![]() Interesting that the grand opening ad mentions “Song of Norway” being presented in 70MM and stereo. One hasn’t lived until they’ve stood in a long line populated with “A Clockwork Orange” and “Dawn of the Dead” fans. I know now that’s what they needed to do to keep the place solvent, but it was a nice coincidence to have those movies readily available. The Ultravision fed my moviegoing habit from ages 9 to 24, supplying kiddie/summer matinees (often MGM and Selznick library classics) early on and later introducing me to the midnight movie movement. In particular, Pompano lost their lock on Disney product, and changed their policy to allow R-rated films. The Gold Coast Drive In (a couple blocks south) and GCC’s Pompano Cinema (2 ½ miles south) certainly weren’t celebrating that day. Thanks for locating that grand opening ad, Mike. :) The only thing that survived of the Gold Coast was a line of those tall pine trees that were left untouched, which may still survive even today. We were so effective in demolishing cinderblocks and insulation panels that the Deerfield Police Department had to post an officer there through the night to prevent the deconstruction havoc we wreaked every evening. ![]() Tore it down to build the Winn-Dixie shopping center, we were so mad that they were destroying our hangout, several of us would go into the construction site every night with sledge hammers and axes to destroy what the construction workers had built each day. It used to be the spot local kids would go to hide from the Deerfield cops when we skipped school. We built tree forts in the Australian pines, and ransacked the old buildings, nothing but bags of paper cups and popcorn butter mix left behind. It closed down in the 70s and became a hangout for kids before they tore it down. I remembered the Gold Coast drive-in as well, used to see Cheech and Chong movies there. I was sad when it closed and was converted into a church. Later when I was a teenager it became the place to go see midnight movies, like The Rocky Horror Picture Show, and hang out in the parking lot. The first time I took the girl to the movies, in middle school, was at the Ultravision, Smokey and the Bandit 1977. ![]() Four huge speakers with with something like 20 inch woofers mounted high on the walls on each side of the theater. :) It also had one of the best sound systems of any theater I’ve ever been in. The theater was so big and so dark that all I had to do was hunker down in the seat in between showings and the ushers would never see me. I would go in for the matinee in the afternoon and stay through three or four viewings. I saw many great movies there, like Blade Runner and Raiders of the Lost Ark, both of which I watched over 30 times in that theater. It was a fantastic theater with the biggest most comfortable seats I’d ever experienced in a movie theater up to that point. I grew up in Deerfield Beach in the late 70s, and the Ultravision was the best thing about that town, next to the beach. I haven’t been able to positively identify Murphy, but it’s possible that he was Bill Jackson Murphy, a founder of BMS Associates, a Columbus, Georgia, firm that, according to Murphy’s obituary designed numerous theaters for “…Martin Theaters, Fuqua, United Artists, Carmike Cinema and Southern Theaters….” in the southeast and Texas. The Deerfield Beach UltraVision was based on McGehee’s original plans, as was Florida State Theatres first UltraVision house, the single screen Springs Theatre in Ocala, Florida, which was completed only a few months before the Deerfield Beach project.Ī Boxoffice article about the Ocala project said that McGehee’s plans were adapted for Florida State Theatres by an architect named Bill Murphy, so it sems likely that he was also involved in the Deerfield Beach project. The prototype UltraVison Theatre in Charleston, South Carolina, was developed by ABC-Paramount affiliate Wilby-Kincy and designed by architect William Bringhurst McGehee of the firm Six Associates.
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