Modern movie theaters bear little resemblance to the cinemas of the sixties and seventies. State-of-the-art megaplexes with immersive formats and digital projection define the cinematic experience today, but a chain of neighborhood theaters offering affordable, family-friendly fare once stood at the industry’s forefront. Two hundred Jerry Lewis Cinemas operated during the company’s brief peak, and one of them was in Greenfield, Indiana.
I wouldn’t be shocked if I’m the only millennial who can identify a picture of Jerry Lewis. Though best known for his slapstick humor and devotion to humanitarian causes, the comedian was also an outspoken critic of what he perceived to be the immorality of Hollywood1. In the late 1960s, he joined forces with Network Cinema Corporation to change things.
The partnership hoped the Jerry Lewis Cinema concept would address what Lewis thought was rampant depravity in the film industry while simplifying the process of owning a theater. Traditional movie houses were expensive and required substantial overhead to operate, but running a Jerry Lewis “mini-cinema” only required a down payment of $10- to $15,000! “If you can press a button and meet our investment requirements,” advertisements promised, “you can own one or a chain of Jerry Lewis Cinemas2!”
The company’s sales pitch assured prospective owners that two people could operate one of its cinemas thanks to its “efficient, technically advanced equipment” that was “superbly engineered for completely automatic, push-button operation3.” Furthermore, Network Cinema promised a complete training program for its licensees. They’d even choose and book each movie shown for the life of the franchise agreement4!
NCC’s insistence on deciding what films to show was based on the partnership’s desire to focus on “clean” movies. “We are not going to show any X-rated films,” James G. Sarbinoff, director of Central Indiana Jerry Lewis Cinema franchises proclaimed in 1970. “We are going back to family type entertainment5.”
They did. The first Jerry Lewis Cinema opened on March 25, 1970 in Wayne, New Jersey. The second, in East Meadow, Long Island, opened two months later with two auditoriums. “Jerry Lewis is NOT a figure-head in this program,” ads soliciting licensees exclaimed. “He IS a principal and one of the key figures in Network Cinema Corporation, and is involving himself personally in the promotion and management of the Jerry Lewis Cinemas6.”
Central Indiana’s first Jerry Lewis Cinema, a twin, opened in the Speedway Shopping Center on the west side of Indianapolis in 1970. Two more in Indianapolis, each with a single screen, opened shortly after at the Esquire Shopping Center on Pendleton Pike and at the Greenbriar Shopping Center on West 86th Street.
Groundbreaking ceremonies for Greenfield’s cinema were held at Northgate Shopping Center on November 9, 1970. J.G. Sarbinoff from the theater company and Greenfield Mayor Berry S. Hurley accompanied franchise owners H.J. Ricks and Allen Strahl. All had shovels at the ready7.
The $75,000 theater opened with an invitation-only champagne reception and dedication ceremony on September 2, 1971. There, Sarbinoff presented the cinema with a plaque that declared it to be wholesome. “We want to make movies a place where families can go for entertainment8,” he announced.
The new cinema measured 42×110 feet and sat 350 people. The single auditorium was decorated with red walls covered in coarse-weave cloth as the crowd was treated to a showing of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. Tickets cost 50-cents for kids and $1.25 for adults9.
Greenfield’s Jerry Lewis Cinema opened just as the concept started to boom. At the time, 154 theaters -single, twin, and triplex versions- were under construction10! At the company’s peak, NCC operated theaters in Greenfield, Frankfort, Highland, Indy, Lafayette, Mooresville, Peru, Portage, and Seymour!
A twelfth cinema in Kokomo was scheduled to open in 1973, but the company was in dire straits by then: moviegoers rebelled against the chain’s limited film selection and flocked to theaters that featured a greater variety of films. NCC relaxed its booking policy, but the company came under fire for skimping out on marketing support for its established franchisees11.
Jerry Lewis severed ties with the partnership in 1973. Kokomo’s theater eventually opened as Royal Cinema, but legitimate Jerry Lewis theaters were folding at an alarming rate. The concept’s biggest problem was structural: it turned out that running a theater wasn’t as easy as meeting initial investment requirements and pushing a button12!
Fortunately, Allen Strahl knew how to operate a movie theater: he’d rebranded Greenfield’s Jerry Lewis into the Northgate Cinema by 1978 and charged $2 for general admission seat and a dollar for kid’s ticket. Bargain seats on Wednesday and Thursday cost a buck apiece13.
Northgate thrived in Greenfield, but Jerry Lewis and National Cinema Corporation both filed for bankruptcy by 198014. To recover some capital, Lewis directed, co-wrote, and starred in one of the worst films of all time, Hardly Working. Unfortunately, many of his former franchisees were in the same boat after their theaters closed.
Greenfield’s old Jerry Lewis Cinema became a success story. As Northgate Cinema, the theater celebrated its twenty-fifth anniversary in 1996 with another showing of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory! It held on for two years after that despite the transformative consolidation of the movie theater industry. In 1998, the Stahl family opened Greenfield’s Legacy 6 on US-4015. The cinema last played Adam Sandler in The Waterboy on November 15, 1998.
Today, the old theater in Greenfield is home to a Fresenius Medical Care dialysis center today. Most of its peers are home to things like insurance offices, screen printing shops, and churches. They still feature the basic Jerry Lewis architecture if you look closely, but Greenfield’s is unique: twenty-five years after it closed, the building still features its movie poster frame!
The movie industry has undergone profound changes since the days of the failed Jerry Lewis Cinema concept. Although technological advancements, shifts in distribution and consumption, and a greater emphasis on immersive cinematic experiences have transformed our experiences at the movies, places like Greenfield’s old Jerry Lewis Cinema serve as a reminder of an earlier trip to the theater- so long as you’ve got a keen eye.
Sources Cited
1 Carpenter, D. (1970, November 10). Jerry Lewis Cinema Underway. The Greenfield Daily Reporter. p. 1.
2 Jerry Lewis invites you to join him in the most successful money making segment of the entertainment industry (1970, August 16). The Minneapolis Star Tribune. p. 52.
3 (See footnote 2).
4 First Jerry Lewis Cinema To Be Built at Hikes Point (1970, November 8). The Louisville Courier-Journal. p. 84.
5 Patrick, C. (1970, April 15). Mini-Theaters Next Thing Here. The Indianapolis Star. p. 32.
6 Join Jerry Lewis (1970, August 20). The Boston Globe. p. 35.
7 (See footnote 1).
8 New Lewis Theatre Opens (1971, September 2). The Greenfield Republican. p. 5.
9 (See footnote 8).
10 (See footnote 1).
11 Creighton, R. (2020, February 24). The Story Behind The Jerry Lewis Twin Cinema. KIX105.7. Web. Retrieved October 31, 2023.
12 Crouch, C. (2009, March 28). Fantasy & Failure With Jerry Lewis Cinemas. Cinelog. Web. Retrieved May 29, 2023.
13 For enjoyment go to Northgate (1978, February 3). The Greenfield Daily Reporter. p. 2.
14 (See footnote 12).
15 Brooks, S. (1998, November 20).Sneak Preview. He Greenfield Daily Reporter. p. 1.
I am not sure I had ever heard of Jerry Lewis theaters! Probably because there were none where I grew up. I do remember going to see The Cross And The Switchblade with some older cousins when my family went to visit relatives in Minnesota in the summer of 1972. I think Pat Boone may have starred in it, but that is all I remember about it – and I wonder now if it was playing at a Jerry Lewis theater.