to be so expensive that they would bankrupt the company and end up going dark. (ahem)

Back before Cobb's first grocery store 8-screen theatre with 20x10 unadjustable screens with bright red exit signs shining right on them, and cruddy seating (aisle up the middle of seating, no seat staggering, etc), Huntsville had some really nice larger theatres, several of which had large screens and 70mm capability. Cobb did nothing but slowly drive all of these nice larger theatres out of business. For example, the Madison Theatre (not Madison Square 12) had a 70 foot screen on which 70mm films were shown in 6-track Dolby Stereo back in the early to mid-80s. After Madison Square 12 opened, the Madison Theatre became unable to book the top movies and went out of business after the night of August 28, 1986. This was the "death of the big screen" in Huntsville. The Westbury Cinerama went out in the fall of 1983, shortly after the Cobb grocery store 8 opened. The Alabama theatre succumbed in 1985 (right before Madison Square 12 opened), and we lost the Martin around the time that the Cobb 8 opened.

Yes, we gained 8 crummy little screens when Cobb built their terrible multiplex in 1982, but we eventually lost 7 screens in other theates that closed as a result, some of which were larger than screens of today! 40 feet is currently the widest screen we have around here. I say Cobb hurt Huntsville overall more than they helped it. That's my opinion and am prepared to have sharp pointed objects thrown my way.

Give me 4 properly built auditoriums over 8 crummy ones anyday!

Anyway, back to the topic of Regal: it will be extremely interesting to see what happens with Regal in the following months. I've seen little difference at the local Carmikes after their Ch. 11 filing. In fact, the Decatur Carmike's quality of presentation has IMPROVED since then. If Regal had to start closing theatres, I wonder if Madison Square 12 would be the next to be closed. They seem to have the worst presentation quality control (and a lot of problems) and they keep older movies forever before getting rid of them, not to mention the masking thing, and even in auditoriums with adjustable masking, they seem to show flat films at 2.00:1.

I hate to see Regal go down, because the Regal River Oaks Cinema 8 in Decatur has the best projection quality and the best management of any theatre in my area. I'd hate to see that one close. This theatre was actually built by Regal and it opened in 1991.

Evans A Criswell
http://home.hiwaay.net/~criswell/theatre/

Huntsville Theatre Historical Info Subpages: http://home.hiwaay.net/~criswell/theatre/generated_subpages/cities/st72.html

Were those old theatres you so fondly remember old echo palaces like some? I remember going to the Alabama in Birmingham and not being able to understand half the dialog of GWTW because of the poor acoustics.
I loved the theatre, but I'd go elsewhere to watch and hear a serious film.

Or did those old theatres carry the burden of Jim Crow management from the past? I've seen my share of segregated theatres and am happy most of them closed, big screen or not.

How about the booths? I remember visiting one theatre in the area where the booth was a tiny room with enough heat to make the projectionist work in his undershorts, and the layers of dust and dirt covered the projector, old magazines, and everything else in the booth. A youngster enjoying the big screen might not notice things like working conditions often over 100 degrees.

What about keystoning? A lot of those old booths had enough keystoning that there was only one spot on the screen where a vertical line looked vertical.

Swamp cooler air conditioning? I've been in theatres with those as well. I'll pass.

I'm just remembering some of the things it can be convenient to forget. I've got no problem with your thinking that I'm wrong. Just ask yourself, though; why did thousands of people in the Huntsville area abandon old theatres to go to the Cobb multiplexes?

Contrary to what you claim, Cobb didn't "force" people to go to the multiplexes. It offered new theatres, trained staffs, competent managers like Larry Corum in Huntsville, and video arcades for the teens.

You seem to also forget that the big theatres went out of business in all other areas of the country as well. Cobb's small multiplexes had nothing to do with the closings of the theatres in Atlanta, or any of the theatres that died across the country in that last epidemic of theatre closings. They died on their own in droves, even in single screen towns.

By expanding your legitimate complaints against fixed masking, center aisle seating, and structural problems in rebuilds to discounting the Cobb circuit in general, you are dismissing the labors of hundreds of employees and suppliers. Rod Curlett, Brian Mercer, Ambrish Kishani, Cowboy Plumber, Bob Wall, Freddie Dobbs, Richard Fowler and many others often worked 'round the clock in construction and keeping things running. I know how hard they worked, and I know how much they cared about their work, and I respectfully don't think you are wise enough or informed enough to paint all of Cobb black with such a broad brush. If you were, I feel certain you wouldn't insult these fine people in such an offhanded fashion.

As for the question "Why did thousands of people in the Huntsville area abandon old theatres to go to the Cobb multiplexes?" That's easy: 1. Most people go to the theatre because they want to see a specific movie. If the movie they want to see was only showing at the Cobb multiplex, regardless of how badly built it was, they'd go because they don't want to drive to another city to see the moive in a better theatre. 2. The general public is largely uneducated about the technical details of theatres and often don't recognize the deficiencies and the theatre companies, especially Cobb, really took advantage of that when they built their theatres to save money. "Let's put a bunch of malformed screens in our theatre and the general public will never know the difference -- they'll just pile in like a bunch of lemmings, and we'll save a little bit of money." The sad part of this is our two Regal multiplexes still have every one of those malformed screens that Cobb built and it appears that with Regal in terrible financial shape, we're stuck with them for good.

I'm not saying that everything about Cobb was bad. I'm sure everyone that cared about their work did the best they could with what they were given to work with. However, when basic decisions are made at the start to build ignoring well-accepted ANSI/SMPTE industry standards, it limits the quality that can be delivered regardless of the expertise and caring of the staff and management. People that see movies in those theatres often get only 77% of what they are paying to see. My "attacks" on Cobb are not directed toward the construction people, managers, or staff. It is directed toward the decision to build theatres that were (and still are) a disgrace to the industry, that we continue to be stuck with.

How would people like it if I built an art gallery and put my 2 or 3 best exhibitions in and then cut all of the other paintings to make them all the same size so I could fit them all in arrays on the wall? Movies are art, and should be presented as such. Cobb's lack of integrity in this area is now hurting Regal, and most moviegoers in our city.

Anyway, enough of that:

If Regal were to suddenly have to cease operations due to financial problems, what would happen? Would the theatres suddenly close, not to be reopened? Would they be sold to another company that would take over operations? With all theatre companies in bad shape, who could take over and operate them?

Evans

IIRC, #1 at Centerpoint was his first test of fixed masking, and we were instructed by Cowboy to only put flat features in that auditorium. The screen was (for the time) large in comparison to the number of seats (wall to wall) and too high for a sloping floor auditorium. (Ironically, it would have converted to a very nice stadium seating auditorium.) Vertical masking was impractical, as it would have accentuated the neck craning required to watch the film.

During that time, 1981 - 1983, R.M. stated that he felt there were few scope pictures being made, implying that they might never regain wide distribution, especially since most films had to be converted to video for television distribution.

As for seating:
Shotgun theatres and seating were common throughout the country, the center aisle was used to maximize seating, minimize the stepping over of other customers to get to a seat and placate fire inspectors, as well as speed turnover at the end of the show. In larger auditoriums Cobb favored the continental or modified continental arrangements.

Lack of stagger seating in the narrow auditoriums was again a way of gaining capacity, by not losing two seats every other row. Every theatre owner knows about the distributor seats in front rows, and how important that total count is to terms. Again, most of us disagreed with straight seating and eventually staggered seating began to be used.

Huntsville had the unlucky position timewise of being one of the first conversion multiplexes for Cobb, with all the attendent mistakes of any prototype. Madison Square, as I mentioned previously, was built on the cheap. I still can't believe that the exterior walls of that building were made only of thin plywood, foam and stucco to save on the cost of a masonry block wall.

Neither theatre is representative of the main group of Cobb Theatres, especially those in Florida, which by in large were built new, had excellent screen sizes, and very workable and efficient layouts.

FWIW, I can't remember R.M. or anyone else refering to customers as "lemmings" even in the problem theatres. Having been around the country, I would suggest that Cobb was, in general, better than many circuits in designing theatres and retrofits. I don't recall any periscope booths (AMC) with the concurrent image degradation, griggs push back seats (GCC) which were horrible and uncomfortable, down the center auditorium splits without moving seats (various circuits) causing chiropractors to be able to afford Lear jets, hidden theatres (Wometco) where theatres were built where dumpsters should have been placed, or many of the other mistakes cicuits often made.

 |  IP: Logged

Again that is just rumor. But from both sides, it is likely to happen.

 |  IP: Logged

 |  IP: Logged