Director Ian Judge is proud of the history and continuing legacy of the historic Somerville Theatre. — Photo by Jack Adams

By Jack Adams

From this past January and through May 11, the Somerville Theatre is celebrating its 100-year anniversary with 100 days of movies, events and even a little vaudeville.

After it first opened May 11, 1914, the Somerville Theatre played mostly vaudeville and plays, as they appealed to those who came to Somerville, which at the time was a shopping destination. What it plays has evolved to reflect Somerville, which Director Ian Judge said has helped it stay alive.

“All of the changes we make reflect the community around us, and I think that’s how we’ve remained relevant, remained part of the fabric of Somerville,” Judge said. “The city got funkier in the last quarter century, and our programming has had to get funky, too, and it has to appeal to lives around here. We’ve always kind of been able to roll with the punches.”

In the past 10 years, Judge said the theater has been doing markedly better. It began serving beer and wine in 2007, which has helped pay for millions of dollars worth of renovations, especially to the antique original theater.

Despite adding digital projectors to each theater, it has kept its old projectors and three projectionists to operate them, allowing the theatre to play reel film.

“Most of the stuff we’re playing for our centennial is archival film. It has to be run reel to reel the old-fashioned way,” Judge said. “We can get film from archives — the Library of Congress — that normally wouldn’t lend out a film to a regular movie theater because they’d probably destroy it. They trust us; we have a good projectionist.”

The Somerville Theatre is screening The Wizard of Oz May 11.

“I picked The Wizard of Oz for the actual centennial because I thought it was the most appropriate thing to celebrate. It crosses generations and it’s timeless, which is kind of what we’re going for here,” Judge said.

Accompanying The Wizard of Oz screening will be vaudeville and novelty shows, as well as a pit orchestra.

Judge said he thinks contemporary movie theaters lack the magic they used to have.

“[The centennial] is going to celebrate the experience as magical, which is what we want people to have here. I think that’s what’s missing about going to the movies a lot of the time these days: To younger kids, it’s not as magical as it was to me or to my parents or people who are older because the large chains have taken the magic out of the movies to a certain degree. I think when you take a little kid into a theatre like this — it’s majestic and big and the curtains pull down — it does influence them; they’re going to remember it. It’s something that will make them think, “Wow! Movies are cool. Movies are magic,” Judge said.

He made the final decisions on what would play during the centennial with the assistance of his head projectionist, David Cornfeld. There were a couple of films Judge said he wished he could have shown, specifically Gone with the Wind and Ghostbusters, but he couldn’t get copies of for various reasons.

Of all the movies playing during the centennial (Judge said he likes them all), he is especially fond of Sunset Boulevard, 1000 Clowns, and The Wizard of Oz. He said the only time he has seen 1000 Clowns before the upcoming screening was on a bootleg Japanese DVD.

Judge said the centennial has been very successful so far, actually out-grossing the other films currently playing at the theatre such as 300: Rise of an Empire.