Thursday, June 10, 1999

The Last Picture Show

After 76 years, the Dondis family closes the Strand, Rocklands only cinema.
by Georgeanne Davis


After more than three-quarters of a century of single-family operation, Rocklands Strand Cinema is closing its doors. With a sudden decision that caught even his wife by surprise, theater owner Meredith Dondis announced that he would retire. The theater was damaged slightly on Saturday, June 5, by a fire that started in a butter melter for the popcorn machine, but cleanup was well under way by midweek and the fire was not the reason for his decision. Dondis said hed be considering the move for some time.

The closing of the last movie theater in Rockland is the end of an era for the Dondis family. Joseph and Ida Dondis, Merediths parents, built the Strand in 1923 and at one time Joseph also owned two other Strand Theaters in Maine one in Skowhegan and one in Calais. He and two partners built the Skowhegan theater, Dondis recalled, and it was the most beautiful theater in Maine. Those who attended the Maine Historic Preservation Societys conference at the Farnsworth Museum on May 20 saw a slide of the Skowhegan showplace during its heyday, when the marque lit up the whole block. When it was announced that the structure had been torn down in the 50s, there was a collective sigh from the audience over the loss of the glamorous relic.

Dondis has been closely associated with the family business since he first ushered in the Rockland Strand as a boy. He was also a manager at Rocklands other movie theater, the Park, located on Park Street near the present Rite Aid pharmacy. It was also a Paramount theater, he said, and it pooled its receipts with the Strands. The Park, which later became the Knox, went out in the 1960s, leaving the Strand as Rocklands lone dream palace.

Framed side by side in the Dondis home are two old ticket price lists. One shows matinee prices of 25 cents for adults and 10 cents for childrens tickets. Evening prices jumped to 35 cents for orchestra seats and 25 cents for those in the balcony. The list beside it shows the government exacting its dues; a three-cent U.S. tax raised the regular ticket price to 28 cents, 39 cents in the orchestra.

For that price, Merediths wife Essie reminds us, you really got a lot of entertainment. Unlike a night at todays cinema which gives the ticket buyer a single feature, possibly with previews, for a price tag of around five dollars, more or less in the 1940s and 50s your quarter would give you a double feature, along with a newsreel, a cartoon and previews of coming attractions. On Saturdays, a childrens matinee would often offer a double feature and a dozen or so cartoons. On Fridays and Saturdays, the cowboy movies were the most popular, Meredith Dondis remembers, but his personal favorite as a youngster was serials adventure films of only 15 or 20 minutes in length that would usually end with a heroine in distress. Itd end with someone trapped in an elevator or something, and you couldnt wait to know how things would turn out the next week. Meredith Dondis earliest memories of the Strand are of vaudeville acts coming to town, and he remembers the special attractions that lured the customers in during the Depression. Wed have Bank Night, with a raffle drawing for a money prize.

Dondis was owner of the Meredith Furniture Company on Rocklands Main Street when he took over the Strand in the 1980s. His mother, at 87, called and said, Im retiring. His dad had died in 1939 and shed run the business all those years, Essie Dondis said.

Ida Dondis was a formidable personality, her family recalled. In her later years, she had an automatic garage door opener installed that jammed one day and locked her in the garage. She threw the car in reverse and just backed out through the doors, her son recalled, smiling. For a few years, Dondis ran both the Strand and his furniture business, but finally sold the furniture company to Paul Arvidson in 1985.

One of the highlights of his years at the Strand was the time, around 10 years ago, when the theater held a world premiere of the film Power. The screenplay of the film was written by David Himmelstein, who is Dondis son- in-law. David had been a Neiman fellow at Harvard and was a reporter for the Portland Press Herald when he met my daughter, Dondis explained. Himmelstein changed careers after he won a screenplay writing contest with an original script called Talent for the Game, and he works and lives in Loss Angeles with his family.

Dondis hasnt begun to think about the eventual fate of the Strand, but he and his wife feel a small theater has more than one option these days. Essie believes that one route to remaining competitive with big cineplexes is to show foreign films or a better class of American film, citing Tea with Mussolini as an example of the latter. Youd be drawing a more sophisticated and discriminating crowd. They both believe that another possibility is the discount theater house, which charges $2.50 for all seats, all shows. Theaters like this, already operating successfully in Bangor and Orono, show films that have just left the first-run list, but are not yet out in video.

Dondis confesses that the decision to retire has made him feel sad, because hes loved his work over the years. I always liked th theater business it was a little more glamourous than the furniture business. When the customers came in they were ready to have a good time and I enjoyed talking to them. But hed like to have a little time to explore some new things in life, although his sudden decision hasnt given him much time to discover just what those things will be.

For now, his wife says theyll enjoy the novelty of not having to eat dinner at 4:30 in the afternoon in order to be ready for the early evening show at the Strand. Dondis threatens to join his wife on her trips to the supermarket, but, seeing the frown on her face, hastened to add, Thats a joke just a joke.