You And Me, We're Going Nowhere Slowly

The Big Street / Streets Of Fire
The Ambler Theater - Ambler, PA
Our friend Rob celebrated his 40th birthday with a 35mm double feature at The Ambler Theater.

This was my first time visiting The Ambler.  It's an absolutely gorgeous theater with a rich history.  It opened on New Years Eve 1928 as a Warner Bros theater.  It has been operated as a non-profit by its current owners since 2001 showing first run films digitally and vintage films on 35mm.

The first movie of the night was the 1942 Henry Fonda and Lucille Ball drama The Big Street.  I'd never heard of this one before, but it was pretty good.  Lucille Ball's character Gloria Lyons is a pretty horrible person in this story, but she's not the most vile character in the film.  That honor goes to Case Ables (played by Barton MacLane), who seems to get away scot free by the end of the film.  I don't want to say too much more at the risk of spoiling the plot for anyone who hasn't seen it, but it's a good story with some solid laughs throughout, and it will have you wondering what the hell is wrong with Henry Fonda's character that he puts up with so much.

 

The first movie of the night was on The Ambler's schedule, so it was open to the public.  I was pleasantly surprised to see that it was a full theater.  It's nice to see that folks in the area support vintage films on 35mm.

The second movie was a private screening for Rob and his guests, and the title was a surprise until it hit the screen.  The movie ended up being Walter Hill's 1984 neo-noir classic Streets Of Fire.  This played at a Tunnel Vision Tuesday screening at the Mahoning back in August 2022.  I missed out on seeing it that night, and I've regretted it ever since because the trailer that they played in the weeks leading up to that show made it look like it was incredible.

If anything, the trailer understated how excellent this movie is.  This was the first time that I'd ever seen it, and I was absolutely blown away.  I keep a list of movies that I've seen on Letterboxd, and if you ever check out my rankings, you might notice that I very rarely give a movie five out of five stars.  Streets Of Fire is absolutely a five star movie in my book.  If you haven't seen it before, I can't recommend strongly enough that you check it out.

And that's a wrap on our first trip to The Ambler.  Happy birthday, Rob, and thank you for inviting us to your birthday celebration!