Brattle Theatre Changes Hands

On Friday, the Brattle Movie Theatre passed into the hands of two new owners. Ivy Moylan and Ned Hinkle are the third set to own the historic building in its current incarnation as a cinema.

The transfer in ownership will not mean a change to the theater's mission to showcase hard-to-find independent and classic films.

The two new owners--previously the theatre's projectionist and office manager, respectively--have no plans to alter the program of this historic site that has gone from debutante hall to playhouse to cinema in its one hundred and eleven year history.

The history includes repeated and unusual intersections with the lives of Harvard students and Cambridge residents, many of whom were afraid the sale might mean a change to the Brattle's character.

"I heard the deal had gone through and the Brattle had been sold and got

into a panic that the building would turn into something else or go into a

very different direction," says John Gianvito, Associate Curator of the Harvard Film Archive.

Moylan and Hinkle take over the Brattle from Connie White and Marianne Lampke who have owned the theater since 1986. The former owners were also theater insiders, who sold popcorn and collected tickets as graduate school students. Fifteen years into the business, they decided it was time to pursue other projects. The time was right for White and Lamke's employees.

"We look forward to continuing in the same traditions that have been going on here for years and years, showing classic films and new films from around the world," Hinkle says.

The only real change to the theater will be its transfer to non-profit status which he hopes will free the theater from strict reliance on ticket sales.

"[Non-profit status] will allow us to offer more adventerous programming and take more chances with the films, we show without worrying about the bottom line," he says.

He hopes this means the Brattle will continue be known familiarly as "Boston's unofficial film school."

And for Boston Phoenix film critic Gerald Perry, also a Cambridge resident, the Brattle will remain a source of pride.

"I brag about [the Brattle] when I go to other theaters. It's a repertory house where you can still really see fourteen different movies in one week," he says.

Debutantes and T.S. Eliot

In 1890, a building was constructed on Brattle Street to provide young men and women with morally-sound entertainment as organized by the Cambridge Social Union. Brattle Hall became the home to chaste dances and amateur theater productions.

A series of dances, known as "The Brattle Halls" presented Cambridge debutantes to society.

Community theater often showcased Harvard students, including the young T.S. Eliot '14 who appeared as Lord Bantock in The New Lady Bantock; or, Fanny and the Servant Problem. Paul Robeson, appeared at the Brattle in his premiere performance of Othello in 1942.

Like the A.R.T. today, Brattle Hall was also home to Harvard student theater. And in 1946, a small advertisement was placed by Jerome Kilty '51 in The Harvard Crimson. "Any veteran who would like to start a new theater group come to see me at Eliot House, C31."

The ad, placed by Kilty to create an alternative to the "exessively clubby" Harvard dramatic societies, resulted in the Brattle Theater Company which propelled Brattle Hall into its dramatical heyday.

Jessica Tandy, Zero Mostel and Sara Algood all appeared during the 1940s and 50s on the Brattle stage, which showcased plays from Shakespeare to Chekhov in the Queen Anne-style shingled house.

But in 1952, the theater company folded and the Brattle began the move toward film.

Sunday Movies

When the rest of the country's theaters were showing Peter Pan in 1953, eighty cent admission at the Brattle Theatre bought a seat at the German film, Captain from Kopenik.

Like all Massachusetts theaters, though, the Brattle closed on Sundays, subject to a 'blue law' that prohibited the screening of films on the Sabbath.

But the decision to showMiss Julie on a Sunday, brought the Brattle to the Massachusetts Supreme Court, which eventually ruled in favor of the theater in 1955. From then on, state commissioners would no longer be able to ban Sunday movie screenings.

A time-honored tradition among Harvard alums of the 50s through 70s was the Bogart Film Festival which ran during Harvard reading period.

"Students set aside their studies and would watch Bogart films," says White.

The festival inspired a nation-wide cult among college students, who would shout "I want my Bogie" in cinemas across the countries.

The phenomenon was even covered by Newsweek in the sixties.

"It was a Harvard activity and was nationally known that Harvard had a Bogart revival," says White."And it started all at Harvard."

"My most vivid memory [at the Brattle] is standing up to sing when Victor Laslow conducts the orchestra at Ricks in the 'Marseilles' [in Casablanca]," says Dr. Thomas S.

Klitzner '70.

Today, in the age where nearly every Harvard dorm suite has some form of DVD or home video system, it's almost surprising to some that the theater

continues to stay alive, says Gianvito. The theater continues to use a projection system modeled after the one used in 1953. Unlike at most movie theaters where the projector beams from the back of the theater, the Brattle's projection booth operates from behind the screen. The system is one of the last of its kind in the country.

Academic Flimophiles

Phoenix critic Peary faults Harvard students for not appreciating the merits of the historic theater's programming.

"I think most Harvard students have the same taste of people who go to the

mall," says Peary, who at one point wanted to get married in the Brattle. "People like the feel-good Hollywood movies."

Nonetheless, the Brattle, according to Peary, is lucky to be in an educated environment where people appreciate classic and indepent film.

" In many places a theater like that would drop dead," Peary says. "You have to have the demographic and I'm hoping the new [owners] will stretch the programming and build an audience."

Despite Peary's belief that Harvard students do not appreciate the Brattle's selection, the theater's patrons have been and continue to be mostly students, according to its new owners.

"The most telling evidence that the students are a big part of the audience is that you can tell when vacation comes. The audience has decrease and it's a natural place for students to come because we are showing stuff on the cutting edge and it's simply a comfy place to be," Hinkle says.