Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Article: Eastern Montana - 10 theaters serve half the state

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Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 06-08-2005, 06:27 PM:

See a movie
By MIKE STARK
Of The Gazette Staff

Circle's downtown movie theater sat unused for 10 years, quiet except for the occasional visitor who strolled through unlocked doors and into the empty lobby.

"All we had here was bars and a bowling alley," said Judy Waldbauer, who with other locals eventually got together and raised money, bought equipment and cleared the dust from the yellow brick theater.

When the film projector whirred back to life in 1991, the movie house was reborn as the community-owned Redwater Theater. With cheap tickets and homemade popcorn with real butter, the theater draws as many as 150 people - and as few as four - to its weekend showings.

No matter how many people show up, the theater has given new life to Circle's tiny downtown.

"It's where young people come and meet their friends and it's where older people come and socialize," said Waldbauer, the theater's manager.

Movie theaters, with colorful marquees and ornate architecture, were once the beacons of entertainment from the larger world outside small-town Eastern Montana. Kids flocked to Saturday matinees and older siblings had a destination for dates.

But after their heyday in the 1950s and 1960s, movie houses in smaller towns began a slide toward obscurity. The advent of home entertainment, coupled with shrinking populations and expanding urban areas, squeezed the life out of some once-proud theaters.

Wolf Point felt the sting several years ago.

The closure of the movie theater was just one more defeat for a town that was already losing farm equipment dealerships and other downtown merchants.

Movie-goers had to drive 50 miles to Glasgow or 90 miles to Williston, N.D.

"It was just a great loss," said Christy Stensland, director of the Wolf Point Chamber of Commerce and Agriculture. "For a lot of people in the surrounding areas, that's their source of entertainment."

The theater remained closed for seven years until city officials lured Polson Theaters to town. The company owns 11 movie houses, including four other small-town theaters in central and Eastern Montana, put more than $200,000 into a top-to-bottom renovation, added a second screen and reopened as Prairie Cinemas.

"We're definitely out there trying to make the theater part of the community," said Gary Dupuis, the chain's general manager.

***

When Barry Suckstorff's family built the Centre Theater in Sidney in 1947, two other theaters competed for customers. The Centre has been the sole survivor for three decades.

Going to the movies isn't as popular as it once was, Suckstorff said, noting the advent of videos, DVDs, satellite dishes and computers. And in the long stretches of Eastern Montana, a night at the movies can mean some serious driving.

"It's gotten tough to make a living in a theater," said Suckstorff, who now owns the Centre.

But don't count out the small-town theaters yet. Unless the high school has a home game, people still come to the theater on a Friday night.

In some cases, couples drive into town for dinner and a movie, even if they don't know what's playing.

"When you get a movie like 'The Horse Whisperer' that really appeals to rural people, it will bring people in from out in the country," said George Larson, who manages the Montana Theater in Miles City. "They'll see each other, be talking in the lobby for 10 minutes and then go have a cup of coffee together."

Despite the comfort and convenience of living room sofas and microwave popcorn, going to town to catch a weekend movie remains a ritual in rural areas.

Dupuis says movies still provide something special, perhaps intangible, that can't be duplicated by staying home.

"They may have satellite dishes and pay-per-view at home but everyone has kitchens at home and still go out to eat," Dupuis said. "It's a night out."

LINK

[ 06-09-2005, 01:37 AM: Message edited by: Mike Blakesley ]

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 06-09-2005, 12:25 AM:

Mike,

They left you off that map! I deal with most of those locations and they are all run pretty darn well. All are great people to work with.

Mark

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 06-09-2005, 01:35 AM:

Mark - I know. But I opted not to gripe about it because we're having our 75th anniversary this fall and I'm hoping to get them to write an article about us. (Our theatre here has been in business longer than any of the others mentioned in the article!) [Smile]

I agree about the people in the article. Great folks, all of them. I've never met Judy from Circle but we've circuited film back and forth a couple of times.