The Pitt Cinema, corner Elysian Fields at Robert E. Lee in New Orleans, circa 1953
When I was coming of age in my hometown of New Orleans, making the transition from high school to college, and in that time when I was discovering the true power and artistry of cinema, I was most fortunate that there was a special place where my budding passion for movies could be properly nurtured and that was at an old neighborhood theater located near the Lakefront, a palace known as the Pitt Cinema.
The Pitt had existed at the corner of Elysian Fields and Robert E. Lee avenues since 1948. Owned and operated by T. A. Pittman (for whom the movie house was named, of course), the Pitt, and the other Pittman-owned theater, the Tiger (on Franklin Ave. a few miles further down from Lake Pontchartrain), presented first-run movies on single screens for over twenty five years until the rise of the multi-screen cinemas at the area shopping malls began cutting in on a diminishing market. The Tiger would undergo the weird metamorphosis from family theater to X-rated house and then to a church, but the Pitt went in a different direction when the balcony was converted into a smaller theater area and the operation leased to Lloyd Montruiel in 1977. For a time, the Pitt 1 & 2 still presented first-run Hollywood features, and in fact my first visit to the place was when it was showing the original Star Wars movie on its first re-release, when I took in Episode IV a bit more than a dozen times. It was where I first saw Monty Python's The Life Of Brian amid the firestorm of controversy arising from the Catholic Church and the decency brigade who duly protested the movie. But as the market changed and the Pitt could no longer compete with multi-screen operations like the Lakeside Cinemas, the Plaza Cinemas, and the Joy Theaters, Lloyd increasingly sought out the college market from the nearby University of New Orleans by screening old Hollywood classics, and thus did the Pitt undergo its regeneration into a repertory cinema. And in this incarnation, the Pitt became not just a movie house but my shrine and sanctuary through the next four years following my graduation from Holy Cross.
Lloyd's Pitt showed everything a movie goer and especially a genuine cinema buff could ask for: imports, Marx Brothers festivals, Bogart festivals, Woody Allen festivals, science fiction movies, art films, and sometimes some really weird features as well (like Andy Warhol's 3D Dracula and Frankenstein films and the Ralph Bakshi-animated Lord Of The Rings). The Pitt was where I first saw the second Mad Max movie, The Road Warrior (1981) with my local science fiction gang. That event wedded me to the place and I soon became a regular. After that, not a month went by when I didn't have the large schedule flyer on my fridge to keep track of what was coming up from week to week. It was the place where I first got to see classics like Casablanca, The Maltese Falcon, The Big Sleep, Gone With The Wind, Dr. Strangelove: Or How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Bomb, and Citizen Kane on the big screen. It was where I first saw foreign films like Kagemusha: The Shadow Warrior, Das Boöt and La Cage Aux Folles which then would have had a nearly impossible time getting onto the screens at the big mall cinemas because they weren't mainstream blockbusters. For that sort of fare, the Pitt and uptown's Prytania Theater were the only game in town in that era.
Lloyd himself was a prince of a man. He was, of course, in the business to make money just like anyone else. But Lloyd was also an impresario, with a genuine love of movies and of the crowds who trouped loyally to his two-screen palace every week. He charged $2 a feature and the prices on concessions were very reasonable. Many times I would go there and end up sticking around for a second and even third feature on that $2 ticket. Strictly speaking, you weren't supposed to do that, but Lloyd knew the regulars were guaranteed sales at the concession desk and would be back week after week after week, and you didn't think much about it. I of course was a familiar face at the Pitt, Lloyd and other guys working the place knew me well, and we often chatted with each other between features. The Pitt probably got around $300 from me alone during that period.
Even after thirty years, I can still remember the geography of the place almost down to the last detail, and likely with a little concentration I would even be able to faintly recall the sounds and smells that contributed to the Pitt's unique character. You entered the lobby just under the neon sign and past the box-office. The concessions were to your immediate left, the whole opposite wall from entrance to rear where the tiny bathrooms were secreted was lined with posters for the upcoming features, and the floor was done in black and white chequerboard tile. The cavernous number one theater extended half the length of the building and was lined from floor to ceiling in red curtain, while the converted balcony that was the cozier number two cinema was accessed via a winding staircase just behind the concession area and was also lined with red curtain along the walls. The seats were big and soft, and rocked with an easy motion. But the special feature of the lobby, situated just between the two double-entrance doorways, was a genuine and fully functional antique 1950s jukebox, which accentuated a sense that you were not just going to a picture show but moving back into a little unique world of its own when you bought your ticket and stepped through those doors. The Pitt was special. Oh, it was definitely special. The corner of the building on the side toward Robert E. Lee housed a Taco-Tico then (it used to be a pharmacy years before), though I think I only ever ate there once in the whole time I was a Pitt regular.
I practically lived at the Pitt on weekends. So many times I went along with our gang, with just a friend or two or a girl I was dating then, and often even went solo since I knew everybody behind the desks and the box office cage and half the time was as likely to run into somebody I knew who came along before or after the show I went for. But that wonderful era, which fully matured my love of cinema, came to a close after only a brief four years. In the end, Lloyd couldn't make a go of it, and the Pittman family kept losing money even long after they'd disposed of the Tiger, so they sold out to the Joy's Theater group. The Pitt was added to their local dollar-house empire, showing second-run Hollywood features for a buck apiece, and the place underwent a little internal butchering before it reopened. The number two cinema got cut up into two smaller screening rooms and ultimately the larger theater was itself divided to cram a total of four screens into the building. It was business, of course, and about the only way the place could remain even remotely competitive. I and a couple friends of mine went to the reincarnated Joy's Pitt quite often, since we could see the year's big features a lot more cheaply than at the main cinemas, and it was where I saw the New Orleans-based voodoo thriller Angel Heart (1987), but the soul of the place had been ripped out. It just wasn't the same. Eventually, the Joy's Pitt couldn't endure the vagaries of the shifting movie market, and it too would close. That was the end. The Pitt never reopened, and the building fell to the wrecking ball in 1995, to be replaced by a Walgreen's drug store.
I think I passed the site at Elysian Fields and Robert E. Lee once during the demolition. It was like attending the funeral of your favorite aunt. That wrecking ball was taking down not just a building but a distinct piece of my life. Even after its conversion into a dollar-house, the Pitt was still the center of my motion picture experience for over a decade, and in many ways this blog exists because of that long-ago cinematic Camelot that was my special place. But when the building was reduced to rubble, it left as big a hole in the fabric of my life as the vacated lot where the picture palace once stood. Movie going was never such a joyful or comfortable experience after that. Not after the Pitt closed forever.
