The Man Who Lived in a Movie Palace

Rene Brunet Sr. opened the Imperial Theatre in 1922, when Brunet Jr. was only one year old. Previously, starting in 1908, he had owned and operated nickelodeons. “The admission was a nickel—that’s how they called them nickelodeons—and the film that they showed back then was usually a very brief film. It wasn’t a two-hour film like today.” Brunet Sr. opened the Harlequin, a nickelodeon on North Claiborne Avenue at Ursulines Avenue, in 1913. 

By the early 1920s, “the quality of film had improved a great deal,” and films were getting longer, prompting the need for bigger, more comfortable theaters. Brunet Sr. pioneered the next era of moviegoing with the Imperial. Located a block from Bayou St. John, it held 500 seats and had a stage for scenery or live performances.  

At the Imperial, movies were a family business. “My father was the manager,” Brunet said in his oral history. “My mother was selling tickets. My grandmother (my mother’s mother) was taking tickets, and my mother’s sister was selling concessions. It was the whole family, and then the little boy running around the theater.” 

As a kid, he helped sell Cracker Jack and other candies. He performed jobs that are now obsolete, such as opening and closing the stage curtain. He can’t watch Gone with the Wind without mentally drawing the curtain at intermission. “I knew the exact scene—and my wife still gets aggravated at me—when I had to leave and go backstage to pull the rope,” he said. “When that scene comes along now, I say, ‘Time for me to go backstage.’ And my wife says, ‘When are you going to stop saying that?’ I said, ‘Never.’” 

When he was old enough, Brunet comanaged the theater with his dad, dressing in matching white suits. When Brunet Sr. died from a heart attack in 1946, the 25-year-old Brunet Jr. took over the business.  

Before the decline of neighborhood theaters, movie houses dotted the map of New Orleans. These businesses catered to nearby residents and organized events to attract patrons. The Imperial held special screenings for nuns—typically afternoon showings that gave the Sisters time to return to their church or convent before evening. When Brunet Sr. heard the Boswell Sisters, a jazz vocal trio, perform on a local radio show, he hired them to perform at the theater. “One of the Boswell Sisters, Connie Boswell, went on to become a national singing star on radio,” Brunet said. “I think she sang on NBC, but she started right here in New Orleans at the Imperial.” 

Most of the movies shown at the time, Brunet said, were “family movies.” Admission started out as 10 cents for children and 15 cents for adults.  

Another notable patron of the Imperial was the notorious bank robber and kidnapper Alvin Karpis, who lived only eight blocks away. One of only four people ever named Public Enemy No. 1 by the FBI, Karpis was one of the most famous—and most wanted—criminals in the country. J. Edgar Hoover vowed that he personally would capture Karpis, and on May 2, 1936, Hoover made good on his promise, overseeing Karpis’s arrest in the swamps outside New Orleans. The day before, Karpis had been at the Imperial. According to Brunet, his sister accidentally gave extra change to the gangster, who quickly realized the mistake and returned the money. “He was a regular customer and apparently a polite man, so I guess he robbed banks and not theaters,” Brunet said. 

Fire destroyed the Imperial in 1957, forcing it to shut down. After watching flames consume the building, Brunet said he could not return to what was left of the theater for days. When he did, he saw that the lobby had miraculously survived. Brunet was amazed to find the terrazzo floors covered in green. The firefighters’ hoses had scattered the popcorn grains, and “every popcorn grain sprouted and started to make a little plant, and they had all grown about two or three inches high.”  

With the passage of the Civil Rights Act in 1964, movie theaters were required to integrate. Many were slow to comply, but Brunet didn’t hesitate. “It was the right thing to do,” he said.  

Black audiences also presented a business opportunity. In the ’70s, Brunet acquired multiple theaters in Black neighborhoods, formerly segregated theaters including the Circle Theatre, at St. Bernard Avenue and North Galvez Street, and the Carver, at 2101 Orleans Avenue. Previously, the main floor had been reserved for white patrons, while Black audiences were restricted to the balcony. “I brought that to an end in the theaters I was running,” Brunet said. Over the years Brunet also operated the Gallo, Clabon, Joy, and Famous theaters.  

Brunet made another important theater acquisition in 1996, when he took control of the Prytania Theatre at 5339 Prytania Street. Though the historic theater had survived the decline of neighborhood cinemas, it was no longer profitable, and the building’s owner had set a date for demolition. Instead, the building was sold, and Brunet partnered with its new owners to manage the theater. Today, the Prytania is the only single-screen theater in Louisiana and the longest-running cinema in New Orleans.  

In addition to premiering new films, Brunet instituted the theater’s Classic Movie Series, a program presented twice a week. After screenings of Roman Holiday or Some Like It Hot, Brunet met patrons in the lobby for complimentary coffee and cookies. “People stay after and want to talk about something, and I’ll stay out there and talk to them about it,” Brunet said. “I guess when you can do something that you really love to do, it’s not work.”  

Brunet passed away on August 17, 2017, at 95 years old. Following in his father’s footsteps, he had spent nearly every day of his life in a movie palace. His son, Robert Brunet, carries on the family legacy and now operates the Prytania under a 50-year lease, which extends to members of the Brunet family who wish to carry on the business. In 2020, Robert opened a second location, the Prytania Theatres at Canal Place, replacing the French Quarter shopping center’s dine-in cinema.

Robert honors his father and community by connecting with audiences and welcoming patrons to experience the magic of cinema. Recently, the Prytania was one of only five theaters in the country to screen a special 70 mm print of the blockbuster thriller Sinners. While the vast majority of today’s cinemas screen digital copies of films (including the Prytania), the Brunet family legacy has given the Prytania the tools, equipment, and expertise to go back in time when needed and screen movies the analog way, via celluloid and projection.

“I consider I’m the luckiest man in the world, because it’s something I’ve done all my life, and now I’m doing it bigger and better than ever,” Rene Brunet said. “And then my son and my grandchildren are following in my footsteps and my father’s footsteps before me.”