A Landmark opening

Living organisms are pretty much wedded to the expansion-contraction cycle. The social organism known as the motion picture theater has found it a

natural rhythm since the era of the nickelodeon.

As the 20th century wound down, it was hard for movie lovers in the Washington area not to feel deprived. Familiar first-run houses such as the Fine Arts, MacArthur and, later, the Avalon closed their doors. The American Film Institute became a part-time operation at the Kennedy Center, awaiting last year’s renaissance at a gleaming three-auditorium multiplex in Silver Spring. The Georgetown magnets for art-house patrons, the Biograph and Key, also shuttered. That decline lingered until the opening of the Loews Georgetown multiplex.

For several years, rumors persisted that the Landmark Theatres chain, the top art-house circuit in the country, would take advantage of a patiently beckoning market in Washington. Audiences here have warmed to something a little different from the time that the old MacArthur served as a reliable port of call for the Ealing Studio comedies with Alec Guinness.

Two years ago the chain did come to town — the near Maryland suburbs to be precise — with an instantly successful multiplex, the Landmark Bethesda Row. Today it finally becomes a presence in downtown Washington with the E Street Cinema, a complex of eight auditoriums cleverly inserted into a sprawling basement area of the Lincoln Square Building at 555 11th St. NW. (The address is a trifle misleading, since the theater lobby entrance is on E Street, directly across from the ESPN Zone.)

Several finishing touches may not be in place when the doors open for business, notably a theater marquee. Parking arrangements with the landlord are also unresolved. The management had hoped to arrange for free parking in the Lincoln Square garage after 6 p.m., but the deal remains a work in progress. It is hoped that Metro connections will become the first resort of regular E Street moviegoers.

Seating capacity in the auditoriums, which share a long, long entrance corridor a floor below the lobby level, ranges from about 90 to about 200. The total seating capacity, 1,400 or so, is a bit smaller than Landmark Bethesda Row, whose customers should feel right at home, since E Street shares the same interior decorator, Brooks Graham.

All the projection and sound equipment is, of course, new and state-of-the-art. Like the American Film Institute Silver Theatre, the E Street also has digital projection capabilities, anticipating the day when 35 mm celluloid will fade into obsolescence.

The E Street showcase has been completed in time for the 30th anniversary of Landmark Theatres, which grew out of a single repertory house in Los Angeles, the Nuart, a restored art deco site of the 1930s. The original programming emphasis was repertory double bills that changed daily, making the Nuart a favorite resort of bargain-hunting university students and confirmed movie freaks.

Although the Landmark Bethesda Row is off the beaten track for me, I have heard little but praise from friends who patronize it regularly. The chain and the city would appear to be a swell match. The programming mix of independent domestic features, foreign-language imports, revivals and oddball obscurities echoes the fare that once prevailed at the Biograph and Key.

Landmark is prepared to do on a large scale what Visions Cinema has been doing on a relatively small one since being carved out of the old Loews Embassy on Florida Avenue. It remains to be seen if the proximity and novelty of E Street will prove a serious competitive burden for Visions. The revitalized Avalon, rescued from closure by a timely alliance of local movie lovers, may enjoy a safer distance while practicing a similar booking policy.

Landmark is the country’s largest art-house chain. The E Street Cinema brings its total holdings to 57 theaters with 204 screens in 18 markets. There are about three dozen larger chains in North America, but Landmark tends to thrive in locations that also boast a considerable college population and a flourishing night life: Seattle, the San Francisco Bay Area, Los Angeles, San Diego, Denver and Boulder, Austin and Dallas and Houston, Minneapolis, Chicago, New Orleans, Atlanta, Boston and recently Manhattan and Washington.

In 1989, Landmark became the property of Samuel Goldwyn Co., which specializes in independent production and distribution. While plans for expansion to Washington were under way, Landmark was owned by the Dallas-based Silver Cinemas chain.

The parent company is now a Texas corporation, 2929 Entertainment, owned by investors Todd Wagner and Mark Cuban. That’s the same Mark Cuban who has become a sporting fixture as the irrepressible owner of the Dallas Mavericks franchise in the National Basketball Association.

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