Upcoming Events
CHAMPAGNE & DESSERT
at The Historical Society of Mount Lebanon
An Update on Pittsburgh’s Film & TV Production
Special guest speaker, Dawn Keezer of the Pittsburgh Film Office, will discuss the state of Pittsburgh’s film and TV production at a Denis fundraising event on Thursday, June 26 at 7:00pm at The Historical Society of Mount Lebanon. Tickets cost $75 per person and include a great talk, champagne, and dessert. Space is limited. Reserve your spot by clicking the link below to connect with our PayPal donation portal. Your donation reserves your spot.
Thursday, June 26 - 7:00pm @ The Mount Lebanon Historical Society
The Denis Theatre: A History Worth Saving
For many South Hills residents of a certain age, they can recall their first trip to The Denis with pleasure. Many kids of the 1950s and 1960s remember the Saturday morning cartoons at The Denis or the incredible feature films on that giant screen. What most people don’t know is the history behind The Denis.
It really goes back to the Harris Family, specifically John P. Harris (1871-1926), who took over his father’s company, Harris Comedy & Specialty Company. In 1897, that company showed the first motion picture in Pittsburgh. Then, in 1905, Harris and his brother-in-law, Harry Davis, opened the first movie theater in Pittsburgh on Smithfield Street called the Nickelodeon.
In the 1920s, John Harris created the Harris Amusement Company, opening 15 theaters in mid-Atlantic region. At the same time, in 1922, Harris took a political detour being elected state Senator to represent the 45th District. Sadly, he died young at age 54 in 1926, leaving the company to his brother, Denis Harris. With the opening of the Liberty Tubes, a 5-year engineering feat completed in 1924, the population of the South Hills grew exponentially. By 1937, Denis Harris authorized the construction of a theater in Mt. Lebanon. Designed by church and theater architect Victor Rigaumont, The Denis – named after Denis Harris himself – was constructed in 114 days, opening on June 1, 1938. It was built for $250,000, which today is about $5.5 million.
The Pittsburgh Press at the time noted the theater’s air conditioning system and its Carrara structural glass front. The large, single screen theater with balcony was owned and operated by the Harris Amusement Company until 1960 when the building was sold to Associated Theaters, owned by Ernest A. Stern. Stern added a second theater in 1965 near the front of the building called the Encore Theatre. The Denis was sold to Cinemette in 1974 but when that company went bankrupt in 1978, Stern regained possession of The Denis.
Its next big change occurred in 1981, when the large Denis theater was “twinned,” allowing for two theaters instead of one with the projection booths moving to the balcony. The rest of the balcony was repurposed to create a small fourth theater. Most people today who recall The Denis think of it as a 4-screen multi-plex theater, offering a variety of movies. Ownership of The Denis remained in the Stern family in the 1980s and 1990s, although Richard Stern, son of Ernest, formed a partnership with Milo Ritton, who took ownership of The Denis when the partnership dissolved in 2004. That same year The Denis was closed.
In 2007, Ritton put the building on the market, and it was purchased by D. Raja, a local entrepreneur. Wishing to preserve the building for film and cultural events, a group of South Hills citizens created the non-profit Denis Theatre Foundation and purchased the building from Raja in 2010. With great appreciation to the early leaders for “saving” The Denis, the current Foundation board is collaborating with Row House Cinema to complete the project. The plan is to rejoin the “twinned” theaters for one large theater with 250 seats and construct two smaller 90-seat theaters within the building, as well as open a restaurant and bar along with a community room for everyone. With your support, this historic local theater built by an historic movie family still has a future for years to come.
-Jon Delano, The Denis Theatre Foundation Board President
PITTSBURGH-MADE MOVIE PICKS
This month we’re recommending a handful of movies filmed in and around Pittsburgh. You all know about The Silence of the Lambs and Flashdance, but these four excellent offerings might not immediately come to mind as Pittsburgh movies… but maybe they should.
Unstoppable (2010) dir. Tony Scott
Tony Scott’s fifth collaboration with Denzel Washington was also unfortunately his last film. The Top Gun director committed suicide in 2012 after a long, unpublicized battle with cancer. Loosely based on the real life events of a runaway train and the two men trying to stop it, this non-stop popcorn muncher perfectly represents Scott’s oeuvre. Style and substance whipped together into an adrenaline-fueled sensory overload. “I love Pittsburgh,” Scott said of the production. “It reminds me of where I grew up (in North England)... If you saw the movie, I embrace the landscape. I felt I was back home in my youth." Quentin Tarantino called Unstoppable one of the best films of the decade, and Christoper Nolan cited the film as an inspiration for building suspense.
Wonder Boys (2000) dir. Curtis Hanson
Unless you're talking about Wonder Boys as one of the greatest movies of the last 50 years, you’re underrating it. Michael Douglas' Grady Tripp is one of the deepest, most interesting characters presented on screen. The characters are fallible people, stumbling through life, held back by their delusions or narcotics or bourgeois malaise or fear… Curtis Hanson's follow up to L.A. Confidential further displays his deft touch at creating likable characters out of unlikeable people. No small part of that is Michael Chabon’s novel and Steve Kloves' adapted script. The movie easily bests the fine book. It's leaner, more focused, and Grady Tripp’s pathos comes through more clearly. It's the answer to that timeless talking point
about movies that improve upon the novel. I happen to love both so much that I named my recently adopted dog Grady.
Dawn of the Dead (1978) dir. George Romero
Night of the Living Dead (1968) made George Romero an indie filmmaking icon. Dawn of the Dead made him a legend. Bloodier, meaner, funnier, the second installment of Romero’s zombie series takes full advantage of the changing cinematic decorum to create a ghoulish, entrail-spilling satire on consumerism. Fans from all over the world make pilgrimages to the Monroeville Mall to pay their respects to the creator of the modern zombie film.
Bob Roberts (1992) dir. Tim Robbins
This dark political satire might now land too close to reality to be considered laugh-out-loud funny, but its prescience has only magnified the travesty of actor/writer/director Robbins’ grossly overlooked 1992 film about an entertainer that jumps into the Pennsylvania senate race. He succeeds by exploiting the fears of the most gullible through folk songs about immigrants and welfare queens.
Jay Patrick is a Mt. Lebanon-based syndicated writer of film and fiction and the host of the Cinema Shame Podcast (formerly produced by DVD Netflix and available wherever you get your podcasts) where guests watch, for the first time, a movie they really should have seen by now.
See more picks from Elaine and Jay at denistheatre.org/blog.
Film School: The Nickelodeon
In Jon’s message about the importance of the Denis Theatre’s history, he mentioned that the Harris brothers opened Pittsburgh’s first Nickelodeon, but not only was it Pittsburgh’s first — it was the world’s first official “Nickelodeon,” as they’re also credited with coining the name to describe these early film exhibition venues.
Coining. That’s a nickel pun.
And it was so named because admission cost a nickel. Then they \ borrowed the Greek world odeion, meaning “roofed-over,” by way of the French who had named their large national theater the Odéon-Théâtre de l’Europe.
The Smithfield St. Nickelodeon was not the first exhibition house to show film, but it was the first devoted to the motion picture — although they would also feature live vaudeville. The new phenomenon captured the hearts of the working class who flocked to the rapidly proliferating Nickelodeons to take in relatively cheap entertainment consisting of continuously looped one- to two-reel films.
Before Nickelodeons adopted the communal “big screen” style of film exhibition, attendees viewed short films through “peep-show machines’ or Kinetoscopes. They leaned over a cabinet and looked through an eyepiece to view the film, which passed over light to create the illusion of movement.
By 1908, 8,000 Nickelodeons sprung up all over the United States. The surging popularity led to immediate innovation in film exhibition, most importantly in the arena of film projection. The Nickelodeons became early movie houses with a large screen, projector, rows of hard wooden benches or chairs, and room for hundreds of patrons. Films grew longer. Greater and global competition rapidly increased the quality and production value of the distributed films.
Nickelodeons ultimately disappeared as a result of their own popularity. Those old storefronts couldn’t hold the number of required “spectators,” and longer films necessitated more comfortable accommodations for guests. The price increased to ten cents and the old business model went out the window in favor of movie palaces, comfortable seats, and offerings of concessions.
Help us reach our goal! Every donation brings us a step closer to opening the doors of The Denis and giving the South Hills access to a vibrant cultural center. Your gift is tax deductible and may also be eligible for a matching gift of up to 100% – be sure to ask your employer. There are a variety of other opportunities to support The Denis including bequests, stock gifts, and IRA-qualified charitable distributions. Contact us at info@denistheatre.org to learn more.
