Kiggins has final curtain call

They came to walk the sticky theater floor one last time, to sit on the fold-down seats with wooden arm rests, to gaze into a well-stocked candy case that offers Red Vines, unlike candy cases in certain other theaters, which only offer Twizzlers.

They lined up early, paying $1 for one or two movies or $2 if they wanted to see the triple feature.

They didn’t care that the bathrooms are inconveniently located upstairs or that the sound system isn’t state of the art.

All they cared about was the fact that Kiggins Theater is a part of Vancouver’s history, and it was closing.

More than 200 people showed up Monday at Kiggins for “Alice in Wonderland,” the first movie in a triple feature that, unless someone else steps up to manage the historic space, will be the final screenings. The other movies were “The Bounty Hunter” and “The Losers.”

Stepping inside the theater was stepping back in time, as old-school advertisements and “no smoking” warnings flashed quietly on the screen while “Tonight’s the Night,” Rod Stewart’s seductive ballad from the 1970s, played on the sound system.

Ron Laford, 62, stood in line for the concession stand while his wife, Dairis, found seats in the theater. Laford said he first saw a movie at Kiggins when he was 8, a cartoon in black and white.

“It really doesn’t seem like it’s changed much,” Laford said, looking around the lobby. He hadn’t been to Kiggins in years but when he saw it was closing he thought he’d come for the final show.

“We probably came here after we were married, and that was 1965,” said his wife.

Shelley Bradfield, 41, was a Kiggins regular. She saw her first movie there when she was 4.

“I remember seeing so many with my mom,” she said.

When she learned last week Kiggins was closing, she called family members in Florida and Montana, who were disappointed they would miss the closing movie.

“I said, ‘I’ll watch it for you,’” she said.

She said the addition of air-conditioning is the only thing that has really changed about Kiggins.

“The bathrooms are the same, the popcorn is the same,” she said.

Her husband, Scott Bradfield, 55, said losing Kiggins “is like losing a friend.”

He and his wife weren’t thrilled about the idea of Johnny Depp playing the Mad Hatter in “Alice in Wonderland,” but they set those feelings aside for their love of Kiggins.

The landmark theater opened in 1936 and bears the name of entrepreneur J.P. Kiggins, who served as Vancouver’s mayor for 15 years. The building’s owner, Bill Leigh, told The Columbian last week that the managers for Historic Movie Theaters, a local business that has run the theater since 2005, had given him notice they planned to close and that they had been struggling to pay the rent. Leigh, who bought the theater and its adjoining retail space in 2008 for $650,000, said he hopes any future operator of the theater will have working capital to refurbish it.

Leigh said he has invested $100,000 in upgrades to the building.

Matthew West, one of two managers for Historic Movie Theaters, said Monday that he was depressed and disappointed.

“I’m really just saddened that it took us to close down” for the community to realize how special the theater was, he said.

While 211 people paid to see “Alice in Wonderland,” last week’s Monday night double feature drew 79 people, said Shauna Howard, the accountant for Historic Movie Theaters.

Before she went upstairs to start the movie Monday, she announced to the crowd that the company has a meeting set for today with the owner of the Liberty Theater in Camas, which closed in September.

Her announcement was met with cheers and applause.

“Thank you,” she said, “and enjoy your movie.”