The first cinema / theater you ever saw a movie in?

[Trevor]

Mine was the "Embassy" in what was then Gwelo, Rhodesia (my hometown, now Gweru Zimbabwe) and the first film I ever saw there was Sidney Lumet's Murder On The Orient Express when I was seven: that experience blew me away. As for the cinema, the locals referred to it as 'the bughouse' but I didn't care: my love of cinema began right there.

When I posted this on the IMDB, a friend there said: "The bughouse has a scary name. A damp, dark place where you'd have to claw your way through the cobwebs, the ticket taker looked at least 150 years old and the concession stand had assorted 'goodies', including green popcorn, milk duds dated 1961 and chocolates that moved on their own."   It was actually a nice place and still had wooden seats here and there.

I don't know if that cinema is still in business ~ I last went to Zimbabwe in 1998 ~ but the projector there is still rolling in my mind.  

The other cinema in my hometown doubled as the Gweru Theatre and only ever screened action films: that is where I and a few others ~ a full house ~ saw (sorry, Andrew!) the wonder that is Gymkata! 

[Doggett]

The Odeon in Eastbourne I went with my dad to see The Secret Garden because I was too scared to see Jurassic Park at the time
It was the last time I ever saw my father.

[JJ80]

Definitely "The Fifth Element" in 1997 at the big multiplex cinema in the Parkhead Forge shopping centre.

[Criswell]

I don't know the theatre but I do know the movie was "The Neverending story part III". I guess I got started on bad movies early.

[Flick James]

Wow. I feel old. When I was a young lad multiplex's were in their infancy, and the old single screen theatres were still common. The Whitwood Theatre was where I saw my first movies. It was a single screen with a balcony section (where the teenagers went to make out I was told). It was locally referred to as the Disney theatre because they often showed double features of family-oriented films, many of them were Disney re-runs. Some of the movies I watched there growing up:

Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
The Bad News Bears
The Bad News Bears in Breaking Training
Bugsy Malone (with Scott Baio and Jodi Foster)
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
Pinocchio
Close Encounters of the Third Kind

There were many more but that's all I can remember now. The theatre closed down sometime in the early 80's and became some kind of charismatic Christian church before eventually being demolished in the late 80's.

[Flick James]

Hah! A google search revealed that the last movie shown at the beloved Whitwood Theatre of my youth was Splash.

[claws]

Some theater on a U.S. military base in Germany. My first movie there was "Let's Scare Jessica To Death" and I was six years old (Not during its original theatrical run. This was a couple years later).

[Ed, Ego and Superego]

Buggsy Malone (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bugsy_Malone) here:


It wasn't a 7 Plex then though. it was rebuilt in the 80's.

and King Kong in the cinema this used to be:


-Ed

[retrorussell]

Probably the Family Drive-In theater in Tigard, OR in the mid-70s (defunct since about 1984).  One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, when I was 4 or so.  Why did my parents take me?!

[sideorderofninjas]

In the early 1980s, one of 3 drive-ins in north Arkansas where I saw Popeye, Alligator, or Legend of the Lone Ranger. 

[The Burgomaster]

I believe it was the (now long gone) Saugus Cinema in Saugus, Massachusetts.  They knocked down the cineman when they built a shopping mall on the property.

It was a 2-screen cinema and I seem to remember getting in for 50 cents for Saturday matinees when I was very young.  Through most of my youth and early teen years, the admission price was between $1.00 and $2.00.

The first movie I have clear recollection of seeing there is this one:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-RxLBjf0t1k
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.  See, even at age 5 or 6 I was a bad movie fan!  I now own this DVD.

I believe this is the first horror movie I saw there:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TqnMkc7T6Uw
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I also saw the original WILLARD, BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID, YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN, BLAZING SADDLES, ROCKY, THE STING, LIVE AND LET DIE, THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN, FUTUREWORLD, LOGAN'S RUN, MURDER BY DEATH, KING KONG VS. GODZILLA, STAR WARS, MEATBALLS, THE PINK PANTHER STRIKES AGAIN, THE FURY, THE LEGACY, GATOR, WALKING TALL: PART 2, FINAL CHAPTER: WALKING TALL, THE MYSTERIOUS ISLAND OF CAPTAIN NEMO, and many others at that cinema.

[Trevor]

I don't know if that cinema is still in business ~ I last went to Zimbabwe in 1998 ~ but the projector there is still rolling in my mind.  

I just checked: it is still in business, now known as the Rainbow Theatre. 

[Hammock Rider]

I saw Hawmps at the Harlem Cermak Cinema in Berwyn Illinois. It's a Disney movie about the US Cavalry's attempt to use camels as mounts in the Southwest. it was pretty much F-Troop with Camels.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MI_wD1DN8Ko
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  The theater was huge and bright and smelled like popcorn. Kids were laughing and running around everywhere. The screen I saw Hawmps on seemed a mile high. I eventually ended up working there for several years. Now it's a Best Buy.

[ImaginaryFoot]

 The Twin-Aire Drive In In Powell Tn way back in the early 70's, guess i was around 3 years old so i dont really remember the movie, just my dad yelling at me to stop running around and watch the damn movie

[Umaril The Unfeathered]

The now-gone Somerville driv-in (sorry, that's drive-in) in Somerville, NJ.  All theu the 70's we went there to see God knows how many movies...

It's been a sports complex for the last 20 years now.  I don't remember the very first movie I saw when I was little, but I DO remember the very last 2 films I saw there were in 1986, and it was Day Of The Dead and Friday The Thirteenth 3:The "Final" Chapter.

One fond memory as a child of five, is that they had a little train track that went around the drive-in, and the steel hut they kept the train in had clowns and bouncie balls painted all over it. There used to be a ride around the drive-in before each show, and the man that drove it was a really nice guy, helped you in and all.

A lot of memories there!