From Silent to Sound in Suffern
Professor Thaddeus Macgregor, wearing a top hat and psychedelic glasses, was playing the Theremin on the stage when I entered the old Lafayette theatre that cold, fateful October night. This seemed fitting since this early electrical hands-free instrument from the 1920s was used in many horror films of the time and the picture I was about to see was the silent version of The Hunchback of Notre Dame starring Lon Chaney. Consequently, Nelson Page, the manager of the theatre, was far from silent when we sat down in the lobby to talk.
In 2002, Robert Benmosche, a resident of Suffern and chairman of MetLife Insurance, announced that he would purchase and preserve the Lafayette theatre, thereby saving it from being multiplexed or worse. Repairs to the theatreʼs roof were made immediately to protect the valuable interior and Wurlitzer organ. Mr. Benmosche engaged Nelson Page, former American Theatre Organ Society National President and owner of the Galaxy Theatre Corporation, to operate the Lafayette as a combination arts center and movie theatre in one building. Mr. Page immediately went about refurbishing it, bringing it back to its luxurious pre-war style while investing it with standard and digital projection equipment as well as concession areas. Thereʼs even a carpeted sitting area in the menʼs bathroom complete with antique upholstered chairs and a freestanding 1930s General Electric wooden radio.
This classical style thousand seat movie palace, named for the Revolutionary War hero, the Marquis de Lafayette, was commissioned by the Suffern Amusement Company in 1921 and designed by noted theatre architect Eugene DeRosa. It opened its doors in 1924 with the silent film classic Scaramouche and flourished throughout the rest of the 1920s with live vaudeville shows and film presentations. In the ʻ30s, the projection equipment was updated to play Talking Pictures.
After the end of WWII and with the advent of television, movie-going habits changed. Equipment to handle 3-D films was installed in early 1953 and later that year, the Lafayette Theatre was the first theatre in Rockland County to install Cinemascope to show widescreen, stereophonic sound movies. The premiere engagement was the Biblical epic The Robe.
Architecturally, the theatre was primarily influenced by French and Italian Renaissance styles and subtlety mixed in a “Beaux Arts” style including a great crystal chandelier hanging from the center dome of the auditorium. Between the distinctive opera boxes along the sides of the walls and the Mighty Wurlitzer organ that plays a half hour before the first evening movie every weekend, the average citizen feels more like royalty than just a paying customer. I had to suppress an impulse to start speaking with an English accent the moment I walked in.
I was quickly ushered back into the 21st century when Mr. Page bellowed that he is a for-profit organization as opposed to a notfor- profit like the Jacob Burns film center in Westchester. “Iʼm here to entertain people,” he said. “I am not a place that people go to because they want to be seen like the Burns.” At the Lafayette, “the show starts at the sidewalk.”
Phil Tisi, the Ramapo town supervisor, confirmed the townʼs allegiance to the Lafayette Theatre. In fact, Ramapo has also helped to restore what was a crumbling old porno theatre into the Cultural Arts Center in Spring Valley as well. “Thatʼs two restorations in the same township,” he added. The town of Ramapo also sponsors the Big Screen Film Classics series at the Lafayette on Saturday mornings at 11:30 am, culminating with the fully restored version of It’s AWonderful Life on December 17. Special live performances and special events are offered in addition to the regular schedule of both first run and classic films.
Unfortunately, there are some factors that the township cannot help with. The Lafayetteʼs close proximity to New York City is one of them. When asked why the theatre does not do more live acts, Mr. Page replied that “he is too big for the small acts and too small for the big acts.” He went on to say that most people wonʼt pay a big ticket price to see a live act. They would rather drive into the city for that. Mr. Page is satisfied that heʼs done everything that heʼs wanted to do at this particular location, from a Bernie Williams concert to The Wizard of Oz to film shoots three or four times a year. Mr. Page, dubbed “The Showman,” does it all with just a three person theatre staff. “I donʼt have a fifteen million dollar endowment and Jonathan Demme on the board like the Jacob Burns. I know my audience,” he quipped.
Mr. Page, who lives in Ridgewood, N.J., has over 200,000 miles on his car between all the theatres he either owns or operates including the historic Paramount Theatre in Middletown, N.Y. The Lafayette, though, seems to be his pet project. Even in a rainstorm he was happily there to greet the seventy five people who showed up for the Hunchback screening. Even his house organist, Jeff Barker, drove down from Lake Placid to play the musical accompaniment to the Hunchback show which he entirely improvised right down to ringing the chimes on the organ at the same time that Lon Chaney rang the church bells on the screen.
This style of theatre and presentation promised an escape from the often economically difficult times of the 1930s into a type of fantasy world, where not only the movie but also the building aided the transfer. Itʼs nice to know that more than eighty seven years later, the theatre is still doing its job.