Gracious
3 posts
Jul 02, 2009
5:34 PM
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Does anybody remember these two theaters? I remember the Dabel having the first really BIG screen. I spent many, many Saturday afternoons around 1958 to 1962 at the Belmont Theater.
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Marck1957
43 posts
Jul 03, 2009
6:18 AM
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I do have some memories of the Dabel. First, a pack of my family members went there in what must have been in the mid-60s to see "Its A Mad Mad Mad Mad World". The film was in some kind of larger and wider screen format, which made the huge screen even bigger. We got there and the only seats left were in the front row. The movie had car chases in it thet looked pretty impressive on that big screen. We had to actually turn our heads right and left to watch the movie! It was comparable to an IMax film, but 30 years ahead of IMax. Second, in the mid 1970s we went and saw "Earthquake" there, and they had something I never had experianced: subwoofers. They had these gigantic speakers on the floor in the seating section that produced this huge booming bass sounds (like kids today have the boom-boom-boom speakers in their cars) during the dramatic points in the movie. When they first started booming during the earthquake scenes, it was awesome! It produced an illusion that was quite surprising, and I recall wondering if the theater might collapse right along with San Francisco in the movie. Really. We saw many Rogers And Hammerstein musicals there, "My Fair Lady", "Oklahoma", and others. It was a different time and a different world. I thought it was a real shame that they tore the theater down to build a Grey's Drugstore, which I think is now closed, sitting there doing nothing. That's progress!
Last Edited by on Jul 03, 2009 6:21 AM
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Mike C
44 posts
Jul 14, 2009
7:45 PM
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I use to spend a lot of time at the Dabel Theater. They had a Cinerama screen. The Neon Theater downtown also had one. Dayton was the only city in the USA that had two Cinerama theaters at one time. Too bad they closed and tore down Dabel for a now defunct pharmacy. The guys that owned it should be ashamed of what they did. I hope they ate losing their butts by not having it rented out.
If you are talking about Belmont Auto Theater
( drive in) I was there plenty of nights.
You sound like you are talking about a walk in theater when you said Belmont Theater. Where was it at? On Watervliet perhaps?
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laserbeemer
4 posts
Jul 21, 2009
1:27 PM
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I used to work at the Dabel in the late 80's. It was a great place to work. Didn't make much money but got to see every movie that came out good or bad.
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rfk61
18 posts
Sep 02, 2009
9:03 AM
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Is the Dabel where they used to show Rocky Horror Picture Show all the time? If so then yes, I was there. It was crazy with all the throwing rice and toast and the squirt guns.
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dquartz
39 posts
Sep 04, 2009
6:42 PM
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was the dabel at the dead end of wayne ave on smith ville road ?
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Marck1957
71 posts
Sep 05, 2009
1:17 PM
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dquartz...yes, the Dabel was at the end of Wayne Avenue, on Smithville.
rfk61...I think that it was the Little Art Theater that did the Rocky Horror Picture Show. It was on Wayne Avenue, across the street from Esther Price Candy.
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pie8me
30 posts
Sep 05, 2009
1:39 PM
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The one on Watervaliet was the Cinema East if I remember right. It burned and a drive thru is there now.
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dquartz
73 posts
Sep 06, 2009
5:02 PM
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marck1957.. thanks, i remember watching how the west was won in that theater. it seemed like they kept that movie playing for months.
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Steve K
91 posts
Sep 07, 2009
9:35 AM
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I haven't run into John Harvey for years... he was travelling around for a while working on a few remaining cinerama theaters.... there's a picture of him and Quentin Tarantino at the Neon Movies somewhere on the internet I think?
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delcodude
21 posts
Jul 13, 2010
3:12 PM
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The Dabel(DAyton BELmont)theatre was so old-fashioned. Belmont residents hated Fridays and Saturday nights because all the movie-goers took all the parking places on nearby streets because the lot was not big enough for half the cars. It is my favorite, even better than the Kon-Tiki. The curved screen and crushed velvet curtain were awesome. I took my daughter to see Beauty and the Beast in '91 just months before it was razed. Truly Oldschool, and oldschool's good enough for me
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supersix
16 posts
Jul 14, 2010
7:13 AM
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John Harvey purchased the Cinerama projection equipment from the Dabel and, at one time, had it set-up in his home. I saw "How the West was Won" in his converted living room/theatre. This equipment was loaned to the Neon Movies when the Cinerama motion pictures were shown there.
Last Edited by on Jul 14, 2010 7:13 AM
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