Brattle Reopens After Hiatus

After an eight-month absence from the Harvard Square scene, the landmark Brattle Theatre reopened for business Friday night, drawing a steady stream of moviegoers for four showings at one of the area's only remaining revival movie houses.

Despite the piles of shovels and bricks surrounding the theater at its 6 p.m. opening, patrons filled the house at all four showings, said Connie A. White, co-director of Running Arts, which operates the theater. In addition, she said, 2000 programs disappeared from boxes on the sidewalk outside.

"I hope it's not an open air theater inside," remarked one ticket buyer, as she surveyed the remaining construction materials outside the building, which was closed for renovations on May 15.

When a 7:50 p.m. showing of "Sullivan's Travels" was delayed 20 minutes, a line of more than 100 people formed outside the theater, stretching all the way to Church St.

But despite the crowds on Friday, White said that the Brattle has dwindled in popularity among undergraduates since its heyday in the 1960s, when students packed the theater during reading and exam periods for its traditional Humphrey Bogart film festivals.

"People don't see the Brattle as a student haven," White said. "We get a lot of faculty and staff, and lots of seniors eventually discover it and love it, but I hope the younger students will find us as well."

The Brattle, which first opened on January 27, 1890, was originally a stage theater, and was taken over in the 1940s by a group of Harvard students seeking an alternative to the mainstream campus theater community.

In 1953, one of those students, Cyrus I. Harvey '47, convinced the theater's owner at the time, Bryant Holiday, to convert the building into a cinema. As a movie house, the Brattle gained notoriety in 1955 by successfully challenging Massachusetts blue laws restricting films that could be shown on Sundays.

White said the theater hopes to recapture some of its past popularity among students this month with a special showing of a new print of "The Maltese Falcon," in which Bogart had one of his first major starring roles as hardboiled detective Sam Spade.

The original Bogart bashes, which began in the 1950s, quickly became a Harvard tradition and prompted imitations throughout the country. In a statement prepared for the theater's reopening, Harvey said he saw a deep significance in the popularity of the ritual event.

"Audiences chanting favorite lines from 'Casablanca' was in a small way akin to audiences present at theatres in ancient Greece," Harvey said.

The Brattle is one of a handful of revival movie houses remaining in the Boston area. Marianne Lampke, co-director of Running Arts, said that a number of other theaters had found it impossible to attract an audience, but added that she thought the Brattle would be able to buck the trend.

"Many repertory theaters closed during the 1980s," Lampke said. "It may have been because of home videos. People stopped going out to see movies" other than those on their first run. "Only a few cherished repertory theaters are still going."