On Friday, the Brattle Movie Theatre passed into the hands of two new owners. Ivy Moylan and Ned Hinkle are the third set to own the historic building in its current incarnation as a cinema.

The transfer in ownership will not mean a change to the theater's mission to showcase hard-to-find independent and classic films.

The two new owners--previously the theatre's projectionist and office manager, respectively--have no plans to alter the program of this historic site that has gone from debutante hall to playhouse to cinema in its one hundred and eleven year history.

The history includes repeated and unusual intersections with the lives of Harvard students and Cambridge residents, many of whom were afraid the sale might mean a change to the Brattle's character.

"I heard the deal had gone through and the Brattle had been sold and got

into a panic that the building would turn into something else or go into a

very different direction," says John Gianvito, Associate Curator of the Harvard Film Archive.

Moylan and Hinkle take over the Brattle from Connie White and Marianne Lampke who have owned the theater since 1986. The former owners were also theater insiders, who sold popcorn and collected tickets as graduate school students. Fifteen years into the business, they decided it was time to pursue other projects. The time was right for White and Lamke's employees.

"We look forward to continuing in the same traditions that have been going on here for years and years, showing classic films and new films from around the world," Hinkle says.

The only real change to the theater will be its transfer to non-profit status which he hopes will free the theater from strict reliance on ticket sales.

"[Non-profit status] will allow us to offer more adventerous programming and take more chances with the films, we show without worrying about the bottom line," he says.

He hopes this means the Brattle will continue be known familiarly as "Boston's unofficial film school."

And for Boston Phoenix film critic Gerald Perry, also a Cambridge resident, the Brattle will remain a source of pride.

"I brag about [the Brattle] when I go to other theaters. It's a repertory house where you can still really see fourteen different movies in one week," he says.

Debutantes and T.S. Eliot

In 1890, a building was constructed on Brattle Street to provide young men and women with morally-sound entertainment as organized by the Cambridge Social Union. Brattle Hall became the home to chaste dances and amateur theater productions.