{"id":20,"date":"2008-08-27T10:49:10","date_gmt":"2008-08-27T10:49:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cinelog.org\/cinelog\/?p=20"},"modified":"2008-08-28T02:43:51","modified_gmt":"2008-08-28T02:43:51","slug":"the-worlds-first-free-standing-four-plex","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cinelog.org\/cinelog\/2008\/08\/27\/the-worlds-first-free-standing-four-plex\/","title":{"rendered":"The World’s First Free Standing Four Plex"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>\u00a0<\/span>This week\u00a0marks the\u00a0thirty-ninth anniversary of the world’s first free standing four-plex, the Fashion Square 4, in La Habra, CA<\/a>.\u00a0Built by AMC, the\u00a0venue was an early entry in the company’s emergence as a national powerhouse and a precursor to the\u00a0“mulit-plex era”.<\/p>\n

While\u00a0not having invented the\u00a0multi-plex (depending on your definition of “multi-plex”, that honor goes to either Nat Taylor’s\u00a0expansion of the Elgin Theatre in 1957 or Jame Edwards’ Alhambra\u00a0Theatre in 1939), AMC is generally recognized as having pioneered\/refined the concept. Allegedly, AMC’s Stanley Durwood\u00a0came up with the modern multi-plex, in 1962, while standing in\u00a0the empty lobby of\u00a0a theatre; noting what an inefficient business model the classic single screen theatre was.\u00a0A year later, Durwood expanded his Kansas City, MO. Parkway\u00a0Theatre\u00a0in to a twin, moving on to four and six plexes within a few years. By the time AMC opened the Fashion Square 4, plans were already underway for a twelve screen theatre in Cincinnati, OH.\u00a0Of course, this would ultimately lead up to the 20+ screen mega-plex era of the mid to late 90’s.\u00a0<\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/div>\n
Some might view the Fashion Square 4 as somewhat of a dubious milestone, as the theatre exemplified the industry’s movement in to a more homogenized, “mass consumption” direction. The decade that followed saw classic movie palaces either subdivide their\u00a0once grand auditoriums or\u00a0give way to the sterile,\u00a0“shoebox”, multi’s all together; the “big” theatre experience turned in to an assembly line of efficiency.\u00a0Yet, this milestone also marked a step in\u00a0the industry’s modernization, after having remained relatively unchanged for the better half of a century. For better or worse, the Fashion Square 4’s\u00a01969 grand opening helped to herald in a new\u00a0cinematic era.\u00a0<\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0This week\u00a0marks the\u00a0thirty-ninth anniversary of the world’s first free standing four-plex, the Fashion Square 4, in La Habra, CA.\u00a0Built by AMC, the\u00a0venue was an early entry in the company’s emergence as a national powerhouse and a precursor to the\u00a0“mulit-plex era”. While\u00a0not having invented the\u00a0multi-plex (depending on your definition of “multi-plex”, that honor goes to either […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,5,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-history","category-industry","category-theatre"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinelog.org\/cinelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinelog.org\/cinelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinelog.org\/cinelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinelog.org\/cinelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinelog.org\/cinelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cinelog.org\/cinelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinelog.org\/cinelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinelog.org\/cinelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinelog.org\/cinelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}