Jay Ruof’s first venture into movie exhibition didn’t turn out very well. The show ended abruptly when he tripped over the cord and the projector smashed on the floor. The machine was borrowed from his aunt and uncle and Jay, only a kid, was showing movies to other kids in his South Buffalo neighborhood.

Jay Ruof runs the Palace Theater in Hamburg (photo: Rose Mattrey)

But this early calamity hardly ended his interest in showing movies. Today, Jay and his wife, Francine, are the owners and operators of the 600-seat, circa 1926 Hamburg Palace Theater in the Village of Hamburg. This is the realization of a decades-old aspiration, one whose pursuit required a lot of patience and the endurance of frustration.

And while Jay thinks there are reasons for optimism, the Ruofs aren’t operating in a growth sector. As you may have noticed, neighborhood movie houses like the Palace are hard to find these days. History was already legibly writing on the wall when one of the first movie-history coffee-table books, Griffith and Mayer’s The Movies in 1956, included a picture of a New York theater that had been turned into a bingo parlor. Television, you know. Now, movies are sought in suburban multiplexes, on DVD’s, and in on-demand and down-loadable formats. The Palace may seem like an antique, irrelevant oddity.

If it does, the really odd thing is that under the Ruofs’ careful and imaginative management the Palace is doing okay. And it’s the home of some of the most interesting film programming in Western New York, and probably far beyond it.

It took a long time for this to happen. The few small theatres that remain, Ruof says, “are a little like lakefront cottages. People rarely sell them.” Long ago, he was a projectionist in South Buffalo’s Towne Theatre, and fifteen years ago, he started working in the Palace’s projection booth, part-time. Not long afterward, he heard that the theatre might be available. “I asked to be put on the top of their list,” Ruof recalls. “In my heart and mind I was prepared for this.” But when nothing happened “...eventually, I had to let it go.” Not, as it happened, permanently. Last February 8, the Palace became the Ruofs’.

Ruof seems more juiced than daunted by the challenges. He has a vision and plans. There is, for example, one obvious advantage on his side: prices. This week Tom Cruise’s new vehicle, Valkyrie, has been running at the Palace, but admission is only $5 for adults ($4 for minors) compared to the $9 you’d pay at the multi-screen suburban complexes.

The complexities and obscurities of film booking sometimes prevent him getting product so quickly, but he can usually book something as soon as it leaves chains’ screens. But Ruof is attempting to do a lot more than just keep up with the Regal Entertainment Group. He keeps abreast of what’s available at Manhattan’s Film Forum (one of New York’s very last commercial art-film houses), Rochester’s Eastman House, and Toronto’s Cinematheque.

The Hamburg Palace Theater interior (photo: Rose Mattrey)

Last week Valkyrie shared space with The Exiles, a 1961 feature that disappeared after barely any exposure for over 40 years, and has recently been rediscovered to great critical approval. And on the day I spoke to him, he had just arranged to get IOUSA, a particularly timely and well received doc on Americans’ debt loads and the wiles of the credit industry.

Ruof wants to “position” the Palace to attract a variety of audiences. Like the 500 people who voted on the theatre’s website (www.hamburgpalace.com) for The Rocky Horror Picture Show. (It plays the last weekend of every month). He’s mulling over booking a Three Stooges series, and perhaps showing several Laurel and Hardy films. He thinks there may be a market for classic film musicals. And since September, he’s been showing a once-a-month Alfred Hitchcock series on weekends. (Next up is Lifeboat on Feb 21 and 22.)

This weekend, the Palace will screen Darryl Roberts’ documentary America the Beautiful, an examination of the modeling industry and its effects on girls and young women, a hit when it ran a few months ago at the Riviera in North Tonawanda. The director will show up Saturday to discuss his work. The second half of the week will be given to Monsieur Verdoux, Charles Chaplin’s famously biting 1947 black comedy about a suave Parisian who marries and murders for profit.

“I’ve always wanted to show films,” Ruof says. “It’s not necessarily a great or noble aim, but it’s almost overwhelming to think what could be shown here.”