Art Carduner

Art Carduner (about 1919 to December 4, 2009) was a Philadelphia bookseller, book reviewer and exhibitor of foreign and art films who owned the Bandbox Theater in Germantown from 1966 to 1975. In February 1975, after the Arcadia cancelled a midnight showing of Black Mass by Ray Hoersch, later R.C. Horsch, following what the Inquirer called reported pressure from the Philadelphia Archdiocese, Carduner gave the film a midnight screening at the Bandbox.¹²

Theaters and Books

Carduner grew up in New York City and came to Philadelphia in 1941. Before the Second World War he worked as a civilian cryptographer at the Signal Corps depot on Wissahickon Avenue, and then served in the Signal Corps; he claimed to have deciphered, three days before the attack on Pearl Harbor, a message from Clark Field in the Philippines ending "Attack imminent, please rush," and said that his superiors ignored it. After the war he bought a bookstore in New York for 2,000 dollars, moved to New Hope, started a mail-order book business in Lambertville, and bought and restored the New Strand Theater there. He also ran the Hill in Chestnut Hill, a book-search business, and a shop on Germantown Avenue, Germantown Bikes & Books, and reviewed books for The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Distant Drummer and the Chestnut Hill Local. His programs favored esoteric foreign films and often played to nearly empty houses; he kept no popcorn machine and would run after patrons who walked out to refund their money. His political hero was Al Smith. A friend, Dave Miller, said: "He was phenomenally bighearted. He looked like Orson Welles, and had a nasal way of speaking." He died at 90 and was survived by two daughters, a son, a brother and three grandchildren.¹

Hoersch

The Bandbox's connection with Hoersch predates Black Mass. When the city's Department of Licenses and Inspections closed Hoersch's Underground Cinema 16 in late 1969, the Bandbox ran the Vietnam documentary In the Year of the Pig, which Cinema 16 had under contract.³ On February 28, 1975, the Inquirer reported that Black Mass "will be shown at the Germantown Bandbox Theater this Saturday at midnight," according to "the Bandbox's Art Carduner, who gave the film a new home," as a benefit for the Friends of the Bandbox, with Hoersch attending.²