
By Steve Holt
The demise of the Lincoln Plaza Cinemas four years ago left a huge hole in the hearts of Upper West Side movie lovers. Now, just as a successor organization, New Plaza Cinema, has found a semi-permanent home (at The West End Theatre, 263 West 86th St.), there’s a new book to help rekindle fond memories of the original, at the same time offering delightful insights into the man and the magic behind the beloved institution.
In Love With Movies: From New Yorker Films to Lincoln Plaza Cinemas [Columbia University Press] is a grand memoir by the late Dan Talbot, based on his journals, essays, and other writings, lovingly edited by his wife and partner Toby (also very critical to that magic!)

Dan and Toby ran the Lincoln Plaza Cinemas from 1981 to 2018, showing sophisticated films from around the world, not the popcorn fare available at most multiplexes (although there was popcorn for sale in the lobby). Before that, they delighted movie lovers with the pioneering programming at their New Yorker, Studio, and Metro cinemas.
But the Talbots were more than just theater owners. They were leading players in bringing the legendary films of the 20th and 21st centuries to America, helping to create and sustain a market for masterpieces that otherwise might never have been shown in this country, during what many aficionados consider a Golden Age of Cinema.
They became film distributors by accident: a movie they wanted to show didn’t have a distributor, so Dan decided he’d be one, taking a chance on a then-unknown Bernardo Bertolucci and his first film, Before The Revolution. Over 40-plus years, this snap decision led to New Yorker Films distributing nearly 500 movies, from The Marriage of Maria Braun to Aguirre the Wrath of God, from Shoah to My Dinner With André.

In Love With Movies is a delightful read, for a couple of reasons.
In addition to exuding the passion for film that drove the Talbots, it’s also a fascinating and frequently hilarious look at the business of making, distributing, promoting, and programming movies, the real story behind the scenes of all the tinsel and glamor.
Along the way we meet a pantheon of directors, from Roberto Rossellini, to Werner Herzog (who wrote the foreword for the book), to Jean-Luc Godard (who told Dan to take his share of the box office and go to 47th Street Photo to buy more film-making equipment!)
But more than a celebration of these wonderful films and the geniuses behind them, the book reveals Dan Talbot’s remarkable character: literate, generous, fearless, funny, sophisticated, smart. In just a few pages, you get the feeling that you know Dan, and that you’re very glad that you do.

His wife, sprightly and witty at age 93 (“I’m proud of my age!”), really misses him. In a recent interview at their beautiful Riverside Drive apartment, Toby is happy to show off Dan’s office, and the lifetime of memories adorning the walls: posters from all of the movie theaters they operated, celebrating now classic movies from all over the world; stunning photographs of some of the legendary directors whose work they championed, and who became friends; there’s even a shot of the Talbots taken at Jules Feiffer’s apartment by Richard Avedon, during a fundraiser for Fidel Castro (“who everyone thought was very wonderful at the time”). There’s also one of the poems Toby wrote for Dan every year on their anniversary.

The restless, inquisitive, exuberant mind on display in the home office comes vividly to life in the pages of the book. In fact, reading it is like riding the escalator at the Lincoln Plaza Cinemas, where you might have stood eagerly, clutching your ticket, knowing that at the bottom of the moving stairs, you’d be reminded yet again why you’re In Love With Movies.
I liked Lincoln Plaza Cinemas. And. Funny that THAT is another space that remains vacant. For years now.
The reason given for the 2017 closure was that structural construction was required to the plaza that sits atop the theater and would be disruptive to the theaters below. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/16/nyregion/lincoln-plaza-cinema-close.html
Yes, in 2017, the Milstein Company told the NYT, “At the completion of this work, we expect to reopen the space as a cinema that will maintain its cultural legacy far into the future,….”.
Hmmm, the P.R. flack didn’t say HOW FAR into the future! That was FIVE years ago, and to date there is no sign of any maintenance work and no sign of its re-opening.
Fond memories of the place, with its smell from the popcorn machine, its always out-of-whack men’s room door, and its wonderful only-on-the-UWS characters in the audience.
Such a wonderful article about such wonderful people.
Heres to a lifetime of friendship1
I could walk by there at almost any random time, and find a movie to enjoy.
Thanks so much for the good times😍
You betcha! Dan and Toby helped make the Upper West Side a Mecca for film lovers! And they helped Americans to recognize the existence of a wider world of art and ideas…. A couple to treasure — and a book to keep our memories alive.
You betcha! Dan and Toby helped make the Upper West Side a Mecca for film lovers! And they helped Americans to recognize the existence of a wider world of art and ideas…. A couple to treasure — and a book to keep memories alive.
last flick i saw there was Loving Vincent
i loved it
And of course there’s now newplazacinema.org which finally has a regular place to show filme in the church on the NE corner of 86th and West End. Not so many as at LPC but good movies in the nabe. Support them!
Yes, films running Thursday-Sunday, great variety changing every week. Google New Plaza Cinema for general information and schedules.
What a loss. Will that building ever be restored as a theater? NYC keeps losing culture: cinemas, bookstores, music stores, video, news stands. When will it stop?
I was sad when Lincoln Plaza Cinema closed and even more heart broken when Dan Talbot passed away.
That space felt like an old sweater that was a little worn but very comforting. I have very fond memories of that theater.
I used to travel frequently from Brooklyn to Lincoln Plaza Cinemas.
The photograph of the escalator brought back many happy memories.
I saw SO many intelligent films there. there. Loved that place! Miss it deeply.
I certainly miss the movies that were so carefully chosen and mostly unavailable elsewhere. I am 89 years old and having a great movie house near me was a blessing. What ever happened?
Oh, how I miss not just the Lincoln Plaza but also The New Yorker (remember the classic Annie Hall Marshall McLuhan scene filmed in the lobby?)and the Thalia.
Regarding the comments on the concession stand, I remember that the Lincoln Plaza was among the first, if not THE first to also offer “sophisticated” fare such as espresso, dark chocolate and European deserts.
So many wonderful memories at Lincoln Plaza Cinemas!!! Some of the absolute best films, as well as heartfelt thoughts of the warm hospitality extended by the staff there. A huge loss all around.
And yes, four years later, for whatever the reasons…the space remains empty.
Special thanks to the Talbots for what they gave to all of us who frequented these special cinemas and loved films. This book will continue some of these memories.
Extremely grateful to Dan and Toby Talbot and all those wonderful movies my wife and I saw at the Lincoln Plaza Cinemas! Thank you. Deep gratitude to you. And on the other hand, what the heck is going on with dysfunction NYC real estate oligarchs that they can shut down this theatre and deny the public all these wonderful films. This is an outrage!
I’d walk a few blocks , go down the escalator and the magic began… so many outstanding movies … still feel sad every time I walk by the theatre … huge loss for the neighborhood since it closed but wonderful memories.
The close of the theater is a real LOSS!!! Thalia too, from what it was…
Toby was my Spanish teacher at Columbia, with my naive friend Dave Gilbert in that class! (Dave has been released from jail now, re: the Brink’s robbery murders; he got life. He is Chesa Boudin’s dad with Kathy Boudin.)
Sorry Dan is gone— I did not know, and Toby at 93 is very fine! 120 to come!
Extell owes us a theater!!! since they snuck in those tall buildings at 101 St and Bway, next to the Metro (being revived???!!!), ’cause some Depty Mayor with Bloomberg finagled the zoning rules. Is Marc Rosen around?— Stuyvesant HS parent. I run part of the SHS endowment fund since 1999.
I will get the book 🙂 Thank you VM!!!
Neal Hugh Hurwitz
NY NY
Medellin
ISR
on Facebook with 10,000 worldwide!
Once upon a time, there was an enchanted place named…
Thank you, Daniel and Toby, for giving us a Haven, The Lincoln Plaza Cinema, and now this wonderful book – “In Love With movies”- that
will keep the memory of it alive.
A great loss to the West Side arts & cultural scene, to be sure. Plaza was the first area cinema to embrace Deaf and Hard of hearing moviegoers – first by making closed caption devices available and subsequently by embracing the more popular and less difficult presentation of movies with open (on screen) captions.
This year open captioning is finally coming for all movies at all cinemas, with rare exception, thanks to a new City ordinance adopted by the City Council. Alas, the folks at New Plaza have, thus far, ignored a request to offer open and closed captioning. If they are reading this, it would be appreciated if someone would please contact the NYC
Chapter of the Hearing Loss Association, hearing loss NYC.org or by phone.
Nice to see a pop/promo for Columbia U. Press.
I wrote asking several people to spearhead turning it into a film historic location, Lincoln Center Film Festival,
Celebrities. Maybe someone knows somebody.