Capri Theatre hosts members-only Clover/Capri screening in Montgomery
A members-only Clover/Capri screening on July 18 pairs Josh Carples with Martin McCaffery as the Capri leans on its own history to keep members coming back.
The Capri Theatre has set a 7 p.m. members-only screening of Clover/Capri for its Capri 85 program on Saturday, July 18, at 1045 E Fairview Ave. Filmmaker Josh Carples will be there with former Capri Theatre director Martin McCaffery, turning a documentary about the building into a membership-only draw for Montgomery moviegoers.
That screening sits inside a larger anniversary push that is built less like a ceremonial gala and more like a night out for regulars. The Capri’s July 18 lineup also includes tours of the theater, food trucks, music, activity tables and raffles, along with a screening of The Philadelphia Story with film historian John Martello. The theater has already been using its calendar to stack up repertory screenings, live events and summer children’s matinees, which gives the place a steady rhythm instead of a one-off celebration.
That kind of programming matters because the Capri is Montgomery’s only independent cinema, and the building has been run by the Capri Community Film Society, Inc., a nonprofit 501(c)(3), since 1983. The theater opened in 1941 as the Clover Theatre, with Jack Benny’s Love Thy Neighbor on the marquee, and took the Capri name in December 1962. After it was raided and closed as a softcore porn venue in 1982, neighbors formed the Capri Community Film Society to save it. The nonprofit later bought the building in 2010 and completed a major renovation for the theater’s 75th anniversary.
The house history is not being kept in a file cabinet. Marquee Magic restored the Capri marquee in 2025 so it again resembles the original Clover Theatre sign, and Clover/Capri itself is built around the building’s own past, from racial segregation and adult films to free-speech fights. That makes the members-only screening more than a nostalgia play. It is part of a long-running business model in which the Capri sells belonging, memory and access to a theater that still has to earn its keep one showing at a time.
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