Opening the JEDI Floodgates
“Yes, ‘Star Wars’ mania has hit the Salt Lake Valley just as hard as the rest of the country, and the Luke & Leia groupies were out in abundance Tuesday and Wednesday, gearing up for the opening of ‘Return of the Jedi,’ the climactic film in George Lucas' central ‘Star Wars’ trilogy.”
As Deseret News critic Christopher Hicks put it, Return of the Jedi was “more than merely a movie” when it arrived in theaters 40 years ago, with no other film having ever caused “quite the ‘event’ status surrounding” it.
The Plitt Centre Theatre was the epicenter of Jedi commotion in downtown Salt Lake City, UT with fanatics having reportedly endured 14 hours of waiting on the street for the city’s first public showing at a minute past midnight on May 25th, 1983. From there, the movie started running seven times a day from 8am to 12:15am and was poised for prosperity.
Little did the “Luke & Leia groupies” know that with the onset of summer’s quickly rising temperatures, MOTHER NATURE had secretly begun deconstruction of record amounts of winter mountain snowfall that would soon turn metropolitan motorways into raging rivers.
One of these divergent waterways flowed down State Street, where the Centre had stood and welcomed moviegoers dating back to 1937. As the first Salt Lake City movie palace raised post-Depression, the Centre hosted first run engagements of big time films for 50 years, including a 54 week stint as one of the “original 32” for Star Wars in 1977 and 30 week stay for The Empire Strikes Back in 1980.
This large cartoon by Cal Grondahl depicting the hoopla at the Centre and populated by various local media personalities (as well as the SLC Police on speeder bike) headlined a full page Jedi spread from the “Living Today” section of the Deseret News.
Though the hype for Jedi’s Opening Day entrance to the Centre was astronomical much like everywhere else, its residency was interrupted only a week later by the aforementioned historic Salt Lake City flood of 1983.
Source: imgur
By the end of that Memorial Day weekend, a true crisis was mounting as various districts were inundated with melted snow from nearby canyons. With an alliance of citizens banding together to desperately sandbag the city, artificial rivers were formed to direct the overflow. The infamous “State Street River” was one of these semi-manufactured tributaries that passed right in front of Jedi at the Centre.
The natural disaster and its human response were well captured in photographs and video footage such as that viewable below.
Crowds gathering outside of the Centre on the evening of May 29th (whether to see Jedi, stack sandbags or both) can be seen at the 15 second mark.
Source: CinemaTreasures.org
Additional daytime footage shows the contrast between the rapid waters in their more raw state upstream and townsfolk getting back to business as usual while crossing temporary bridges or taking novelty photos atop the barriers. One young woman is shown gleefully snapping Polaroids downstream with the Centre’s Jedi marquee in the background.
By Friday June 3rd, the unbelievably wet change of scenery downtown and resulting decline in ticket sales led Plitt Theaters to uproot Jedi from the Centre.
Associated Press coverage of the flood noted that “R2D2, Luke Skywalker and a number of other visitors from a galaxy far, far away” were among those “evacuated because of flooding in Utah.”
It seems that Plitt officials were hopeful that the newly erected bridges and somewhat controlled, though still powerful State Street River spillway wouldn’t dissuade ardent Star Wars fans from heading downtown to see Jedi at the Centre. One parent recalled attending a showing with their 8 year old who was “excited to see it” but ended up having more fun playing in the water running through the streets. By the time they made it into the theater, the youngster’s feet were soaked but “he didn’t seem to mind.”
Sounds like a blast of an afternoon from the kid’s perspective, but I sympathize with the parents and city executives who didn’t want to be worrying about such things. With warnings issued, Jedi’s exodus ensued.
As the ad above announces, the 70mm print was moved temporarily to the Plitt-operated Regency Theater in the safer higher ground of the foothills.
Boxoffice magazine (November 13th, 1972) | Source: CinemaTreasures.org
Established in 1972, the Regency was a bit smaller in capacity and modern in design compared to the Centre. Its Dolby 6 Track Stereo equipped auditorium provided refuge for Jedi and its audiences for two weeks from June 3rd through 16th while the flood waters subsided.
As circumstances became less dire, Jedi festivities ramped up. The following ad for a "party" thrown by Eli's Records & Tapes at the Crossroads Plaza in downtown Salt Lake promised all kinds of sweet deals and meet-and-greet opportunities with "Darth Vadar" and Chewbacca on Saturday June 11th, 1983.
Jedi’s transfer to the Regency had actually bumped Return of the Du… err, Max Dugan Returns to the Crossroads Cinema (it’s unknown whether Marsha Mason, Jason Robards, Donald Sutherland and Matthew Broderick were subsequently scheduled for their own “Dugan” themed party appearances on another date). Dugan in turn ironically ousted Local Hero from the Crossroads, which featured none other than legendary Alliance local hero Wedge Antilles himself, Denis Lawson. Eli’s just missed an opportunity for some quality Dire Straits inspired Star Wars cross-promotion.
Jedi made a triumphant return to the Centre on Friday June 17th. The ads above are from various points in its resumed engagement that would go on for another 18 weeks, totaling in a combined run of 21 weeks with the brief Regency stopgap.
You may have noticed that most of the ads depicted thus far have listed the Century alongside the Centre. Known as the Century 5 at the time, the South Salt Lake dome complex with duplicate buildings across the street from one another was managed by Plitt’s regional competitor Syufy Luxury Theatres.
These ads ran when the Century was the solo Return of the Jedi gig in town.
The Century had been the only other theater in town with Jedi running through the projector and ultimately outlasted the Centre’s engagement over twofold with an impressive 43 week tenure. As far as Jedi goes, it was only topped nationwide by the UA Arden Fair’s 51 week marathon in Sacramento, CA.
Through all of the deluge, Salt Lake just wouldn’t let Jedi leave!
Special thanks to Michael Coate for his contributions to this post.
