Last weekend a couple of my friends and I decided to go to the Dundee Theatre—an old movie theater in Omaha that has been around since 1925 if the sign over the refreshments counter is to be believed. I just checked to see if the theater has a website, and it does. Here’s a blurb about the place from their website:
Behind the screen at the Dundee Theatre is a stage, dressing rooms, and the original gold curtains that once hung to the sides of live vaudeville acts who the theatre was originally built for in 1925. But during the depression of the 1930's it, like many stage theaters, was converted into a movie house for cost reasons.
I haven’t been to this particular theater since I was 13; that’s when my dad took me there to see The Gods Must Be Crazy in 1980. Don’t ask me why I remember any of that, but this place is probably one of the last in a dying bread. It’s old school and that makes it kind of cool. It shows independent movies on Friday and Saturdays. It shows classics (they are showing Sixteen Candles later this week) sporadically. And it shows various other oddball movies.
Oh, and it only has one theater. So, you don’t need to look at your ticket to figure out which theater to go into.
When you walk in, you feel like you are walking into your old high school auditorium. The seats are the old style—the kind that are cushy but aren’t high enough to have a headrest and they certainly don’t have a cup holder. Nearly ever seat in the place is held together with blue duct tape. There’s a huge red curtain hanging in front of the movie screen, much like high schools have in front of their stages—and it gets pulled back as the previews start. I haven’t seen that in a long, long time.
The previews featured independent films and a couple of them looked interesting. Interesting enough that I’d like to go back and see them when they come out.
We went to see The Wrestler, which appropriately is about a broken down professional wrestler who is just trying to get by after his best years are long since gone. The movie screen even “featured” a wide strip of visual static on the right side, but it seemed to add to the effect. Although, I have to say, it would bug me if it was there for every movie. But overall, I’m glad we went. It was real movie-going experience.
