Farewell, Mohair: Cinerama Putting Asses in Plush New Seats
It's no secret that Seattlest, like every right-thinking film fan in this town, loves the Cinerama. (Most recent visit: the restored print of The Godfather a couple of weekends ago.)
While on the Cinerama site, we noticed that the venue was going to close down for a few weeks after hosting the 2008 Seattle Lesbian & Gay Film Festival.
Why? To install "fabulous new seats and twinkly ceiling stars." While that certainly sounded alluring, we contacted the Cinerama to find out more details. David Postman responded:
The seats that are leaving are the 800 original Cinerama seats. They were there on opening day in 1964. When Paul Allen saved the theater the seats were reupholstered in really nice mohair. But they were old, the springs were starting to go, and we could not get replacement parts. It’s fair to say that as they got older, the seats were not adding to a true Cinerama-class experience.That's great news for our friend who complains of back pain after every Cinerama screening he attends.The seats are being replaced with new ones that will look similar to the older ones. Most of the seats that now rock will rock again when the theater reopens. We don’t yet know exactly how many seats will be in the theater when it reopens, but it will be very close to the original 800.
One other thing we found out: the Cinerama gave away their old seats, but we missed our chance to get one. Happily, they went to good homes, such as MOHAI, SIFF, and the Historic Orchard Theater in Port Orchard. (Vulcan paid to ship 250 seats to the art house theater. Kudos!)
Your own seat can enjoy their plush new accommodations starting November 14, when the awesome-looking (though probably not twinkly) Quantum of Solace opens.
Thanks for the Cinerama shot, M.V. Jantzen
