Paver of Yellow Brick Roads

   Ted

The box office was a century old oak bank tellers cage

Bulthaup designed and converted an  empty 1870’s warehouse in downtown Indianapolis  to “Hollywood Bar & Filmworks”, an entirely new and still unique segment in the cinema industry.  Filmworks was the first theater anywhere to screen current first-run movies while offering a full dinner menu including beer, wine & cocktails  Filmworks was in the old warehouse district which also included the now largely unused train station in the Southern portion of what was labelled “The Mile Square”. Square”. This is the geographic center and once upon a time the activity hub of the City.  (Not anymore).

The entire forty-eight-foot-wide, three -story tall building with very high ceilings was built to accommodate off-loaded freight from the cargo trains as they arrived.  Four by eighteen-inch thick native Indiana oak beams spanned the 24 feet from each side to a center bearing wall which bisected the building roof to basement. The masonry was also local, produced at a local brick factory that coincidentally was owned by Bulthaup’s great, great, grandfather.

Opening in October 1991, the two-screen Filmworks was the first new movie theater to open in downtown Indianapolis for over 60 years, and there hadn’t been an operating downtown cinema in over two decades. 

Filmworks opening came at a time when there were no downtown residential buildings. Filmworks was the only food operation open seven days a week, one of the very few businesses open evenings, and only business of any kind to be open on Sunday night. Bulthaup started with just two auditoriums on the North half of top floor, the South half          was the entry point with lobbies, a bar and the kitchen.  

Upon opening, Bulthaup soon found suburbanites stayed there in droves, did not care        to travel all the way downtown to watch the same movies already playing in their neighborhood multiplexes, so he had to energetically sell this radically different experience quickly, or die trying.  His American Express Card was very handy. Thankfully the theater was breaking even within four months.

The elevator opened into the “technicolor” lobby where patrons strolled down an actual Yellow Brick Road.  It was likely the original tenant who abandoned the huge cast-iron  bank safe weighing thousands of pounds at the end of the new yellow brick road (there         is an Emerald City).  At times the lines went down three flights of stairs and down the sidewaik          

If the safe went anywhere it would have been straight through three floors to the basement.

Bulthaup happened to know a commercial antique dealer who had a hundred-year-old walnut bank tellers cage and given the iron safe - a box office was born.  Bulthaup naturally used very large movie posters from the classic films “Bonnie & Clyde” and “Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid” to cover the surrounding walls. The ceiling itself was hung with giant kernels of popcorn and a three-foot-tall popcorn box, film reels of all sizes, a broom-mounted witch with a few flying monkeys, and a huge Millennium Falcon ala Star Wars zipping by. There was a large center planter containing a three-tiered iron water fountain, some scraggly vegetation catching light from three 14ft tall arched windows, and a warning sign for our ticket-buyers, “HAUNTED FOREST.  Witches Castle One Mile. I’d turn back if    I were you”.  

Thankfully the theater attracted brave patrons, they “carried on” down the 50ft long hall of animation. This was the theaters tribute to animated movies with a mosaic of various sizes of animation art, printed cells and a few classic cartoon posters covering the walls - all under glass.  That hallway emptied into the Art Deco styled “Holding Lobby” where patrons could relax and enjoy the bar.

While the box office lobby was technicolor, the holding lobby walls, décor and furnishings were strictly black & white. Bulthaup had enlargements of black & white stills and scenes from old classic films made, no color, which gave this room a feeling of true elegence.         

Overstuffed black leather couches on raised platforms lined the walls overlooking the bar.  Bulthaup had the brass railing topped with drive-in theater speakers he had brass plated.     A Warner Bros friend was kind enough to obtain a copy of the blue prints used to build Bogart’s bar in the classic film “Casablanca”. Bulthaup built it.   A “Yoda” was placed at        the usher stand as guard to the entrances of the auditoriums. 

Bulthaup always uses different color schemes and decorative themes to differentiate each auditorium, not the same generic blah found in traditional multiplexes since the 1940's Yuk.  The thick plush carpets, the long counters on the front edge of each terrace level, the vinyl table coverings on the rounds, the ribbed sound-absorbent wall  carpets all follow that rooms base color.  

The red auditorium to the left of the usher sat 170 patrons, the blue auditorium on the right sat 130.  Several years later  Bulthaup broke through the wall behind the usher stand and built a stairway down to the second floor of the building where he built a 64-seat purple auditorium with its own separate lobby and bar.  “Six-sheet” movie posters measuring almost 8 feet square haven’t been produced by studios since the depression and are            pretty rare – Bulthaup found some of these vintage posters from collectors and used            one on each side wall towards the front of each auditorium as the finishing touch.

At that time in cinema history there was no such thing as advance ticket sales or reserved seats.  Many people were driving all the way downtown from the suburbs and it soon became a problem when the box office had turn people away for lack of seats after making that trip.  This situation would obviously hurt attendance over the long run.  A plan was developed where only tickets could be reserved not specific seats.

Those reservations were taken by phone and the box office always suggested patrons arrive 40 minutes prior to showtime in order to enjoy the widest selection of seats, which were available only on a first come – first served basis unless the party contained 6 or  more customers who enjoyed designated seating so they could all sit together. Ticket reservations were only valid until 15 minutes prior to showtime.  This helped insure every available seat would be occupied – and in general, patrons arrived so early bar sales would always be outstanding.

Two of the last living Munckins,           Mienhardt Rabbe and Mickey              Carrol, making one of their                   annual appearances at the                 theaters, through the                              animation hallway just                        past the haunted forest.

Yoda

Giant Millineum Falcon from Lucasfilm zipping through the lobby,            notice the full-size ET behind the box office on top of a 150 year old safe, was the last one Spielberg had in his warehouse so was happy to get! 

AUDITORIUM ENTRANCES:  Bulthaup had a pair of wood office doors covered with gloss black laminate, then had profiles of the Maltese Falcon from the classic film's title card deeply etteched into the glass centers, bordered with art deco patterns and flourishes. 

Bulthaup' teenage experience framing houses gave him the ability to build the bar, projetcion booth and terrace levels for the auditoriums. 

Skylights allowed for a startling change of mood from afternoons, evenings to night given the black & white photos on grey walls, grey slate tiles, and grey-based carpet that was all very elegant.  Kitchen through back wall, the brick arch on the left were the display case for the Hollywood T-shirts sold at the box office.

Eighteen foot wide mirror over the well-stocked backbar.  Love to use etched glass and art deco letters.

Another view of the bar Bulthaup built using the prints Warner Bros provided of Bogart's bar from the classic film Casablanca.  Found lamps with silk shades very close to what was in the movie.

E.T.

Framing the bar, projection booth and the raised terrace levels for the red auditorium pouring concrete in some spaces. 

Yoda guarded the usher stand   entry to the three auditoriums

​The Red Auditorium sat        184 frequent moviegoers 

One of the last living Munchkins, Margaret Pelligrini, making one of her personal appearances at the theater.  Photos while in front of a special mural on our Yellow Brick Road were keepsakes            for a lifetime​.

Entryway with actual Yellow Brick Road from the elevator to the box office, witchy lampost with directional signs pointing to the Emerald City, Munckinland, etc.  The arched mural is the emergency exit door from from the Red Auditorium, notice the face of the elevator with the doorkeeper "Go Away, Come Back Tomorrow".  Bulthaup always spent Christmas Eve repainting the Yellow Brick Road with fresh epoxy.

The private bar and special lobby on the second floor was nestled under the stairs. Entry to the purple auditorium is through the glass doors on the left.