by Erica Boni

These days we have the Prytania and the recently rekindled Joy. But in days gone by, going to a single-screen movie theatre merely required walking down the street. And now there's a book to prove it. On Thursday night, the Prytania theater hosts an event to celebrate the release There’s One In Your Neighborhood: The Lost Movie Theaters of New Orleans, a coffee table book two years in the making that reveals the details of hundreds of lost theaters throughout the city.

Rene Brunet, 91-year-old owner of The Prytania Theatre, worked along side urbanologist Jack Stewart and local publisher Arthur Hardy to put the project together.

Brunet grew up with the cinema. He was five when the industry of “talking pictures” was born and watched it take hold and change shape in New Orleans over the past several decades. His father, Rene Brunet senior opened the Imperial Theater in 1922 and when he died of a heart attack in 1946, Brunet junior was forced to drop out of college in order to take over the Imperial which then burned to the ground ten years later. This tragedy did not stop Brunet from rebuilding and continuing to reign over the motion picture scene in this city. Over the years he’s operated five local theaters including the Carver, The Clabon, The Gallo, The Circle, The Joy and Loew’s State Theater. 

READ: NoDef's Complete Interview with Rene Brunet

In the mid-1990s he purchased the Prytania. The last remaining single-screen theater in the city, originally build in 1915, would have otherwise been demolished. Brunet has since made a name for himself as the man in the signature movie tie who’se always posted up in the lobby cheerfully greeting movie-goers. Needless to say, Brunet is a film expert through and through. 

According to Brunet's son, Robert Brunet, who works at the theater as well, the book is broken down into chapters in accordance which each “lost” theater.

“There were over 300 some odd theaters that my dad recalls and pretty much 95 percent of them are gone now," he explained. The book is made up of recollections, including a section titled “Rene Remembers," in which he writes in a story telling style about his memories of the different theaters, whether its something crazy that happened while he was at the movies or a strange fact about the owner or the special attractions each place would use to get costumers in the seats.” 

Brunet witnessed the revolution of silent to talking films. He recalls pipe organists and orchestral accompaniment to silent films followed by sound systems that synchronized their audio with the pictures beginning in the mid 1920’s.

The event tonight takes place from 5pm until 10:30 and is an opportunity to look back to the golden age of cinema and its specific structure within the Crescent City. Entry is free and complimentary refreshments will be served. Shorts will be shown a long with a multitude of photographs of theaters past, newsreels from the 1940’s, New Orleans travelogues, 1950’s cartoons as well as a screening of the locally produced and recently re-mastered New Orleans classic, The Wacky World of Dr. Morgus. Plus, there will be a question and answer session with the authors and an opportunity to have your copy signed.