Boxoffice-April.1990

cults would be forced to stand as defendants
In a jury trial.
AMC and UA attorneys tried
to pre-empt
their companies' participation in the trial by
attempting to separate their liability from any
potential liability assessed In the trial of codefendants
Columbia Pictures, MGM/UA,
and 20th Century Fox. The U, S. District Court
In Phoenix ruled, however, that the doctrine
of residual conspiratorial liability linked the circuits
to the distributors, even though the Plitt,
Mann and General Cinema circuits had already
settled out of court with Harklns. The
matter went to trial In Phoenix on February
13.
"Born on the Fourth
of July" Has
'Em Rolling In the
Aisles, Literally
Boy that Oliver Stone is some powerful
filmmaker, huh? "Salvador," "Platoon," "Talk
Radio," knockouts all, and now the bitter
VIet-vet saga "Born on the Fourth of — luly"
what a bunch of roundhouse punches! In
fact, "Born on the Fourth of luly" may pack
too much of a wallop, at least for some viewers.
When it first opened in late December,
and on through the first few stages of its platform
release In early January, theatres in
wing of NATO to a total of 30 people The
roster of officers for 1989-1990 remains the
same, with Malcom Green as chairman of the
board, William Kartozian as president,
George Kerasotes as treasurer, Irwin R. Cohen
as finance committee chairman, and Seymour
Smith as secretary.
Tri-State ITA Names Execs
Larry Smith, former vice president of the
Tri-State Independent Theatre Association,
has been named president of that body,
which is comprised of exhibitors from Tennessee,
Mississippi, and Arkansas. Tri-State
also named three new board of directors
members, Malco's lonny Glascock, Wendy
Shaw of lackson, Mississippi, and lohn Hopkins
of Memphis, Tennessee.
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EASTERN NEWS
BOSTON
Loews has quadded their Cheri Theatre
here. The former three-plex operated as a
twin for several weeks while the circuit split
one of its screens and augmented the size of
the concession area.
Marriott Marquis Hotel in Times Square, and
the 30-by-50-foot backllt photo, the world's
largest, premiered with a night scene from
Tri-Star's civil-war epic "Glory" The Kodarama
screen, which includes a moving message
board underneath the photo, is seen by 45
million people each month
PHILADELPHIA
The new Ritz Theatre, to be located In the
Bourse Building, an upscale retail, food, and
entertainment complex in Center City, will
open this spring. Owner Ramon Posel, whose
Ritz Five has been wildly successful as the
city's plush art house, plans to use his new
theatre, which will also boast five screens, to
continue "the same devotion to the film
experience and the same respect for our
audience" as are evident in his other
theatres.
AMC Theatres staged a week of "Customer
Appreciation Days" here. For the celebration
the concession stands at all of the area's
AMC theatres offered a small popcorn and a
small soda for 89 cents, plus tax, each.
AMC has secured the zoning change necessary
to begin construction on a 12-screen
theatre in a contemplated Upper Moreland
Township shopping center. Plans call for
completion of the theatre and the mall, the
Train Station at Willow Grove, sometime this
year.
Enough to make you faint
Washington, D. C , Virginia, New York, and
Chicago reported that moviegoers had to be
treated for fainting, shortness of breath and
various other minor hysterical symptoms during
screenings of the award-winning movie.
Reports from the theatres did not indicate,
however, whether viewers were reacting to
the film's grueling portraits of battles, wounds
and physical rehabilitation or whether young
female Tom Cruise fans were aghast at that
mousey hair and moustache.
CHESIRE, CT
A $40 million community shopping center
which will occupy a 6-t-acre passel of land will
house a multiplex theatre, though no circuit
has yet committed to developing in the complex.
The mall In which the theatre will be
built will be anchored by six national retailers,
according to developers Chicago-based Homart
Community Centers.
NEW YORK
Eastman Kodak has installed a new Kodarama
display on the facade of the New York
BALTIMORE
A theatre which will show specialty films,
foreign films, Hollywood classics, B movies,
cartoons, newsreels, silents and locally-made
Independent films will be erected in the Fells
Point section of the city by "film historian and
movie fanatic" George Figgs Figgs, who has
worked as an assistant manager and projectionist
at the Charles Theatre, will call his new
house the Orpheum Theatre, and plans to
decorate the lobby of his 70-seat theatre like
a classic I930's movie palace and show his
eclectic fare for the bargain price of $4 for a
double feature, $3 at matinee screenings. The
Orpheum, which cost $35,000 to construct,
will open in its locale near the city's Harbor
this spring.
NATO Roster Changes
NATO's fall meetings in Carlsbad, California
resulted in a number of additions to the
group's organizational chart. Alan Silverman
of Chicago's Excellence Theatres was named
to NATO's executive committee, making him
the seventeenth member of that body In
addition, Sperie Perakos, lerry Siegel, Mike
Mercy, Ed Durwood, lerome Esbin, |ud Parker,
Kent Dickenson, John Rochester, Salah
Hassanein, and Walt ,'\man were all named
directors-at-large, swelling the ranks of that
WASHINGTON, D. C.
The city that brought us Deep Throat (the
Watergate informant, not the film) now casts
the Big Chill (the silent treatment, not the film)
on anyone that sounds too much like Talk
Radio (the chatty medium, not the film).
AMC's Union Station multiplex has announced
that it will give the boot to any
patron who receives two warnings for talking
during the film to the distraction of other
viewers. The policy, begun in December,
employs a Problem Patron Patrol of ushers,
46 BOXOFFICE