SOULFISH STEW: Loews Crescent 1967

Monday, March 02, 2020

Loews Crescent 1967

I wasn't even 1 years old yet and I lived in Memphis so this is coming strictly from an historical interest. Downtown Nashville movie theaters are a random fascination for me. I never saw any movies in them. By the time I was old enough to venture downtown there was only adult movie theaters left. My friends and I would venture up from Murfreesboro to skateboard along the mostly deserted downtown streets, but if we wanted to see a movie in Nashville it would be at one of the suburban multiplexes. The idea that there were all of these single screen theaters showing first run movies in downtown Nashville was just a myth.

What led me to this month's Loews posts was just through reviewing old Tennessean movie ads. The Loews ads drew me like a beacon. The Loews Crescent got all of the James Bond movies first. All of the Pink Panther films ran there. Woody Allen movies played for weeks on end. Taxi Driver. Carrie. Lots of Blaxploitation films in the 70's and later near the end when Martin took the Crescent back over there was kung fu movies. This was back in the era when certain chains had exclusive rights to movie titles (the Loews was in with MGM and United Artists) for many weeks and this meant that if you wanted to see Raging Bull in Nashville you would have to journey downtown to the Loews Crescent to see it. This was another factor in my fascination.

The big downtown theaters in 1967 were the Tennessee at 527 Church Street, the Paramount 725 Church Street, the Crescent Cinerama 415 Church Street, and the Loews Vendome at 615 Church Street. Then on August 9th of 1967 the 80 year old Loews Vendome burned with the roof collapsing into the theater. The Dirty Dozen had played on the night of August 8th and patrons had complained of the smell of rubber burning. The building had been examined and no fire found. A janitor was cleaning up after midnight when he saw and reported the fire. Here are several articles from what was then called The Nashville Tennessean. You can click on the photos to enlarge. There's this really nice slideshow video about the fire at this link also. If you want some info on the Loews Vendome Theatre you can check out Cinema Treasures.

This was not the end of the Loews story downtown. They struck a deal with Martin to lease the Crescent Cinerama Theatre a few doors down. The Cinerama equipment would be moved to Belle Meade Theatre. There's lots of interest in Cinerama movies as you tell by this great page devoted to the Cinerama films which played at the Crescent. The gist of this is the Loews folks thought they would rebuild the Vendome, but that didn't happen. They ended up leasing the Crescent until 1981when Martin took back over, turned it into a second run theatre and then closed it for good in 1982. It was later demolished and replaced by a parking lot. What better way to get Loews going again than another Lee Marvin film. Over the next month I am going to share ads and some movie trailers of probably every movie that played the Loews Crescent and Crescent from the November reopening until the end in 1982. Since movies often played for multiple weeks and even months you're not getting every advertisement, but just one's that changed. Often you will see near the end of a film's run the ad is just a small text one. There will also be Loews Melrose ads sometimes since they often were advertised together. These ads come from digitized newspapers so the quality is not often the best. Check back each Monday through Thursday throughout March for a different year's worth of movies each day. I'm also working on a complete list of movies that played Marbro Drive-In too which will come later this year.