This weekend, the Loew’s Jersey Theater in Jersey City will celebrate Halloween with a program of films starring Boris Karloff, directed by such cinema stylists as the poverty-row genius Edgar Ulmer (at his most ornate helming 1934’s “The Black Cat”), the early sound era’s great camera poet, James Whale (whose 1934 film “The Old Dark House” will be shown in an immaculate new restoration after decades of being ill-served in muddy public-domain versions), and Karl Freund’s hypnotic 1932 American directorial debut, “The Mummy” (1932).

That those attending will experience the same movie coming down the aisle this weekend as attendees did 75 years ago is as much a tribute to the efforts of a group called the Friends of the Loew’s as it is to the contributions of Karloff or Marcus Loew to cinema history. Subdivided into a triplex in 1974 and subsequently slated for demolition in the late 1980s, the grand theater survives only thanks to long-term concerted lobbying efforts and ongoing restoration undertaken by the Friends of the Loew’s and its supporters.

Just a short PATH train ride from Manhattan, the Loew’s Jersey stands as a monument to the fact that in American film history, not only did the exhibitor egg precede the studio chicken, but the egg was sometimes a Fabergé. As the filmmaker John Landis recently told me about the studio system’s synergistic golden age, “What people don’t understand about the studio system is that the studios didn’t own the theaters, the theaters owned the studios.” Indeed, said Colin Egan, a member of Friends of the Loew’s, which presides over the Loew’s Jersey today, without theaters like this one, great movie houses and great movie studios alike wouldn’t be what they are today. “The Loew’s theater chain wholly owned and had in fact created MGM because it needed product,” he said. “The term movie palace is actually a misnomer.” Boasting a proscenium and a backstage area that dwarfs that of the vintage, projector-less “legit” Stanley Theater down the street, the Loew’s Jersey “was built with film capacity and a full stage capacity.”

When the Loew’s theater was completed in 1929, designed with characteristic extravagance by storied movie palace architects Bragg and Bragg, it was one of five New York-area “wonder theaters” commissioned by exhibitor impresario and MGM honcho Marcus Loew to occupy the top tier in his theater empire. Today, it’s the only one still standing.

At the time ground was broken on the Loew’s Jersey, motion pictures had evolved from a bottom-of-the-bill novelty in vaudeville houses to the main event. “From the 1910s on,” Mr. Egan said, “the dominant form of entertainment was a double bill of a live show with a movie.” As immigrants began filling urban areas after the turn of the last century, the need for entertainment followed suit. “Thousands of people could be counted on to come out for these shows on weekends,” Mr. Egan said.

At the 3,000-seat Loew’s Jersey, the opening act was always the same — the theater itself. Behind its towering terra-cotta façade lies a three-story lobby supported by green marble columns and adorned with plush carpeting. According to Mr. Egan, the riot of ostentatious design was a calculated effort to recast continental splendor for the democracy’s newest citizens. The designers’ task was to “copy the architecture of European royalty,” Mr. Egan said, “and build a palace for anyone who has a few cents in their pocket.”

Then as now, a patron’s journey to his seat climaxed with the realization that the destination is under a ceiling some 90 feet above the floor. “That was the intent and the design,” Mr. Egan said. “The grand experience of the building grows progressively until you get into this huge space and are sitting in your seat ready to be entertained.”

Since successfully fighting off developers determined to clear the Journal Square lot for an office building, Friends of Loew’s has evolved from “a lobbying group to a volunteer construction group,” Mr. Egan said. Rallies, petition drives, and city council meetings have given way to the daunting task of restoring the Loew’s while operating it in as full a capacity as its current legal status and condition permit — FOL is still battling City Hall regarding the theater’s long-term lease.

Initial cleaning work that required physically trucking in water has evolved into volunteer restoration efforts that include gradually removing signs of the the Loew’s sacrilegious ’70s multiplexing and bringing the theater’s gargantuan lobby, lounges, backstage areas, and of course the big room itself back to their former glory.

Today, the theater’s long-term future is in keeping with its past. The place where young Frank Sinatra first heard Bing Crosby croon has lately hosted pop music shows by the likes of Bright Eyes and Yo La Tengo. And while many of the handful of old-time movie palaces still standing have made the one-way transition exclusively to music and live theater venues, the Loew’s recently reinvested in its future as the area’s most spectacular single-screen movie experience by adding a pair of 70 mm projectors to its projection booth arsenal.

With the capacity to host rock bands, theater, opera, and now even vintage 3-D movies thanks to the additional projectors, the Loew’s Jersey continues to be more than just a movie theater.

“You look at these kids’ faces and they’re just blown away,” said Mr. Egan about the inevitable reaction of first-time video-age visitors to the landmark that has dominated Journal Square for close to 80 years. With luck and the continued support of both theatergoers and volunteers, the Loew’s Jersey will continue lighting up Jersey City and blowing minds young and old for 80 more.