Welcome to CinemaTour!  Sign In

CinemaTour
 
Cinema History Around the World  
 HOME ·· CINEMAS ·· LINKS ·· BOOKS
 Contact Cinematour ·· Help & Hints ·· About Cinematour
 

Village Cinemas

8707 S Tacoma Way
Tacoma WA

Closed
Record #40173  
 Opened:
 Closed: 1990
 Current Use:
 Demolished:
Capacity:
Architect(s):
Architectural Style(s):
National Register:
Current Organ: none
 Also Known As:

Information for this tour was contributed by Mark Campbell.

Originally a small 2-screener that opened sometime in the late 1970s in a strip mall of what is now Tacoma's Korea Town, the Village Cinemas quietly played Hollywood fare including Tacoma exclusives of the occasional blockbuster: "Arthur", "For Your Eyes Only" and "Poltergeist" to name a few.

The bigger auditorium featured Dolby Stereo and probably had 250 seats. The smaller one was around 100-150 seats. In 1982 or so the Village Cinemas added 2 more screens in another space in the mall with its own box office. The screens both had less than 100 or so.

The Village began mixing art house films and with Hollywood fare. In the early to mid 1980s numerous multiplexes sprung up in the Tacoma area and theatres no longer had exclusive bookings on films, with the same film now playing at 2 or 3 locations. The Village Cinemas fell victim and eventually closed its doors in 1990 as a second run discount house.

It is unclear if the Village Cinemas were ever tied to another chain. Early on the owners were advertised as "Cascade Cinemas" which also operated the Lakewood Theatre. Their advertising style, though, in the early to mid 1980s was an except replica of Seattle's Seven Gables art house chain before they were taken over by Landmark Theatres. (The Lakewood closed soon after the 2 new screens opened).

The Village Cinemas booked many of the same popular art house films that played at the Seven Gables chain. ("Blue Velvet", "Never Cry Wolf" the Hitchcock re-releases). For first run Hollywood fare in the mid 1980s it was usually from Disney, Orion, Cannon, TriStar and 2nd tier films from the majors.

New operators took over the Village in 1988 and it last another couple years. At some point past its initial closure it might have been run as a Korean language cinema briefly or a church, but it is now vacant.



---
---

Return to the top of this page   or   Return to the main page


Last featured 8/14/2011. Last edited 8/14/2011.


The content of this website is a research work in progress and is being provided to the public for informational purposes only. As such, articles may contain errors, bias, duplication, or need to be cleaned up. Some documents, images and logos contained in these documents belong to various organizations and corporations. Their inclusion here is for the benefit of the reader and for the benefit of the particular organization, but they are, in fact, the copyrighted property of those organizations. Their presence here does not imply any endorsement of CinemaTour by those organizations. CinemaTour is not affiliated with any cinema or circuit.

© 1995-2024 Vision Entertainment Services. All rights reserved.
Use of this site signifies agreement to terms of service.

cinematour.com :: 0.62 MB :: 6.31 MB