![]() ![]() “We can’t just offer a seat to sit in for five bucks anymore.”ĭigital rendering of the plans for the new Bijou Metro. “It’s pretty crucial that movie theaters actually offer some sort of experience,” says Ed Schiessl, who co-owns and operates Bijou Art Cinemas with Louise Thomas and Jamie Hosler. But in today’s ever-changing media landscape, it may be harder than ever to lure would-be moviegoers away from their HD flat-screen-equipped living rooms, where movies can be found for little to no cost via iTunes, Netflix or BitTorrent, and into the theater. Over 70 years later, decades after the last downtown Eugene movie house closed, Bijou Art Cinemas is opening a second location at Willamette and Broadway with the hope of helping revitalize the city’s core through cinema and culture again. OK, they were actually local actors hired by the theater for the “Hollywood Premiere and Follies,” a show replicating the Hollywood glamour of an opening night at the Grauman’s Chinese Theater and slated by The Register-Guard as “one of the biggest social and theatrical events ever seen in this city.” This again left the Bijou Theatre as the only independently owned theatre in Eugene until the David Minor Theatre opened in 2008.Downtown Eugene: On a spring evening in 1938, Shirley Temple, Laurel and Hardy, Mae West, Ginger Rogers and the Three Stooges could be seen posing for the paparazzi under the bright lights of the Heilig Theater marquee where the Hult Center now stands. Unfortunatley Bove had no luck with The Mercury Theater which only remained open for approximately a year and a half and closed in mid July of 1989, due to what seemed to be lack of leasing payments and a lack of sufficient audience. His plan was to postpone any major renovations until the new lease in late 1989. ![]() ![]() Bove again showed films like the one's he showed in his Cinema 7 theatre. Cinema 7 closed in 1987 leaving the Bijou as the only independently owned theatre and only theatre who's main films were independent, that is until Steve Bove opened another theatre this time in Springfield, The Mercury Theater, taking over the building that the last theater, The Fine Arts Theater on 630 Main St. Cinema 7 had a single theatre that sat 120 people and like the Bijou it often had showings of, "a mix of foreign films, HollyWood Classics and occasional second-run and "revival" features”(10). When the Bijou first opened there was another independent theatre, Cinema 7 owned by Steve Bove, which opened in 1974. The Bijou Cinemas is only one of two independently owned theaters in Eugene the other being the David Minor theatre which opened up back in 2008. Lamont had been planning on adding another theatre from as early as 1982, but had trouble because of an appeal by a neighbor who thought the noise and traffic would be unbearable(7). Lamont again updated the Bijou in July of 1987 by investing $45,000 to add a second theatre that seated 92 people(6). Tickets prices jumped fifty cents after the update(5). In 1981 Lamont and his partner W.H Taft Chatham updated the theatre from a 120 seats to 142 and from a 16mm projection equipment to 32mm and they also updated the screen to a Silver-gio screen. The Bijou's first films were Get out Your Handkerchiefs(1978), The Rink(1916) a Chaplin short, The Beatles Magical Mystery Tour(1967), Beatles Tokyo(1966), and Flash Gordon(1980)(4). After discovering that the Wilcox building had space open, which was formerly a chapel, he opened the bijou in 1980 by selling his photography equipment(3). Lamont had always been interested in films and it was at the Waco Twin Cinemas on Franklin Boulevard in Springfield that Lamont learned how to use a projector. In 1956 it became McGaffey and Andreason Mortuary(2). It was originally the home of the first congregational Church, United Church for Christ. Wilcox who was the first dean of the architect school. The building the theatre had moved into was a old spanish missionary style church that was constructed in 1925 by The University of Oregon's own W.R.B. The Bijou theatre was opened in Octoby Robert Mcneely, who later changed his name to Michael Lamont, as a single screen 120 seat movie theatre that specialized in independent films. ![]()
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