Cinedome 70

2010-05-06T16:46:00.000-07:00

Empty Cinedome 70 Ponders and 'offer' it can't refuse

By Charles F. Trentelman (Standard-Examiner staff)

May 6 2010

Word is Larry Miller's car company wants to build a new Chrysler dealership on the site of the Cinedome 70 in Riverdale.

That probably means they'll finally do to the double domes what the Death Star did to Princess Leia's home planet of Alderaan: Ka-blooey.

What a sad end.

The news has kicked off major nostalgia among those of us who thought the Cinedome 70 was about the coolest theater in the world. The 70 in the name referred to the use of 70 mm-wide film which gave amazing clarity, better than digital technology, no kidding.

First movie I saw there was "Apocalypse Now," Francis Ford Coppola's Vietnam epic, in 1979. Modern theaters, even with 3-D, cannot match the spectacle spreading across the massively wide screen during the opening credits. You could almost smell the napalm in the morning, and when the helicopters flitted as "Ride of the Valkyries" thundered from the sound system, I was in love.

Thousands lined up for "Return of the Jedi." We waited through one whole performance to squeeze into the front-row seats and nearly go blind, but it was an amazing experience, with huge, comfortable chairs and an amphitheater feel because of that massive curved screen.

Arcane movie industry financing and the mall multiplex killed it off. Independent theaters with a mere two screens couldn't survive.

I remember going to see "Return of the Jedi" for the second time. I talked with a man in the lobby I presume now was the owner. I said it was odd he was still showing "Jedi" seven months after it opened. He said he was still trying to make his money back.

Apparently, to get Jedi, he'd paid a huge amount upfront and had to turn over all ticket sales for the first week, 90 percent of them for the second week, then 80 percent and so on.

Which was sad. All he made off the thousands who lined up the first week was whatever popcorn they bought.

The final film, in 2001, was "Vertical Limit," a mountain climbing non-epic.

After the lights went out, local filmmaker Issac Goeckeritz put sayings from old films on the marquee. He wanted the old theater to talk to the passing crowd.

His thinking was, "People may not know who Gandhi was, but they know who Indiana Jones was," and, what the heck, wisdom is wisdom.

There was "Why do you fear the past?" from "Lord of the Rings," "You are special. Never stop believing that," from "Annie," and "With enough courage, you can do without a reputation," from "Gone With the Wind."

The phrase from "Field of Dreams," "We just don't recognize the most significant moments of our lives while they are happening," takes on new meaning as we ponder the passing of another grand old theater.

Isaac intended his last message, a year ago, to be the one where he asked his girlfriend to marry him.

She said yes, the letters were stored away, and Isaac got on with life, but when the Miller plans were revealed, he had to do one more.

He called Nancy Tullis, of Kaysville, whose husband built the Cinedome in 1970, and put up his final message:

"Thank you Cinedome 70 and Tullis family for 30 years of movie memories. Live long and prosper. May The Force be with you."

As Bogart would say, "Here's looking at you, kid," but we can't, not anymore, not in the Cinedome, which is sad