Thomas Crone
On Tuesday, the 20 or so employees of the Keller 8 Theater (aka the Keller Plaza 8, the Keller 8 Cinema, and the Keller 8 Cine) in South County were informed that the theater was going to show its last films only a day later. And it was yesterday afternoon, on Wednesday, December 19, that the public became aware of the imminent closure through a short Facebook post: “I’m sad to announce that today is the last day we will be open. We will be showing movies tonight if you want to stop in!”
As it turned out, not that many folks heeded the call, exclamation point, or no. After an afternoon of matinees, films starting during the 7 p.m. hour were screened, filmgoers trickling past Channel 11 reporter Jeff Bernthal who was stationed at the theater’s front door for live shots. With virtually no audience members, and just a skeleton crew on hand to serve them, the presentations within the 9 p.m. hour were simply unscreened. By any definition, the evening, and the run of this South County landmark, ended with something of an anti-climatic feel.
Lindsey Diel was one of the last crew members. As the Keller’s assistant general manager, she’d worked at the cinema for roughly nine years. Over that time, she’d learned the names (or at least the faces) of a lot of the theater’s regulars. She’d started seeing a lot fewer of them recently. In the past six months, she figures, attendance had been steadily eroding, despite the theater’s $4 tickets (reduced by a buck during matinee showings). The presence of a large “For Sale” sign on the outside of the building during that time frame, she thinks, may have contributed to a bit of the loss, the signage giving the impression of a dying, if not dead, business inside.
A mid-afternoon piece in yesterday’s St. Louis Post-Dispatch, meanwhile, quoted Lauren Diel, the GM, who was also on hand for the Keller’s swan song. "Unfortunately our rent is too high and we aren’t able to keep up with the payments here," she was quoted in the piece, via an email exchanged with the Post-Dispatch. Last night, she referred questions to the nearby Lindsey Diel, both of them reserved, quiet in tone, and seemingly a bit shaken by the sudden turn of events.
The Keller 8 had been run through yesterday’s final films by the tiny Earlann Theaters chain, which until earlier this year, had operated just the Keller 8 and the Rialto 6, in Macomb, Illinois. A web search of the Cinema Treasures website indicates that the Rialto underwent an ownership change earlier in 2018. (With user-generated content, the Cinema Treasures is well-meaning, interesting as all heck, but sometimes accuracy-challenged.)
At its own Cinema Treasures page, a contributor named Charles Van Bibber sketches out a short, choppy history of the Keller, writing that “Wehrenberg Theatres opened the Keller 8 Cine' on March 23, 1988 seating 2,586. Almost a twin to its sister theatre the Kenrick 8 Cine'. Located near the South County Mall with competition from four other theatres. The Keller really only did a big business when they played a blockbuster. Also a high dollar lease prevented Wehrenberg from making a large profit from the theatre. When the Wehrenberg chain chain pulled out, the Keller was closed in November 2000, and the theatre sat closed for many months. Sensible Cinemas negotiated a new lease and reopened the theaters as a bargain house and has been very successful with sell outs on the weekends.” (The lively comments section to the above argues some of Van Bibber’s points.)
Going into the theater yesterday, one could have imagined those livelier times. But recent years had taken a toll on the theater’s look and feel. The ticket booth, though still intact, hasn’t been used of late, with customers simply walking up to the concessions stand for tickets. A corner bar/lounge had been largely disassembled. The Wehrenberg-era carpet had even been removed from the lobby, giving that large room a strange, stark feel. The auditoriums, too, had seen better days. Though they were certainly passable for your $4 ticket, they couldn’t compete with the amenities of modern auditoriums. Visuals like bubbled ceiling tiles, occasional broken chairs covered by trash bags, and other, small indicators all suggested that times were tight in the second-run movie house game; that the Keller wasn’t able to keep up, even by the understandably more modest expectations of second-run houses.
Last night at 7:10 p.m., your narrator walked into the last showing of The Girl in the Spider’s Web, a taut, dark, suspenseful thriller. As the previews (of films that won’t play the Keller) screened, the audience swelled from one attendee all the way up to four, all of us singly taking up space near the back of the auditorium. As the credits concluded and the lights came on, a few folks from a neighboring theater also walked out, maybe a dozen people quietly marching across the uncarpeted floors, past the Diels, past Bernthal at the door, and then past the ticket booth. Inside it was a simple message: “That’s a Wrap / Thank You for the Many Great Years / The Keller 8 Staff.”
By the time those attendees had gotten into their cars, they could’ve also logged into Cinema Treasures, the site already updated by user/contributor JAlex at 8:22 pm. His note at the Keller 8 page was simple, too: “Closed. Last day of operation Dec. 19, 2018.”
