FILM FEATURE

Screen town: The refurbished auditorium further illuminates up-and-coming Ambler.

Cinema Paradiso

The Ambler gets a new look and becomes the best first-run theater in the region.

by Andrew Repasky McElhinney

While you wait for the long-promised replacement of the murderous seats at International House or for the reemergence of big-screen film at the Prince Music Theater, a trip just 16 miles outside the city to Ambler reveals the near impossible: a discerningly programmed triplex housed in a classic old movie theater.

The process took about as long as a Kubrick movie shoot, but after nearly five years the Ambler Theater finally opened the doors of its main 270-seat auditorium earlier this month.

It was worth the wait. A recent excursion to see Ang Lee’s lugubrious snoozefest Lust, Caution revealed posh stadium seating, glorious sound and sharp, efficient projection inside the main auditorium. Featuring a giant sloped screen that moves to accommodate live events and, in its flexibility, creates the best possible sightlines, the Ambler is now, along with the Colonial Theater of Phoenixville, the best first-run moviegoing experience around.

The Ambler is a not-for-profit, community-owned venture, a sister theater to the still emerging Bryn Mawr Film Institute and Doylestown mainstay the County Theater. A trip to the Ambler recalls the days when each neighborhood had a movie palace and the cinema was not only an escape but also the soul of the community.

Built in 1928, the theater has been updated with a restoration that’s sensitive to the decor of the original and also progressively modern in its gentrification of a house that’s been dark since the mid-’80s.

The Ambler hasn’t been slavishly restored to its original glory. Rather it’s enjoyed the type of chic utilitarian rehab dipped in classicism whose most prominent architectural models are those jewels of New York: Manhattan’s Landmark Sunshine Cinema and Brooklyn’s BAM Harvey Theater.

The architectural compromise of carving out two black box auditoriums from the original’s former rear, and modernizing the rear portion of the new main auditorium, won’t satisfy the most stalwart preservationists. But it does bring life to what was a dead theater.

The majestic return of the Ambler mirrors the evolution of the town itself. A down-and-out borough nearly crippled by an asbestos factory left abandoned in 1962, which had been polluting the region with vile toxins since the 1880s, Ambler has turned around in recent years. Once a blighted suburban skid row, it now boasts a refurbished R5 SEPTA train station, restaurants, cafes, one-of-a-kind stores and a young population seeking a return to small-town living.

The cozy small-town vibe is what’s most alluring about the theater. Cinephiles aren’t bombarded by advertising and endless infotainment prior to screenings. A repertory film series of classic pictures flourishes, but regrettably, its features play only in the smaller auditoriums.

The Ambler also offers movie history programs, creative booking, appearances by notable guest critics and filmmakers, and promises to become the mecca for movies northwest of the city.

According to Howard B. Haas, the leader of the tireless effort to save Philadelphia’s Boyd theater (also known as the Sameric), more than 95 percent of the nation’s historic movie houses have closed, and many of those remaining have been gutted.

“There are only a few movie houses in the entire Philadelphia region where you can walk in and enjoy an original ornate lobby and auditorium,” he says.

The restored Ambler Theater is the best of both worlds: old-school charm and state-of-the-art technical aptitude. It’s a new benchmark of quality that highlights the disappointing dearth of modern moviegoing options in Center City.