BoxOffice® Pro - November 2011

MARQUEE AWARD >
HISTORICALLY SYMPATHETIC
With decorator Joe DuciBella on hand, the Johnsons lovingly expanded and then equipped each Lake Theatre auditorium with historically accurate treatments
from the Art Deco era.
have been done without the influence of
interior designer Joseph DuciBella.
“Oh, I don’t know where you’d stop with
Joe,” says Johnson with admiration. “Not
only was he a licensed interior decorator,
but his first love was art deco and historic
theaters. He was a founding member of the
Theatre Historical Society. We started working
with him in ’82 or ’83 and from then
until he passed away in 2007.”
Acting as both artist and archeologist,
DuciBella brought his signature design
sensibilities to several theaters under the
Classic Cinemas banner by borrowing,
swapping and digging up treatments and
artifacts from revered, but far less fortunate
movie houses. “Some of the elements that
are in the theater he found,” says Johnson.
“We have two busts of musicians from the
Southtown Theatre that he found for us, a
chandelier that came from the Will Rogers
Theatre, and statues that came out of the
basement of the Marbro in Chicago.”
Famed L.A. theater architect S. Charles
Lee once said, “The show begins on the sidewalk.”
It’s a notion Classic Cinemas has always
worked to uphold. “I think we learned
it fairly early on, but maybe not early
enough, that people respond to architecturally
significant spaces,” says Johnson. We
want to bring people into movie theaters
that make a statement—and certainly the
older theaters do in a way that no one does
today because you can’t afford it.”
Currently sporting seven auditoriums,
each with its own unique elements, the
expansion and refurbishment of the Lake
was a labor of love that was not without a
few painful kicks to the backside.
“When we were on one of our tours in
England, we visited the Odeon Leicester
Square,” says Johnson. “The place is what
you’d refer to as High Deco. It had some statues
and big wall decorations—ladies with
flowing gowns moving towards the screen.
It really impressed us and when we came
back Joe has copies built.”
The bas-reliefs were massive ornamental
discs, each featuring a single nymph
of ancient Greece. “When they delivered
them it was like the story of the guy that
built the boat in the basement,” laughs
Johnson. “We couldn’t get them in the
auditorium and ended up having to tear
out the door and part of the wall so that
we could get them in.” Now securely in
place and backlit with neon, the mythical
ladies help instill that Art Deco aura to
auditorium number seven.
With the Lake Theatre, Classic Cinemas
recognizes the future of exhibition
as much as it does the past. “Our digital
roots go back to the original Chicken Little
3D excursion,” says Classic Cinemas VP
of Operations, Chris Johnson, Willis’ son.
“At the time there were only four theaters
in all of Illinois that had this technology
and we decided the Lake Theatre would
be perfect spot to put this technology in.
So we installed it and we’re having great
success with it. As time went on, we added
an additional auditorium and now we have
three digital auditoriums and are nearing
the final conversion and adding digital in
all of them.”
On Monday, April 11th, 2011 the Lake
Theatre rang in its 75th Anniversary. Following
a ceremonial ticket-tearing and
cake-cutting, audiences were treated to a
free screening of the Lake’s 1936 premiere
feature, The Ghost Goes West, followed by a
succession of films also screened during the
cinema’s inaugural year.
“The Johnsons may have expanded or
added screens,” says Classic Cinemas Marketing
Manager Mark Mazrimas, “but they
always keep the ambiance of the original
theater—a lot of nice touches, but you
always get that feeling of continuation, like
the whole building has been there for 75–80
years, including the expansions. I’ve always
liked that about our theaters.”
Sadly, many renowned Lamb movie
palaces like the Fox and the Capitol are long
gone, but with the Lake Theatre, Classic Cinemas
helped establish a model that couples
restoration with high-tech revitalization.
A bit of the old, a bit of the new—and all
of it golden.
28 BOXOFFICE PRO NOVEMBER 2011