After Allen, the following owners had trouble with zoning and distribution practices as well, and testified at the U.S. Senate hearings of 1953. Taking over circa 1946, the new owners were Albert Hanson and son Wayne Hanson, South-Lyn Theatres. They also had the Arden and Lynwood Theatres (both acquired March 4, 1947) and closed the Lynwood in July 1950. The Circle and Nubel theatres in Bellflower were acquired Oct. 1, 1947. The Circle was closed July 23, 1950; the Nubel was remodeled in 1949.
The 1953 U.S. Senate hearings on film distribution practices had a lot of information and testimony from South-Lyn circuit owners Albert and Wayne Hanson. The Arden and the Lynwood were both acquired by the Hansons March 4, 1947. Due to losses they closed the Lynwood on July 16, 1950 and Circle Theatre (Bellflower) the following week. They acquired the Nubel Theatre in Oct. 1947 in Bellflower and closed it for remodeling between June 5, 1949 to Oct. 13, 1949. They also operated the Compton Theatre in Compton and a Vogue Theatre in South Gate. Son Wayne Hanson testified that the grosses at the Nubel dropped by about one-third after spending $180,000 for remodeling and their theatres had steady losses for most of 1950-1953. Their top complaint was the high rental fees demanded by distributors when their theatres were on a 4th or 5th run, yet they were paying film rental as if they were on a 2nd run after downtown. They argued that the film rental extracted from each run should have been lowered commensurately.
There was another theatre in Northwood, run by Charlie Jones. It was running in the 1950s at least…he also had the Dawn Theatre in Elma, IA. The 2010 Albert Lea tribune article said this new theatre was put into a building that had never been a theatre, so the Jones theatre must have been another building. (I see photos of it are shown here – from the mid-1950s)
Leo Wolcott was the owner; there were 3 items in the 9-26-53 Motion Picture Herald. The theatre was closed one day to install Wolcott’s own invention of a new wide screen, using satin as the screen surface. The articles said he spent $35.03 on the project. He contended that since the industry couldn’t decide on a standard screen, he would just make his own: “Leo’s theory
is that the merry-go-round on screens has run the gamut of ground glass to silver screen to gold fibre to beaded screens to white plastic, and is now back to silver screen again. Leo figures he can afford to junk the satin screen when and if the industry settles on something.” The same edition of MPH said Wolcott raised his admission prices to 50 cents for adults and 25 cents for children, and adult admission for Saturday matinees would be 40 cents. Wolcott’s problems as an exhibitor, as well as others in Iowa, was discussed at the 1953 U. S. Senate hearings regarding motion picture distribution practices. It was said that Wolcott would not book pictures from Warner Bros. or RKO, and that a WB salesman had not visited him in several years. RKO complained he would take only shorts, B westerns and old features. Wolcott only bought shorts from WB. He refused to pay the percentages these distributors wanted for current features.
CJ1949
commented about
Cinema 7on
Nov 11, 2019 at 8:00 pm
It was still the Vogue as of the spring of 1953. The owner, Homer I. Tegtmeier, testified at the U.S. Senate hearings on small business when that committee was investigating complaints from small, independent theatre owners. He also operated a theatre in Watsonville. He had a lot of complaints about Universal, and was a leader of a group of Northern California exhibitors.
In 1953 the operator of the Centre was Homer I. Tegtmeier, who also operated the Vogue Theatre in Salinas. Tegtmeier was one of many exhibitors who testified at the 1953 hearings of the U.S. Senate Small Business Committee that was investigating the trade practices of motion picture exhibitors. Another round of hearings was done in 1956 as well.
The Nubel Theatre and the theatre operations of Al Hanson and son Wayne Hanson are documented in the U.S. Senate hearings of 1953. Libraries that have government documents might have the book, which is the record of the Select Committee on Small Business, 83rd Congress. Many exhibitors testified at these hearings about motion picture distribution trade practices. Wayne Hanson testified that the remodeling in 1948 cost $180,000 and 92 seats were added. The Hansons had recently acquired the theatre then. He said the grosses started dropping after the remodeling. It was a later run house and most of the exhibitors testifying at these hearings operated late run theatres or small town theatres, and were complaining that the US Justice Dept was not enforcing the decrees. They said distributors had found ways to get around the decrees by making product scarce, selling nearly all film on percentage, and favoring large circuits. They also complained about bidding, which many of them said was only a ruse to get higher rental fees. Hanson said that for late runs he still had to pay rental fees that compared to theatres in the area that had much earlier runs. There were also complaints about distributors grouping theatres into zones that were not competitive with each other, yet doing this to force artificial bidding wars.
There were at least two Jerry Lewis theatres in NC: Siler City and Mt Airy. Siler City opened in Oct 71. Hollywood Reporter of 10-28-71 reported “a 350 seat Jerry Lewis Cinema opened Friday in the Park Shopping Center in Siler City [they misspelled it Silver] NC. Area Director is Mini Theatres of Raleigh, the franchise owner-operator is C & L Development Co.” Earlier, the Siler City-Chatham News had a photo of the construction in its 9-16-71 edition. The caption said this would be the first indoor theatre the city had had in almost 10 years, after the fire that destroyed the Elder Theatre. Said the Siler City location was “one of the first of the chain in North Carolina.”
The Mount Airy News of 10-1-71 said that JBJ Enterprises Inc is constructing a theatre on “US 52 Bypass, adjacent to the City View Motel. The structure is tentatively scheduled to open by Jan. 1. Seating to be 350, a parking lot for 130 cars.” JBJ “is headed by Joe Johnson Sr. and Joe Keyes. The property is being developed to their specifications by E.D. Bray Jr. and Gary Pruett. Jerome Samet of Mount Airy is contractor for the construction work.” It went on to say the operators were going to have a 15-year lease and this would be the 4th theatre in the area, with 1 hardtop and 2 drive ins currently operating.
Neither of these have a listing on Cinema Treasures under their respective cities.
Re the ‘other’ chains. The Glenn Ford one was with Agnes Moorhead and Debbie Reynolds – have not seen Andy Devine mentioned with this but it’s possible he was an investor.
An article in the 8-23-95 Baton Rouge Advocate newspaper said the theatre “had closed” and plans were at the time, to demolish it for a hotel. UA was the last operator. UA officials and neighboring storekeepers were interviewed and didn’t have much good to say about the theatre or the ‘safety’ of the area. A restaurant manager said “when the theatre had to hire a cop…” he knew the end was near. The original operators were also quoted, and said the Lewis franchise fee was 8% of revenue. That figure squares with Lewis' written testimony to the US Senate in early 1970.
From a newspaper article of 4-14-98 in the Daily Hampshire Gazette in Northampton MA: one of those “what was happening 25 years ago and 50 years ago” history features … this would have been April 1973: “Northampton movie aficionados, take heart. The Jerry Lewis Cinema may be dead, but "The Talkie,” under an alias and new management, is rising from the grave. Two recent college graduates, Stephen Brown and Dennis Curran, plan to have what was formerly “The Talkie” open as “The Globe” by the middle of next month. Scheduled for showing are old movies at cut-rate prices."
An article in the March 18, 2001 edition of the Herald-News in Dayton, TN said the theatre would be closing that week. The theatre’s owner at the time was Delbert Crowe, who told the newspaper he couldn’t find a buyer and business had gone down to a trickle of people each night. The article said the original owner was Bill Matherly who had been operating the drive-in but also bought a Jerry Lewis franchise “in February 1973.” The opening attraction of the Jerry Lewis Cinema was “Now You See Him, Now You Don’t”, which the newspaper’s 2001 article said “was sold out for weeks.”
Most contemporary writers do a poor job of explaining the Lewis franchising story and get it all screwed up. This article was no exception. Suffice it to say the theatre changed its name probably soon after it was opened. The franchising company, Network Cinema Corporation, filed for bankruptcy in June 1973. The article infers that the name change occurred around this time, but there is also a murky aside made that the theatre closed and then reopened again, with nothing said about the length of time it may have been closed.
The name Richland Park was the name of the shopping center it was in.
An item in the 1-31-72 issue of Boxoffice said it was 350 seats and opened 1-14-72 with “Kotch” and the night before, a sneak for local officials was held. Operator’s name was Rosendahl.
The theatre looks to be intact on the exterior. Even the showcases are there. On the east side of the town, at least a couple miles from the downtown. An odd location, and back quite a ways from the street, which is not a main thoroughfare. Many Lewis theatres were strangely located, difficult to see, behind buildings, off main roads, and so on. 3 photos attached, taken Aug. 2019.
Kobs, and Bloomington are correct for first owner and location. According to building permit records, some work was done in 1959 and it said Paul Mans was the owner at that time. More work done in 1966-67 and the name change to Studio 97 occurred in Aug. 1967. Opened in Sept. 1950 and closed July 20, 1986. Demolished a few months later. Engler tried running repertory double bills around 1984-86; mostly a second run theatre in later years.
Some clarity provided here to previous postings. Porno X-rated films were played only for a little more than a year in the waning days of the Gopher Theatre. The last advertising in the Minneapolis papers was in mid-August 1979 and the theatre was demolished in September. The block became “City Center”, one of several retail-office complexes built in downtown Minneapolis which bombed.
F & R (Finkelstein and Ruben) did not have the theatre as late as 1949. F & R sold out to Paramount-Publix in 1928 after enjoying a partnership deal with Paramount. Noted Minneapolis theatre architects Liebenberg and Kaplan were hired to remodel this and several Paramount-owned theatres in Minnesota and the Dakotas in the 1930s to the ‘50s. They did the 1938 streamline-style remodeling whereupon the name was changed from Grand to Gopher.
Paramount (subsidiary name Minnesota Amusement Company) ran the Gopher until 1950 as a moveover house, first-run B pictures, or the occasional A picture when the other Paramount theatres were tied up. Paramount’s #1 and #2 houses in downtown Minneapolis were the State and Minnesota (name changed to Radio City in 1944). #3 was the Century and #4 the Lyric. (Paramount also had an interest in the RKO Orpheum in a pooling arrangement but that was dissolved in the early 1940s). Minnesota Amusement also ran the Aster Theatre which was on the same block as the Gopher, and ran first-run B double bills.
The Gopher and Aster were among a few theatres that Paramount was forced to dispose of in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area after the decree. In 1950, Ted Karatz took over the theatres with partner Ben Berger, who was the owner of the Minneapolis Lakers basketball team. Berger had several theatres and was a leader of the North Central wing of the Allied States Association, a theatre operators organization. Berger was instrumental in fighting against film distributors’ block booking, bidding and clearance practices. Berger initiated several lawsuits and testified on behalf of others. He also wrote an autobiography, “Thank You America.”
Berger’s operation of the Gopher immediately sent downtown Minneapolis into bidding wars and made first-run bookings even more competitive. In the 1950’s Berger had the best luck with MGM and Universal, playing several of their films as first-runs that decade.
Late-run double features continued at the Aster Theatre until 1965, when Berger changed the format to 60’s-style porn. The Aster remained a porn theatre until its closing in 1979.
“Jaws” did play 6 months at the Gopher, up through Christmas Eve. Then it was replaced by “The Hindenburg” (also Universal) which played two months.
(Another long run for the Gopher was “The Exorcist”, which played 6 months beginning Dec. 26, 1973. The first 2 months of the run were as a Twin Cities exclusive – the film did not even open in St. Paul until March 1, 1974).
Berger sold both theatres in June 1977 to Ferris Alexander, a porno kingpin. “The Deep” was already booked and the engagement went ahead (it played two months). In the fall of 1977 to early 1978, second run Hollywood features at a $1 or $2 admission were played, and a few higher-grade X-rated films included. In April 1978 the Gopher had a first run (but not exclusive) of “F.I.S.T.” Lower-grade X-rated films however became the sole fare from June 1978 to its closing in August 1979.
To add to the historical confusion, Alexander briefly ran a two-screen X-rated storefront theatre on the opposite side of Hennepin Avenue, called “Gopher 1 & 2” around 1979-1980. Strangely, for a short time in 1980 this twin played some late-run Hollywood pictures at $1 admission.
June 2019: this former theatre is for sale ($115,000) http://realestate.swreescanaba.com/idx/details/listing/a450/1080375/907-Ludington-St-Escanaba-MI-49829
Photo is probably from the early 1950s – on the marquee is an advertisement for the radio WREX, and its newsman Loren Paynter. WREX (1080 AM) went off the air around June 1953 when ownership pursued a television license in Duluth.
The name was changed to “Tower” in 1950, closed in the mid-50s for a time, reopened 1957. Later known as “Tower Fine Arts” in mid-60s with a mixture of art and porn. Closing was around 1967. More details when I locate specific material.
Film Daily says the closing of this was 1/1/38. It was owned by Roy McMinn at the time. He started construction of the Beacon Theatre in mid-1937 and closed the Capitol. Another trade mag said McMinn planned to open the Beacon on 1/20/38 but was having squabbles with the union and Film Daily reported the Beacon opening occurred on 2/5/38.
After Allen, the following owners had trouble with zoning and distribution practices as well, and testified at the U.S. Senate hearings of 1953. Taking over circa 1946, the new owners were Albert Hanson and son Wayne Hanson, South-Lyn Theatres. They also had the Arden and Lynwood Theatres (both acquired March 4, 1947) and closed the Lynwood in July 1950. The Circle and Nubel theatres in Bellflower were acquired Oct. 1, 1947. The Circle was closed July 23, 1950; the Nubel was remodeled in 1949.
The 1953 U.S. Senate hearings on film distribution practices had a lot of information and testimony from South-Lyn circuit owners Albert and Wayne Hanson. The Arden and the Lynwood were both acquired by the Hansons March 4, 1947. Due to losses they closed the Lynwood on July 16, 1950 and Circle Theatre (Bellflower) the following week. They acquired the Nubel Theatre in Oct. 1947 in Bellflower and closed it for remodeling between June 5, 1949 to Oct. 13, 1949. They also operated the Compton Theatre in Compton and a Vogue Theatre in South Gate. Son Wayne Hanson testified that the grosses at the Nubel dropped by about one-third after spending $180,000 for remodeling and their theatres had steady losses for most of 1950-1953. Their top complaint was the high rental fees demanded by distributors when their theatres were on a 4th or 5th run, yet they were paying film rental as if they were on a 2nd run after downtown. They argued that the film rental extracted from each run should have been lowered commensurately.
There was another theatre in Northwood, run by Charlie Jones. It was running in the 1950s at least…he also had the Dawn Theatre in Elma, IA. The 2010 Albert Lea tribune article said this new theatre was put into a building that had never been a theatre, so the Jones theatre must have been another building. (I see photos of it are shown here – from the mid-1950s)
Leo Wolcott was the owner; there were 3 items in the 9-26-53 Motion Picture Herald. The theatre was closed one day to install Wolcott’s own invention of a new wide screen, using satin as the screen surface. The articles said he spent $35.03 on the project. He contended that since the industry couldn’t decide on a standard screen, he would just make his own: “Leo’s theory is that the merry-go-round on screens has run the gamut of ground glass to silver screen to gold fibre to beaded screens to white plastic, and is now back to silver screen again. Leo figures he can afford to junk the satin screen when and if the industry settles on something.” The same edition of MPH said Wolcott raised his admission prices to 50 cents for adults and 25 cents for children, and adult admission for Saturday matinees would be 40 cents. Wolcott’s problems as an exhibitor, as well as others in Iowa, was discussed at the 1953 U. S. Senate hearings regarding motion picture distribution practices. It was said that Wolcott would not book pictures from Warner Bros. or RKO, and that a WB salesman had not visited him in several years. RKO complained he would take only shorts, B westerns and old features. Wolcott only bought shorts from WB. He refused to pay the percentages these distributors wanted for current features.
It was still the Vogue as of the spring of 1953. The owner, Homer I. Tegtmeier, testified at the U.S. Senate hearings on small business when that committee was investigating complaints from small, independent theatre owners. He also operated a theatre in Watsonville. He had a lot of complaints about Universal, and was a leader of a group of Northern California exhibitors.
Tegtmeier said the theatre was built in 1939.
In 1953 the operator of the Centre was Homer I. Tegtmeier, who also operated the Vogue Theatre in Salinas. Tegtmeier was one of many exhibitors who testified at the 1953 hearings of the U.S. Senate Small Business Committee that was investigating the trade practices of motion picture exhibitors. Another round of hearings was done in 1956 as well.
The Nubel Theatre and the theatre operations of Al Hanson and son Wayne Hanson are documented in the U.S. Senate hearings of 1953. Libraries that have government documents might have the book, which is the record of the Select Committee on Small Business, 83rd Congress. Many exhibitors testified at these hearings about motion picture distribution trade practices. Wayne Hanson testified that the remodeling in 1948 cost $180,000 and 92 seats were added. The Hansons had recently acquired the theatre then. He said the grosses started dropping after the remodeling. It was a later run house and most of the exhibitors testifying at these hearings operated late run theatres or small town theatres, and were complaining that the US Justice Dept was not enforcing the decrees. They said distributors had found ways to get around the decrees by making product scarce, selling nearly all film on percentage, and favoring large circuits. They also complained about bidding, which many of them said was only a ruse to get higher rental fees. Hanson said that for late runs he still had to pay rental fees that compared to theatres in the area that had much earlier runs. There were also complaints about distributors grouping theatres into zones that were not competitive with each other, yet doing this to force artificial bidding wars.
There were at least two Jerry Lewis theatres in NC: Siler City and Mt Airy. Siler City opened in Oct 71. Hollywood Reporter of 10-28-71 reported “a 350 seat Jerry Lewis Cinema opened Friday in the Park Shopping Center in Siler City [they misspelled it Silver] NC. Area Director is Mini Theatres of Raleigh, the franchise owner-operator is C & L Development Co.” Earlier, the Siler City-Chatham News had a photo of the construction in its 9-16-71 edition. The caption said this would be the first indoor theatre the city had had in almost 10 years, after the fire that destroyed the Elder Theatre. Said the Siler City location was “one of the first of the chain in North Carolina.”
The Mount Airy News of 10-1-71 said that JBJ Enterprises Inc is constructing a theatre on “US 52 Bypass, adjacent to the City View Motel. The structure is tentatively scheduled to open by Jan. 1. Seating to be 350, a parking lot for 130 cars.” JBJ “is headed by Joe Johnson Sr. and Joe Keyes. The property is being developed to their specifications by E.D. Bray Jr. and Gary Pruett. Jerome Samet of Mount Airy is contractor for the construction work.” It went on to say the operators were going to have a 15-year lease and this would be the 4th theatre in the area, with 1 hardtop and 2 drive ins currently operating.
Neither of these have a listing on Cinema Treasures under their respective cities.
Re the ‘other’ chains. The Glenn Ford one was with Agnes Moorhead and Debbie Reynolds – have not seen Andy Devine mentioned with this but it’s possible he was an investor.
An article in the 8-23-95 Baton Rouge Advocate newspaper said the theatre “had closed” and plans were at the time, to demolish it for a hotel. UA was the last operator. UA officials and neighboring storekeepers were interviewed and didn’t have much good to say about the theatre or the ‘safety’ of the area. A restaurant manager said “when the theatre had to hire a cop…” he knew the end was near. The original operators were also quoted, and said the Lewis franchise fee was 8% of revenue. That figure squares with Lewis' written testimony to the US Senate in early 1970.
From a newspaper article of 4-14-98 in the Daily Hampshire Gazette in Northampton MA: one of those “what was happening 25 years ago and 50 years ago” history features … this would have been April 1973: “Northampton movie aficionados, take heart. The Jerry Lewis Cinema may be dead, but "The Talkie,” under an alias and new management, is rising from the grave. Two recent college graduates, Stephen Brown and Dennis Curran, plan to have what was formerly “The Talkie” open as “The Globe” by the middle of next month. Scheduled for showing are old movies at cut-rate prices."
Good article in the Providence Journal of 10-25-98 about theatres in this area and how they were surviving.
An article in the March 18, 2001 edition of the Herald-News in Dayton, TN said the theatre would be closing that week. The theatre’s owner at the time was Delbert Crowe, who told the newspaper he couldn’t find a buyer and business had gone down to a trickle of people each night. The article said the original owner was Bill Matherly who had been operating the drive-in but also bought a Jerry Lewis franchise “in February 1973.” The opening attraction of the Jerry Lewis Cinema was “Now You See Him, Now You Don’t”, which the newspaper’s 2001 article said “was sold out for weeks.”
Most contemporary writers do a poor job of explaining the Lewis franchising story and get it all screwed up. This article was no exception. Suffice it to say the theatre changed its name probably soon after it was opened. The franchising company, Network Cinema Corporation, filed for bankruptcy in June 1973. The article infers that the name change occurred around this time, but there is also a murky aside made that the theatre closed and then reopened again, with nothing said about the length of time it may have been closed.
The name Richland Park was the name of the shopping center it was in.
An item in the 1-31-72 issue of Boxoffice said it was 350 seats and opened 1-14-72 with “Kotch” and the night before, a sneak for local officials was held. Operator’s name was Rosendahl.
The theatre looks to be intact on the exterior. Even the showcases are there. On the east side of the town, at least a couple miles from the downtown. An odd location, and back quite a ways from the street, which is not a main thoroughfare. Many Lewis theatres were strangely located, difficult to see, behind buildings, off main roads, and so on. 3 photos attached, taken Aug. 2019.
Kobs, and Bloomington are correct for first owner and location. According to building permit records, some work was done in 1959 and it said Paul Mans was the owner at that time. More work done in 1966-67 and the name change to Studio 97 occurred in Aug. 1967. Opened in Sept. 1950 and closed July 20, 1986. Demolished a few months later. Engler tried running repertory double bills around 1984-86; mostly a second run theatre in later years.
Some clarity provided here to previous postings. Porno X-rated films were played only for a little more than a year in the waning days of the Gopher Theatre. The last advertising in the Minneapolis papers was in mid-August 1979 and the theatre was demolished in September. The block became “City Center”, one of several retail-office complexes built in downtown Minneapolis which bombed.
F & R (Finkelstein and Ruben) did not have the theatre as late as 1949. F & R sold out to Paramount-Publix in 1928 after enjoying a partnership deal with Paramount. Noted Minneapolis theatre architects Liebenberg and Kaplan were hired to remodel this and several Paramount-owned theatres in Minnesota and the Dakotas in the 1930s to the ‘50s. They did the 1938 streamline-style remodeling whereupon the name was changed from Grand to Gopher.
Paramount (subsidiary name Minnesota Amusement Company) ran the Gopher until 1950 as a moveover house, first-run B pictures, or the occasional A picture when the other Paramount theatres were tied up. Paramount’s #1 and #2 houses in downtown Minneapolis were the State and Minnesota (name changed to Radio City in 1944). #3 was the Century and #4 the Lyric. (Paramount also had an interest in the RKO Orpheum in a pooling arrangement but that was dissolved in the early 1940s). Minnesota Amusement also ran the Aster Theatre which was on the same block as the Gopher, and ran first-run B double bills.
The Gopher and Aster were among a few theatres that Paramount was forced to dispose of in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area after the decree. In 1950, Ted Karatz took over the theatres with partner Ben Berger, who was the owner of the Minneapolis Lakers basketball team. Berger had several theatres and was a leader of the North Central wing of the Allied States Association, a theatre operators organization. Berger was instrumental in fighting against film distributors’ block booking, bidding and clearance practices. Berger initiated several lawsuits and testified on behalf of others. He also wrote an autobiography, “Thank You America.”
Berger’s operation of the Gopher immediately sent downtown Minneapolis into bidding wars and made first-run bookings even more competitive. In the 1950’s Berger had the best luck with MGM and Universal, playing several of their films as first-runs that decade.
Late-run double features continued at the Aster Theatre until 1965, when Berger changed the format to 60’s-style porn. The Aster remained a porn theatre until its closing in 1979.
“Jaws” did play 6 months at the Gopher, up through Christmas Eve. Then it was replaced by “The Hindenburg” (also Universal) which played two months.
(Another long run for the Gopher was “The Exorcist”, which played 6 months beginning Dec. 26, 1973. The first 2 months of the run were as a Twin Cities exclusive – the film did not even open in St. Paul until March 1, 1974).
Berger sold both theatres in June 1977 to Ferris Alexander, a porno kingpin. “The Deep” was already booked and the engagement went ahead (it played two months). In the fall of 1977 to early 1978, second run Hollywood features at a $1 or $2 admission were played, and a few higher-grade X-rated films included. In April 1978 the Gopher had a first run (but not exclusive) of “F.I.S.T.” Lower-grade X-rated films however became the sole fare from June 1978 to its closing in August 1979.
To add to the historical confusion, Alexander briefly ran a two-screen X-rated storefront theatre on the opposite side of Hennepin Avenue, called “Gopher 1 & 2” around 1979-1980. Strangely, for a short time in 1980 this twin played some late-run Hollywood pictures at $1 admission.
It is running as of June 2019. Had an ad in the local Shopper paper. Website: https://cedarstreetcinemas.com/
June 2019: building, screen and * part * of the sign are still standing.
June 2019: this former theatre is for sale ($115,000) http://realestate.swreescanaba.com/idx/details/listing/a450/1080375/907-Ludington-St-Escanaba-MI-49829
http://reflections.mndigital.org/cdm/printview/collection/nemhc/id/4419/type/singleitem
Photo is probably from the early 1950s – on the marquee is an advertisement for the radio WREX, and its newsman Loren Paynter. WREX (1080 AM) went off the air around June 1953 when ownership pursued a television license in Duluth.
According to Motion Picture Herald, it was “dismantled” in March 1940.
The name was changed to “Tower” in 1950, closed in the mid-50s for a time, reopened 1957. Later known as “Tower Fine Arts” in mid-60s with a mixture of art and porn. Closing was around 1967. More details when I locate specific material.
Operated from 1937 to 1960; will confirm more after finding my notes.
Film Daily says the closing of this was 1/1/38. It was owned by Roy McMinn at the time. He started construction of the Beacon Theatre in mid-1937 and closed the Capitol. Another trade mag said McMinn planned to open the Beacon on 1/20/38 but was having squabbles with the union and Film Daily reported the Beacon opening occurred on 2/5/38.