Annoyed when you shell out big bucks to see the latest blockbuster at the local multiplex only to sit through a bunch of commercials? You might want to check out your local Bow Tie Cinema. “We don”™t show commercials of any kind in our theaters,” said Ben Moss of the Ridgefield-based 115-screen, 15-theater chain. “We believe commercials are antithetical to returning style and elegance to the movie-going experience.”
The Bow Tie goal, Moss said, is to turn the movie-going clock back to his grandfather”™s and great-grandfather”™s “much more elegant, service-oriented, pleasurable experience. We think going to many modern multiplex cinemas is analogous to going to a crowded airport on a holiday weekend. We refer to ourselves internally as the anti-mall experience.”
Moss is not just speaking in generalities when he talks about his grandfather and great-grandfather. In fact, he”™s the fourth generation of the Moss family to be in the movie business, stretching back to the early 1900s and nickelodeons and vaudeville. That”™s when great-grandfather, B. S. Moss, gave up sponging ”“ taking live sponges from the ocean and preparing them for use in the woolen goods industry ”“ and went into the nickelodeon business in New York City.
That career path out of the garment district and into theater wasn”™t all that unusual at the turn of the last century, said Ben”™s father, Charles “Charley” Moss Jr. “Adolph Zucker of Paramount Pictures, the Warner family, William Fox of 20th Century Fox and Samuel Goldwyn all came out of the garment industry,” Charley Moss said. “I suspect he developed relationships with these people and as they went into the entertainment business, he did as well.”
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Cult classic
Nickelodeons, said Charley Moss, were free-standing machines that a person put a nickel in, then turned a handle to watch a series of photographs flipping over ”“ similar to flipping over a rolodex ”“ to create the illusion of motion. B.S. Moss, who had immigrated to the United States from Austria in 1900 when he was 25, moved with the fledgling industry from nickelodeons to storefront movie theaters that were also called nickelodeons, “then segued into ownership of vaudeville theaters,” Charley said.
Those vaudeville houses with names like The Jefferson and The Hamilton ”“ “He was very grateful to America, and named a lot of his theaters after past presidents or major figures in American history,” Charley said ”“ don”™t exist any more, even though some lasted into the early 1940s.
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As vaudeville was phasing out, “he and my father, Charles B. Moss Sr., adapted to the times and converted vaudeville theaters to movie theaters or built new ones,” Charley said. After B.S Moss died in 1952, Charles Sr. remained in the entertainment business, running movie theaters and producing radio and television shows. “I went to work with him in the early 70s in the movie business,” Charley said. They produced three low-budget feature films, including “Let”™s Scare Jessica to Death,” which was released by Paramount in 1971 and has become something of a cult classic.
Charley”™s dad died in 1979, “then Ben and I began to work together eight or nine years ago,” Ben focusing on the movie house chain, Charley on Bow Tie”™s real estate business, called Bow Tie Partners. “We do adaptive reuse real estate development, which is a fancy way of saying we find older buildings of architectural significance and then add value to them,” he said.
One example is the 1938 former headquarters of the United Illuminating Company in New Haven, which they transformed into 44 luxury rental apartments and a nine-screen first-run art theater. “They”™re hard to find,” Charley said of such buildings. “Once we started doing it, it became a passion for Ben and me, particularly if they”™re downtown, because we believe in the rebirth of downtowns in the Untied States.”
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Fifth generation
Bow Tie Cinema looks for older movie houses to spiff up, much like Bow Tie Partners looks for older structures to recycle. “We have a mix across the board,” Ben said. “Several we have built ourselves, a number we have purchased from other companies.” A year ago, for example, Bow Tie bought 10 movie theaters in Connecticut and two in Maryland from Crown Theaters in Chicago. “The oldest is the New Canaan Playhouse, which was built as a single-screen theater and at some point was turned into two theaters.”
The Playhouse and the Greenwich Plaza theater “are scheduled to undergo a fairly significant renovation beginning the first part of next year,” Ben said. “We”™re going to substantially upgrade the level of finishes inside both, from all the coverings to seating upgrades and replacing older components of concession stands.”
Bow Tie”™s other Fairfield County theaters are the Greenwich Plaza, South Norwalk Regent, Stamford Landmark and the Stamford Majestic, the Trumbull Marquis, the Westport Royale and the Wilton 4 in Wilton.
Most of the Bow Tie theaters have multiple screens because “in general, it”™s difficult to sustain any business model with a single screen, and the distribution pattern of films is such that it”™s necessary to play multiple films at the same time,” Ben said. “The biggest movies of the summer were all playing roughly at the same time, so a single-screen theater would have to choose one of those to play and miss out on playing the others simultaneously.”
“There are a lot of options available in the marketplace and at any single time you want to offer your customers as many options as you can,” he said. For Bow Tie customers, one option is returning to a century-old style and elegance, and eliminating commercials.
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Those annoying commercials may be antithetical to style and elegance, by the way, but they do provide “significant economic benefits” for other theater chains, Ben said. “We gave that up to provide a greater degree of repeat business and loyalty,” he said. “We have nothing on the screen before the show starts. Instead, jazz standards are playing in the background.”
The no-commercial theaters even go several steps further to lure repeat business. “We place a very heavy emphasis on service and the interaction our staff has with our customers,” he said. “We have a very specialized training program the staff goes through so they interact in a positive way with our guests.” And the movie houses themselves reflect something lost at the cineplexes. “They are very comfortable environments,” he said. “Even the larger theaters have intimate environments.”
As for the future, “we”™re into the fifth generation now,” Ben said. “I have an 11-week-old son. He”™s not yet expressed a desire to be in the business, but we”™re hoping he will.”
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