The Victoria Theatre turns out to be a missing aka for the Colony Theatre. See my comment of this date on that page for additional information.
The Royal apparently never had an aka, and is not yet listed at Cinema Treasures. Here’s a page about it at the UNC web site. All the pertinent information is there.
This house opened January 12, 1914, as the Victoria Theatre. It was designed by architect Burett H. Stephens, who had designed Wilmington’s first purpose-built movie house, the Bijou, opened in 1912. After closing in 1924, the Victoria was remodeled and reopened as the Carolina Theatre the following year.
The latest mention I can find of the Carolina Theatre in Boxoffice dates from December 13, 1952, and the earliest mention of the Colony I’ve found is from November 9, 1954, so the name was changed between those dates.
There is a page about the Victoria in the “Going to the Show” section of the University of North Carolina’s DocSouth project. It links to their page about the Carolina, but I don’t see anything there about the house as the Colony.
Boxoffice of November 25, 1974, recaps the history of the Victoria/Carolina/Colony in one of two articles about the closing of the house (left column, right-hand page), which took place on October 31 that year. Note that both the Boxoffice article and the UNC’s Carolina Theatre page misspell the architect’s name as Stevens rather than the correct Stephens. Additionally, Boxoffice gives the year of the name change from Victoria to Carolina as 1930, not 1925 as stated at the UNC page.
The Bijou’s 1912 building was designed by architect Burett H. Stephens, who also designed the Victoria Theatre and the Royal Theatre in Wilmington. The Royal must be the one mentioned in comments by andrewb and debid above above. The Victoria might be the Victory mentioned in andrewb’s comment. Apparently neither of these theaters is listed at Cinema Treasures yet.
An impressively detailed history of the Bijou is available as part of the “Going to the Show” section of the University of North Carolina’s DocSouth project. There are several photos, including the two that were probably displayed at the now-dead links Lost Memory posted in 2006.
Among the abundant information on the UNC page, it says that the original Bijou, located at 205 N. Front Street, operated from December 22, 1906, until February 11, 1912, on which date its roof collapsed during a freak snow storm. This was while the new Bijou was still under construction.
The new Bijou opened on May 30, 1912. It had seats for 600 white patrons on its main floor, and had 200 seats for black patrons in its balcony. The balcony was raised and expanded in 1922, but the new seating capacity is not mentioned. The Bijou closed in 1956 and was demolished in 1963.
Architect Burett H. Stephens died the same year the Bijou closed. He had relocated to New Bern, North Carolina, by 1945, where he reestablished his practice. A successor firm, Stephens Architecture, P.A., is still in operation there. Unfortunately their web site doesn’t present any information about the founder or his works.
The Capri Cinema and Capri-70 Cinerama is how a Boxoffice article of March 26, 1973, styled this twin. The article was about the opening of the new Capri Terrace by the Simpson Operating Company, the same chain that operated the earlier Capri cinemas.
The recent opening of the single-screen Fox Eastgate was noted in Boxoffice of August 1, 1966. Neither this nor two earlier items about the house had any photos, but shots of the auditorium and the projection booth appeared this page of the April 22, 1968, issue of Boxoffice. The Fox Eastgate was designed by the local architectural firm Fischer-Koscher-Bowden.
The L.A. County Assessor says the building on the southwest corner of West Blvd. and 64th Street (that would be the church) was built in 1994. The building facing West Blvd. north of 64th Street dates from 1941. The Seville Theatre has undoubtedly been demolished.
Boxoffice of April 12, 1965, reported that the Niguel Theatre, to be operated by South Coast Theatres, would have 478 seats. The project was designed by San Clemente architect Ricardo A. Nicol.
Jimmy, this page is about the Academy Theatre on Melrose Avenue, which I think was probably closed by 1947. If you lived around 91st and Avalon, you most likely saw The Wizard of Oz at the Academy Theatre on Manchester Boulevard. Here is its Cinema Treasures page.
As the opening ad for the Telenews posted above by Mike Rivest gives an address of 1515 Elm for that theater, and the Capitol has an address of 1521, and given that the Mirror’s entrance was between these two theaters, its correct address must have been either 1517 or 1519 Elm.
The last mention of the Mirror I’ve been able to find in Boxoffice is from the issue of August 26, 1939. At that time it was being operated by Robb & Rowley.
The July 18, 1942, Boxoffice article about the Telenews that I mentioned in an earlier comment is right here. It has several photos, a small floor plan and cross section scheme of the building, plus a bonus picture of architect Jack Corgan. The floor plan shows that the Telenews was on one lot.
The only way I can think of that the Mirror and the Telenews could have occupied even part of the same footprint is if the Mirror was an L-shaped theater, or if its auditorium was behind the building next door to its entrance, and the lobby made an odd jog to reach it. I can’t think of any reason why the latter would be the case, unless the Capitol Theatre’s auditorium occupied part of the lot behind the Mirror’s entrance. Unfortunately Historic Aerials has no views of this location earlier than 1958, long after the Mirror was gone, so I can’t check to see if the Mirror was L-shaped. The Capitol doesn’t look like it spreads onto the back of the Mirror’s lot, though, but then its auditorium might have already been demolished by 1958.
In any case, even if the Mirror was L-shaped, the Telenews would have occupied only part of the Mirror’s site, and must have been new construction rather than a rebuild of the Mirror. To me it continues to seem most likely that the Mirror and the Telenews were entirely different theaters.
The name of the Telenews was changed to Dallas Theatre in 1950, by the way, so if I’m right neither of those aka’s listed above belonged to the Mirror.
I think there might be an error in the architect field. Boxoffice of February 2, 1946, attributes the design of the Telenews Theatre, then about to begin construction, to Milwaukee architect Richard Philipp (though the item misspells his name as Richard Philip.) Richard Philipp (1874-1959) was a well-known Milwaukee architect who, from 1906 until about 1938, practiced in partnership with the even better-known architect Peter Brust.
I’ve been unable to find any other source confirming the attribution in Boxoffice, but a thorough Internet search fails to turn up an architect named Ralph Phillips at all. There might have been a transcription error of some sort in Jim Rankin’s notes, turning Richard Philipp into Ralph Phillips.
The Majestic underwent a $60,000 remodeling project in 1959-1960. Boxoffice of January 4, 1960, reported that the house had recently reopened following completion of the first phase of the project, a complete re-seating and renovation of the auditorium, and the modernization of the inner lobby. The modernization of the outer lobby, boxoffice, and front was to follow.
The completion of an earlier remodeling, costing $40,000, was reported in Boxoffice of January 8, 1938.
This article about the Miracle Theatre in Boxoffice of October 30, 1967, attributes the design of the theater to an architect named Harrison Benning, and says that the building was erected by the Benning Construction Company of Atlanta.
An item in Boxoffice of June 29, 1964, about H.B. Meiselman’s new Toco Hills Theatre doesn’t mention Harrison Benning, but says “Benning Construction Co. of Atlanta is the architect and builder.”
A July 14, 1969, Boxoffice item about Eastern Federal Theatres (of which H.B. Meiselman was President— apparently he just changed the name of his operating company) said that the company’s new Ben Hill Twin Theatres had been designed by architect Frank Benning, brother of the head of the Benning Construction Company. This item added that the company “…has built all of the circuit’s theatres except the Cherokee and the Coronet.”
The Benning Construction Company is still in operation, now located in Smyrna, and their web site features a photo album displaying several theater projects they’ve built, most of them apparently quite recent. Unfortunately, it doesn’t give any details about any of them, and as far as I can tell none of the old Meiselman projects are displayed.
I think it’s likely that the Bennings of the construction company are descendants of Augustus Harrison Benning, the late 19th century Atlanta entrepreneur who was the person chiefly responsible for erecting the building that is considered the city’s first skyscraper (though it was a mere eleven stories tall.)
The recent opening of the Villa Theatre was reported in Boxoffice of August 20, 1955. Though plans for a larger theater at Malta had been announced in Boxoffice as early as 1946, the long-delayed project as built was scaled down. The owners/operators, Carl and Irene Veseth, had operated Malta’s Palace Theatre since 1922, and that house was closed when the Villa opened.
This article about the Villa Theatre was published in Boxoffice of March 3, 1958, when the theater had been in operation for more than two years. There is a floor plan of the building, as well as photos of the exterior, the rather plain auditorium, and the very stylish little lobby. The article says that the seats in the Villa, 450 in the orchestra and 50 loges, were all spaced on 40-inch centers, which was quite generous for 1955. I guess Montana had a lot of tall cowboys who liked to stretch out.
Carl Veseth had bought the land for the theater in 1928, but ground was not broken for the project until September, 1954. A 1946 Boxoffice item had said that Veseth had hired Salt Lake City architect Paul Evans to design an 800-seat theater for Malta, but the Villa as finally built was a 500-seat house designed by the Portland firm of Lathrop, Gillam & Percy, who had in 1950 done the preliminary design for another version of the Villa which was never built. It would have had over 1,500 seats, accommodating about 75% of the town’s population.
Two years after the Villa opened, the Veseths opened the Valli Drive-In at Malta, a 280-car operation. At this time they also still operated a theater at Harlem, Montana. They had once operated the Liberty Theatre at Chester, Montana, as well.
Carl Veseth died in 1975, and in 1977 the June 13 issue of Boxoffice reported that Irene Veseth had sold the Villa Theatre and the Valli Drive-In to her brother, who sported the delightful name R. C. Pancake. There was a Leslie Pancake who operated the Shasta Theatre at Central Valley, California, in the 1940s, and a Stanley Pancake who once operated a theater in Harlem, Montana in 1939. They all just had to have been related.
The Liberty Theatre was built in 1919 by Clarence J. Severson. Severson’s obituary in Boxoffice of March 10, 1958, said that he had come to Wolf Point in 1917, at which time he took over the Glacier Theatre there. In 1939 he built the Point Theatre, and in 1952 he opened the Sundown Drive-In, both also in Wolf Point.
The June 7, 1952, issue of Boxoffice reported that the Sundown Drive-In at Wolf Point, owned by Clarence J. Severson, would open in about 40 days. Severson also operated the Liberty and Point theaters in Wolf Point.
From 1922 until its closing, the Palace Theatre was operated by Carl and Irene Veseth. I’ve been unable to discover if the Palace was opened before the Veseths began operating it. It was closed in 1955, when the Veseths opened their new Villa Theatre in Malta. In 1957, They opened a Valli Drive-In at Malta as well.
The Turnpike Drive-In was nearing completion when Boxoffice published this article about it in their issue of March 3, 1958. The indoor theater, though planned from the beginning, was built after the drive-in had opened. The architect for the entire project was Drew Eberson.
Just so the above iteration of a local legend won’t spread misinformation outside Colusa, the 1962 film “To Kill A Mockingbird” was set in the fictional Southern town of Maycomb (“Maycomb was a tired old town, even in 1932 when I first knew it…” being the opening line of the narration), and the exteriors, like the rest of the movie, were shot at Universal Studios in Los Angeles.
A stage version of “To Kill A Mockingbird” was first presented in 1970, but I don’t think the play has ever been filmed. There are many things to see in and around Colusa, but Boo Radley’s house is not among them.
The only interior shot of the Stamm I’ve been able to find is one of the lobby that appeared in an ad for Gulistan carpets published in Boxoffice of February 5, 1949.
The opening of this 1,100-seat Art Moderne theater was noted in Boxoffice of December 18, 1948. I’ve been unable to discover the name of the architect.
There were two theaters called the Rita in Vallejo. The first was the one taken over by Ray Syufy and his father, William Syufy, in 1940, and was their first theater. The second Rita was the one Syufy had built in 1948. I’ve been unable to find out what became of the first Rita Theatre.
A card in the California Index indicates that the Strand was located in the Oxnard Masonic Temple. It cites an April 14, 1933, Southwest Builder & Contractor item saying “Claude A. Spaeth, manager of the Strand Theatre, Oxnard, is having plans prepared for remodeling the theater on the ground floor of the Masonic Temple Building.” The cornerstone of the Masonic Temple was laid in 1901, according to a Los Angeles Times item of January 17 that year.
Boxoffice of July 22, 1950, said this house was being built to replace the Glen City Theatre which had been destroyed by fire the previous year. It was to have 1,100 seats. The architect of the Fox Theatre was Carl Moeller.
The Victoria Theatre turns out to be a missing aka for the Colony Theatre. See my comment of this date on that page for additional information.
The Royal apparently never had an aka, and is not yet listed at Cinema Treasures. Here’s a page about it at the UNC web site. All the pertinent information is there.
This house opened January 12, 1914, as the Victoria Theatre. It was designed by architect Burett H. Stephens, who had designed Wilmington’s first purpose-built movie house, the Bijou, opened in 1912. After closing in 1924, the Victoria was remodeled and reopened as the Carolina Theatre the following year.
The latest mention I can find of the Carolina Theatre in Boxoffice dates from December 13, 1952, and the earliest mention of the Colony I’ve found is from November 9, 1954, so the name was changed between those dates.
There is a page about the Victoria in the “Going to the Show” section of the University of North Carolina’s DocSouth project. It links to their page about the Carolina, but I don’t see anything there about the house as the Colony.
Boxoffice of November 25, 1974, recaps the history of the Victoria/Carolina/Colony in one of two articles about the closing of the house (left column, right-hand page), which took place on October 31 that year. Note that both the Boxoffice article and the UNC’s Carolina Theatre page misspell the architect’s name as Stevens rather than the correct Stephens. Additionally, Boxoffice gives the year of the name change from Victoria to Carolina as 1930, not 1925 as stated at the UNC page.
The Bijou’s 1912 building was designed by architect Burett H. Stephens, who also designed the Victoria Theatre and the Royal Theatre in Wilmington. The Royal must be the one mentioned in comments by andrewb and debid above above. The Victoria might be the Victory mentioned in andrewb’s comment. Apparently neither of these theaters is listed at Cinema Treasures yet.
An impressively detailed history of the Bijou is available as part of the “Going to the Show” section of the University of North Carolina’s DocSouth project. There are several photos, including the two that were probably displayed at the now-dead links Lost Memory posted in 2006.
Among the abundant information on the UNC page, it says that the original Bijou, located at 205 N. Front Street, operated from December 22, 1906, until February 11, 1912, on which date its roof collapsed during a freak snow storm. This was while the new Bijou was still under construction.
The new Bijou opened on May 30, 1912. It had seats for 600 white patrons on its main floor, and had 200 seats for black patrons in its balcony. The balcony was raised and expanded in 1922, but the new seating capacity is not mentioned. The Bijou closed in 1956 and was demolished in 1963.
Architect Burett H. Stephens died the same year the Bijou closed. He had relocated to New Bern, North Carolina, by 1945, where he reestablished his practice. A successor firm, Stephens Architecture, P.A., is still in operation there. Unfortunately their web site doesn’t present any information about the founder or his works.
The Capri Cinema and Capri-70 Cinerama is how a Boxoffice article of March 26, 1973, styled this twin. The article was about the opening of the new Capri Terrace by the Simpson Operating Company, the same chain that operated the earlier Capri cinemas.
The recent opening of the single-screen Fox Eastgate was noted in Boxoffice of August 1, 1966. Neither this nor two earlier items about the house had any photos, but shots of the auditorium and the projection booth appeared this page of the April 22, 1968, issue of Boxoffice. The Fox Eastgate was designed by the local architectural firm Fischer-Koscher-Bowden.
The L.A. County Assessor says the building on the southwest corner of West Blvd. and 64th Street (that would be the church) was built in 1994. The building facing West Blvd. north of 64th Street dates from 1941. The Seville Theatre has undoubtedly been demolished.
Boxoffice of April 12, 1965, reported that the Niguel Theatre, to be operated by South Coast Theatres, would have 478 seats. The project was designed by San Clemente architect Ricardo A. Nicol.
Jimmy, this page is about the Academy Theatre on Melrose Avenue, which I think was probably closed by 1947. If you lived around 91st and Avalon, you most likely saw The Wizard of Oz at the Academy Theatre on Manchester Boulevard. Here is its Cinema Treasures page.
As the opening ad for the Telenews posted above by Mike Rivest gives an address of 1515 Elm for that theater, and the Capitol has an address of 1521, and given that the Mirror’s entrance was between these two theaters, its correct address must have been either 1517 or 1519 Elm.
The last mention of the Mirror I’ve been able to find in Boxoffice is from the issue of August 26, 1939. At that time it was being operated by Robb & Rowley.
The July 18, 1942, Boxoffice article about the Telenews that I mentioned in an earlier comment is right here. It has several photos, a small floor plan and cross section scheme of the building, plus a bonus picture of architect Jack Corgan. The floor plan shows that the Telenews was on one lot.
The only way I can think of that the Mirror and the Telenews could have occupied even part of the same footprint is if the Mirror was an L-shaped theater, or if its auditorium was behind the building next door to its entrance, and the lobby made an odd jog to reach it. I can’t think of any reason why the latter would be the case, unless the Capitol Theatre’s auditorium occupied part of the lot behind the Mirror’s entrance. Unfortunately Historic Aerials has no views of this location earlier than 1958, long after the Mirror was gone, so I can’t check to see if the Mirror was L-shaped. The Capitol doesn’t look like it spreads onto the back of the Mirror’s lot, though, but then its auditorium might have already been demolished by 1958.
In any case, even if the Mirror was L-shaped, the Telenews would have occupied only part of the Mirror’s site, and must have been new construction rather than a rebuild of the Mirror. To me it continues to seem most likely that the Mirror and the Telenews were entirely different theaters.
The name of the Telenews was changed to Dallas Theatre in 1950, by the way, so if I’m right neither of those aka’s listed above belonged to the Mirror.
The opening day for the Plainview was Monday, December 23, 1957, according to a brief item in Boxoffice of January 6, 1958.
Here’s the Picwood as cover girl, Boxoffice, May 7, 1949.
I think there might be an error in the architect field. Boxoffice of February 2, 1946, attributes the design of the Telenews Theatre, then about to begin construction, to Milwaukee architect Richard Philipp (though the item misspells his name as Richard Philip.) Richard Philipp (1874-1959) was a well-known Milwaukee architect who, from 1906 until about 1938, practiced in partnership with the even better-known architect Peter Brust.
I’ve been unable to find any other source confirming the attribution in Boxoffice, but a thorough Internet search fails to turn up an architect named Ralph Phillips at all. There might have been a transcription error of some sort in Jim Rankin’s notes, turning Richard Philipp into Ralph Phillips.
The Majestic underwent a $60,000 remodeling project in 1959-1960. Boxoffice of January 4, 1960, reported that the house had recently reopened following completion of the first phase of the project, a complete re-seating and renovation of the auditorium, and the modernization of the inner lobby. The modernization of the outer lobby, boxoffice, and front was to follow.
The completion of an earlier remodeling, costing $40,000, was reported in Boxoffice of January 8, 1938.
This article about the Miracle Theatre in Boxoffice of October 30, 1967, attributes the design of the theater to an architect named Harrison Benning, and says that the building was erected by the Benning Construction Company of Atlanta.
An item in Boxoffice of June 29, 1964, about H.B. Meiselman’s new Toco Hills Theatre doesn’t mention Harrison Benning, but says “Benning Construction Co. of Atlanta is the architect and builder.”
A July 14, 1969, Boxoffice item about Eastern Federal Theatres (of which H.B. Meiselman was President— apparently he just changed the name of his operating company) said that the company’s new Ben Hill Twin Theatres had been designed by architect Frank Benning, brother of the head of the Benning Construction Company. This item added that the company “…has built all of the circuit’s theatres except the Cherokee and the Coronet.”
The Benning Construction Company is still in operation, now located in Smyrna, and their web site features a photo album displaying several theater projects they’ve built, most of them apparently quite recent. Unfortunately, it doesn’t give any details about any of them, and as far as I can tell none of the old Meiselman projects are displayed.
I think it’s likely that the Bennings of the construction company are descendants of Augustus Harrison Benning, the late 19th century Atlanta entrepreneur who was the person chiefly responsible for erecting the building that is considered the city’s first skyscraper (though it was a mere eleven stories tall.)
The recent opening of the Villa Theatre was reported in Boxoffice of August 20, 1955. Though plans for a larger theater at Malta had been announced in Boxoffice as early as 1946, the long-delayed project as built was scaled down. The owners/operators, Carl and Irene Veseth, had operated Malta’s Palace Theatre since 1922, and that house was closed when the Villa opened.
This article about the Villa Theatre was published in Boxoffice of March 3, 1958, when the theater had been in operation for more than two years. There is a floor plan of the building, as well as photos of the exterior, the rather plain auditorium, and the very stylish little lobby. The article says that the seats in the Villa, 450 in the orchestra and 50 loges, were all spaced on 40-inch centers, which was quite generous for 1955. I guess Montana had a lot of tall cowboys who liked to stretch out.
Carl Veseth had bought the land for the theater in 1928, but ground was not broken for the project until September, 1954. A 1946 Boxoffice item had said that Veseth had hired Salt Lake City architect Paul Evans to design an 800-seat theater for Malta, but the Villa as finally built was a 500-seat house designed by the Portland firm of Lathrop, Gillam & Percy, who had in 1950 done the preliminary design for another version of the Villa which was never built. It would have had over 1,500 seats, accommodating about 75% of the town’s population.
Two years after the Villa opened, the Veseths opened the Valli Drive-In at Malta, a 280-car operation. At this time they also still operated a theater at Harlem, Montana. They had once operated the Liberty Theatre at Chester, Montana, as well.
Carl Veseth died in 1975, and in 1977 the June 13 issue of Boxoffice reported that Irene Veseth had sold the Villa Theatre and the Valli Drive-In to her brother, who sported the delightful name R. C. Pancake. There was a Leslie Pancake who operated the Shasta Theatre at Central Valley, California, in the 1940s, and a Stanley Pancake who once operated a theater in Harlem, Montana in 1939. They all just had to have been related.
The Liberty Theatre was built in 1919 by Clarence J. Severson. Severson’s obituary in Boxoffice of March 10, 1958, said that he had come to Wolf Point in 1917, at which time he took over the Glacier Theatre there. In 1939 he built the Point Theatre, and in 1952 he opened the Sundown Drive-In, both also in Wolf Point.
The June 7, 1952, issue of Boxoffice reported that the Sundown Drive-In at Wolf Point, owned by Clarence J. Severson, would open in about 40 days. Severson also operated the Liberty and Point theaters in Wolf Point.
From 1922 until its closing, the Palace Theatre was operated by Carl and Irene Veseth. I’ve been unable to discover if the Palace was opened before the Veseths began operating it. It was closed in 1955, when the Veseths opened their new Villa Theatre in Malta. In 1957, They opened a Valli Drive-In at Malta as well.
The Turnpike Drive-In was nearing completion when Boxoffice published this article about it in their issue of March 3, 1958. The indoor theater, though planned from the beginning, was built after the drive-in had opened. The architect for the entire project was Drew Eberson.
Just so the above iteration of a local legend won’t spread misinformation outside Colusa, the 1962 film “To Kill A Mockingbird” was set in the fictional Southern town of Maycomb (“Maycomb was a tired old town, even in 1932 when I first knew it…” being the opening line of the narration), and the exteriors, like the rest of the movie, were shot at Universal Studios in Los Angeles.
A stage version of “To Kill A Mockingbird” was first presented in 1970, but I don’t think the play has ever been filmed. There are many things to see in and around Colusa, but Boo Radley’s house is not among them.
The only interior shot of the Stamm I’ve been able to find is one of the lobby that appeared in an ad for Gulistan carpets published in Boxoffice of February 5, 1949.
The opening of this 1,100-seat Art Moderne theater was noted in Boxoffice of December 18, 1948. I’ve been unable to discover the name of the architect.
There were two theaters called the Rita in Vallejo. The first was the one taken over by Ray Syufy and his father, William Syufy, in 1940, and was their first theater. The second Rita was the one Syufy had built in 1948. I’ve been unable to find out what became of the first Rita Theatre.
A card in the California Index indicates that the Strand was located in the Oxnard Masonic Temple. It cites an April 14, 1933, Southwest Builder & Contractor item saying “Claude A. Spaeth, manager of the Strand Theatre, Oxnard, is having plans prepared for remodeling the theater on the ground floor of the Masonic Temple Building.” The cornerstone of the Masonic Temple was laid in 1901, according to a Los Angeles Times item of January 17 that year.
The Bellwood Drive-In was designed by Michael J. DeAngelis, according to Boxoffice of February 5, 1949.
Boxoffice of July 22, 1950, said this house was being built to replace the Glen City Theatre which had been destroyed by fire the previous year. It was to have 1,100 seats. The architect of the Fox Theatre was Carl Moeller.