A Tribute to King of the Multiplex : Movies: Stanley H. Durwood started the trend to feature many screens in one theater. The Motion Picture Foundation will name the AMC chairman Pioneer of the Year.

Stanley H. Durwood, the man who is credited with developing the concept of multiplex theaters, has been the target of many a moviegoer’s wrath. And yet, in Hollywood circles he is praised for almost single-handedly rescuing the theater business from obsolescence.

Ticket-buyers disparage him because he started the trend toward tiny movie theaters--something he has moved away from in recent years. It’s not uncommon to hear patrons complaining that too many of the multiple auditoriums were conceived on a scale reminiscent of postage-stamps--reducing the movie experience to something slightly better than some big-screen home TVs.

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On the other hand, the multiplex revolution in the last decade, largely begun by Durwood’s Kansas City-based AMC Entertainment Inc., brought modern theaters to many communities and shopping malls and changed the way most Americans see movies.

Within the film industry there’s little question where the sentiments about Durwood fall. Executives at the movie chains and studios praise Durwood for saving the movie exhibition business from economic extinction during the bleak period in the late 1970s when home video was an unknown whose economic impact was seen as a potential threat to moviegoing.

One-time rival theater exhibitor Ted Mann, of Mann’s Theaters, now retired, said of Durwood: “When everyone else thought the multiplex was an oddity, Durwood was a visionary.” That sentiment was echoed by Hollywood studio distribution executives as well: “His theaters have been the places to go, destination-type theaters where people will come, confident that the best pictures will be playing,” said Columbia Pictures President of Domestic Distribution Jeff Blake. “The exhibition business could have gotten left in the dust in the late ‘70s, were it not for his innovations and those of others.”

Durwood, a man who, despite being a multimillionaire, insists on flying coach, says simply that the idea of the multiplex “is just plain more economical.” The thinking is that many theaters can be operated with essentially the same size staff as a single theater.

These revolutionary ideas about how movies should be exhibited are why Durwood, 74, chairman of AMC--the nation’s second-largest circuit, is being honored Wednesday at the annual dinner fund-raiser of the Foundation of Motion Picture Pioneers. The group supports indigent veterans of the movie business.

Durwood will be named Pioneer of the Year, one of the industry’s highest honors. In the past the designation has gone to such figures as Adolph Zukor, Jack L. Warner, Daryl F. Zanuck, Ted Ashley, Cecil B. De Mille, William R. Forman, Henry G. Plitt, Sumner Redstone and Mike Medavoy.

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“I’m very excited by it. Very honored,” said Durwood, who shows no signs of slowing down. The executive drives himself to the office every day and, by all accounts, maintains a hands-on approach to the company’s operations of 1,618 theaters in 25 states.

If there is criticism of Durwood, the word most often used is “headstrong.” If you want to raise his ire, said one distribution executive, “try disagreeing with him. He knows exactly what he wants and when.”

There are stories about Durwood knowing just how he wants to build his theaters--right down to how high the screen should be from the floor. To this Durwood replies: “There’s nothing worse than sitting in a theater and having to look straight up at a screen.”

But his industry detractors--there are some--attribute his willfulness to the fact that he has, mostly on his own, run what was formerly the Durwood Theaters since his father died in 1960. At that time, he took over a 10-screen operation.

The company was renamed American Multi-Cinema after it got into the business of multiple theaters.

“Back then, most of the large theater chains controlled the theaters in downtown Kansas City,” he recalled. “They got all the roadshow pictures (big event movies for which reserved seat tickets were sold in advance) at the time. That left us, a small chain with the 600-seat Roxy in downtown, to get the lesser pictures.”

“One night I was standing in the lobby--I think we were playing an Abbot and Costello picture and it was in its second or third week--and business was slow. It suddenly hit me that even if I had two mediocre pictures playing at the same time, I would at least be doing twice the business.”

It wasn’t until 1963 that Durwood was able to put his idea into motion. It came about partly because of a shopping mall expansion underway in Kansas City and because the movie business, which had been propelled by big-name, roadshow event pictures, was changing.

Durwood said 1963’s expensive “Cleopatra,” which did poor business at the box office, was the “straw that broke the camel’s back” as far as roadshow films were concerned.

Durwood struck a deal to build a twin theater at the Ward Parkway Mall on top of a Kroger super market. “Imagine, two theaters! It was a big gamble.”

It wasn’t until 1969 that Durwood ventured into a sixplex, said AMC President Robert L. Friedman.

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Now the chain has complexes with as many as 16 screens under one roof and is considering an 18-theater complex. AMC’s 14 in Century City, which opened in 1987, is one of the nation’s highest-grossing complexes.

Durwood indicated that possibly as many as 10 more screens would be built somewhere near the Century City location. The advantage of multiplexes, he said, is they can give moviegoers choices and a destination, often in close proximity to shopping and restaurants.

As a movie fan himself--he often sees movies many times over--Durwood said he is sensitive to the criticisms of multiple theaters being too small. “Many of our early ones need to be refurbished, and we’re doing that,” he acknowledged. “The postage-stamp-size theater is bad. We have a policy where the seats must be spaced comfortably. The theaters must be wide and spacious.”