Interesting post about Capri I, II, III, and IV from cinematreasures dot org. Before the first Capri, it was The Pike Theater and expanded for the original Capri.
tntim on
June 17, 2014 at 8:04 am
Walter Morris who owned the original Capri Cinema, (former Pike Theatre), used the money from the sale of the Lenox,(former Tower Theatre) to build the first Cinerama Theatre in Knoxville. The new theatre was built on the west side of the Capri. Morris leased the Capri Cinema to the Simpson Operating Company who also leased the Lenox from Morris until TDOT took the land for the reconfiguration of Broadway. Simpson would also lease and operate the new Capri-70. At that point, Simpson was operating the Capri Cinema, Capri-70, and the Riviera which was downtown.
The Capri-70 opened on November 23, 1967 and had 709 seats. It is a Stran-Steel structure that measured 80’ wide x 160’ long and is 48’ high at the eves. The auditorium was designed to meet the specification of Cinerama with the screen 35’ high and 72’ across the front of the theater—it was curved, and if you stood down in the center, it was 21 feet into the screen. The lenses were special ground by Bausch & Lomb in California, just for that particular theatre. It was just as sharp from one side to the other and had six-track stereophonic sound.
The theatre was twined in 1985 with one side seating 500 and the other side 178. At this time the name was changed to the Capri Cinema III & IV.
On July 1, 1987 United Artists leased the theatre from the Simpson Operating Company. It then became a Regal theatre in January 1991 after the Regal/ UA merger. The entire Capri complex closed on September 29, 1992 after Regal and Simpson were unable to negotiate a new lease.
As Joe mentioned, this complex is hard to place in a category. Both Capri’s were freestanding buildings built side by side. They were not like todays multiplex which are single structures with two or more auditoriums inside. To make it even more complex, Simpson dropped the “70” from the name in December 1978 and the whole complex became simply the Capri Cinema. In 1993, the original Capri Cinema was demolished except for the rear 25% which is used for storage and the Capri-70 was completely gutted inside to accommodate the new art gallery.
So I guess there will always be a little confusion here on CT as to which theatre is which. Sorry Mike, “The Taming of the Shrew” and “A Shot in the Dark” both played prior to Nov. 1967 and should be posted on the Capri I & II page. I have also posted a newspaper article in the photo section.
