This one is a real puzzle, and I’ve pretty much come to a dead end. I haven’t found a single reference to it in Boxoffice or any of that magazine’s predecessors. The only other reference to the Hippodrome I’ve found on the Internet is in a 1911 book (hosted at Google Books) listing an “Indianapolis Hippodrome Company” which had filed articles of incorporation at Cincinnati on April 2, 1910.
Information about this theater will probably be hard to track down. It might have been an old house that didn’t survive far into the 20th century (the 1910 incorporation doesn’t mean the theater was new in 1910. It might have been a new operating company formed to operate an existing theater.)
Or the place might have burned, as many theaters did in those days, or the land might have become valuable for other purposes, and the theater demolished, or the theater might have been renamed and the original name largely forgotten- in which case the house might already be listed at Cinema Treasures under a later name and that page simply be missing the aka Hippodrome.
I think that somebody who has access to old publications and public records in Indianapolis itself will have to research the Hippodrome before we’ll find out much more about it. It must have been listed in city directories and advertised in local newspapers, and there might be news articles about it.
The Guild was one of the world’s rare reverse theaters even before an extensive remodeling took place in 1956. After several years of successful operation as an art house (before 1948 it had been a triple-feature grind house for some years) the operators spent $70,000 on a remodeling, for which they engaged the noted Portland architectural firm of Wick & Hilgers.
The theater’s reverse auditorium was retained, largely unchanged except for redecoration, but the rest of the interior was reconfigured, with the former stage being removed to provide space for a two-level lobby and lounge area, as well as space for a curved baffle to minimize light leaking from the new lobby into the auditorium. A more spacious entrance was also provided by moving the box office.
Photos of the remodeled Guild appeared with an article published in Boxoffice of October 20, 1956. The remodeling was done over a period of six months, while the theater remained open.
According to an article in Boxoffice of November 16, 1946, the Fox Theatre in Leadville had opened as the Liberty Bell Theatre on January 1, 1917, and became part of the Fox circuit on August 1, 1935.
A 1968 Boxoffice item about a new theater then being built in Leadville said that the town had been without a theater since the closing of the Fox. This item didn’t give the date the Fox closed, but I’ve found references to it being in operation as late as 1963. I’ve been unable to find out when it reopened as the Silver City Cinema.
The 1946 article said that Fox was also then operating the Elks Opera House in Leadville, a theater which had opened as the Tabor Opera House in 1879. In addition, the article said, Fox was operating a theater at Climax, Colorado, about 13 miles from Leadville. Other issues of Boxoffice indicate that this was the 200-seat Climax Theatre, opened in late 1938 or early 1937.
According to an item in Boxoffice of March 30, 1957, Paul Volkman took over operation of the Liberty Theatre from his parents in 1933 and operated it until 1957. The purchaser in 1957 was C.A. Dunn. However, a February 21, 1953, Boxoffice obituary of Joseph Blaschke said the Blaschke had built the Liberty in 1920 and had run it until turning it over to his grandson in October, 1933.
The 1957 item mentioned that Volkman had earlier rebuilt and remodeled the Liberty. This rebuilding was covered in an October 7, 1946, Boxoffice article which said that Volkman was then in the process of rebuilding the house. The project was to include the addition of a 400-seat section of stadium seating. The wording of the article is imprecise, but the rebuilt Liberty was apparently to have 775 seats.
The article said that Paul Volkman was trained in architecture and had taught architectural drawing at the high school level, and that he had drawn the plans for the rebuilding of the Liberty, as he had drawn the plans for his second theater at Wapato, the Dickon, in 1939.
The letting of the contract for construction of what was to become the Vale Theatre was announced in Boxoffice, May 4, 1946. The new house was to be operated by Ted Wilson, operator of the Kent Theatre in Kent.
Before the Vale was completed, Wilson sold his entire operation in Kent to brothers Will and Roy Andre, operators of the Community Theatre in Tacoma, according to Boxoffice of November 6, 1946. The Vale probably opened later that year or early in 1947. The Vale was still being reported as owned by Will Andre in issues of Boxoffice as late as 1954. After that I don’t find it mentioned at all.
The El Rancho was featured in an illustrated article in Boxoffice of October 2, 1954. The style of the theater was Rustic, all its buildings being built of cedar logs and having cedar shake roofs. A photo of the concession stand showed the employees dressed in western outfits, with cowboy hats. The drive-in could accommodate 575 cars.
Boxoffice didn’t give the name of an architect, but said “The El Rancho was engineered and is being managed by Oscar L. Chiniquy who has spent 20 years with National Theatre Supply and has devoted a lot of time in advising others on how to build.”
The article gave the names of Chiniquy’s partners as Fay Honey and Lloyd Honey. Boxoffice and its predecessor Movie Age frequently mention Fay Honey, as far back as 1929 and into the 1950s. His son Lloyd Honey died in 1977, and his obituary appeared in the May 2 issue of Boxoffice that year.
The name Elton Fay appears in a brief item in Boxoffice of August 28, 1954, about the opening of the El Rancho. That is the only appearance of the name Elton Fay in Boxoffice.
The February 5, 1955 issue of Boxoffice said that Oscar Chiniquy had sold his interest in the El Rancho to William Foreman and associates.
A photo of the auditorium of the New Village Theatre in Sacramento was featured in an ad for Heywood-Wakefield theatre chairs in the April 1, 1950, issue of Boxoffice. The house seated 903 on opening, including 199 loges.
It’s impossible to tell from the black and white photo in the magazine, but the murals in the auditorium which look like fairly stark, two-tone silhouettes of trees and flying birds, might have been more complex than the photo reveals as they might have used the black light techniques then in vogue.
The construction of the building was unusual as well. Ceiling beams that appear to be of laminated wood curve at the wall and descend to the floor like thin internal buttresses. I wish I could have seen this theater before it was demolished. I’ve never seen anything quite like it.
The Village was originally part of the small, regional Harvey circuit, operated by Julian Harvey.
The Berea Theatre was featured in an article by Hanns Teichert in Boxoffice, July 1, 1950. The article credited the design of the house to Paul Matzinger, of Matzinger & Grosel. The Art Moderne decor was by Rex M. Davis of the Teichert Studios.
An article in the June 15, 1959, issue of Boxoffice described an ad for the Rialto’s grand opening that was published in the Cleveland Leader of Sunday, October 19, 1919. The house had probably opened a few days earlier. The first feature shown was “The Girl from Outside” with Dorothy Gish. The Boxoffice article said that the Rialto had closed in 1957.
The September 28, 1929, issue of the trade publication Movie Age said that the Century Theatre had been opened by the Publix circuit the previous Saturday.
The article said that the plans for the rebuilding of the former Garrick Theatre had been done by the architectural firm of Lieberman & Kaplan, but they must have meant Liebenberg & Kaplan.
Boxoffice of November 5, 1938, ran an item saying that George Kerasotes was planning to build a theater called the Varsity in Peoria. The Varsity was being designed by one of Peoria’s leading architects, J. Fletcher Lankton.
A photo of the foyer of the Varsity appeared on the cover of the Modern Theatre section of Boxoffice for March 30, 1940. The Varsity was located in an existing building, formerly a garage, which was extensively altered to serve as a theater.
There were two theaters at this location. The first, called the Highland Theatre, was a 300-seat, single-floor house that was demolished to make way for the much larger Lee Theatre. An article about the Lee appeared in Boxoffice, March 30, 1940.
The Lee Theatre was designed by Jack Corgan, of Corgan & Moore. The Boxoffice article claimed that the Lee had 950 seats, with 750 on the main floor and 200 in the segregated balcony. The art moderne style of the interior was achieved largely through paint effects in this budget project costing $25,000.
S&M Theatres, operators of the Tomah Theatre, opened the Erwin Theatre in 1947, according to Boxoffice of May 27 that year. Construction of the house had begun in 1945 but suffered delays. The original seating capacity was 632. The caption of a photo of the front of the Erwin described the building: “…concrete sidewalls, and ornamental brick front, designed along highly modern lines inside and out…. Elaborately decorated, the lobby displays rich pile carpets, as well as notable lighting effects.”
S&M Theatres, earlier called Marcus & Swirnoff Theatres Inc., had been planning a new theater in Tomah since at least 1942, when Boxoffice of April 18 announced the chain’s intention to build an 800-seat house there, tentatively called the Camp Theatre.
The S&M chain, headed by Ben Marcus, became Marcus Theatres, which is now one of the larger theater chains in the U.S., operating more than 600 screens in the Midwest, including a theater in Tomah, the six-screen Ho-Chunk Cinema, opened in 2004.
The Tomah Theatre was mentioned in Movie Age as early as 1929, when Vitaphone sound equipment was installed in the house.
The name Gasoline Alley was given to Superior Avenue in honor of Tomah native Frank King, whose comic strip of that name ran in some 300 American newspapers for several decades. This is noted on this page at the city’s official web site.
There’s an April 23, 1949, Boxoffice article about the Joy Circuit which mentions an official of the company named B.W. Stevens who was in charged of exploitation (which I believe was Boxoffice’s term for advertising and publicity.) I wonder if this B.W. Stevens was somehow conflated by the authors of No More Joy with the New Orleans architect B.W. Stevens who designed Fiske Theatre in Oak Grove? As Francine Stock noted in a comment of Jan. 14, 2009, above, the architects of record for the Joy Theatre were Favrot & Reed.
Incidentally, Cinema Treasures has mistakenly called the firm Favrot, Reed & Fred. If you check the Teche Theatre web site, you’ll see that it says that the Teche was designed by Favrot & Reed, with architect Fred Nehrbass associated.
The Leaf Theatre opened on October 24, 1949, with 1022 seats- 700 on the main floor and 322 in a segregated balcony. The house was operated by Interstate Enterprises, according to items in Boxoffice Magazine on November 5 and November 19, 1949. These items attribute the design of the theater to Prentiss Huddleston & Associates, Tallahassee.
An Item in 1947 said that Kemp, Bunch & Jackson would design the new theater at Quincy, with Prentiss Huddleston as a local associate architect. A September, 1948 item names Prentiss Huddleston as the lead architect of the Leaf Theatre, with Kemp, Bunch & Jackson as the associated architects. The items about the opening don’t mention Kemp, Bunch & Jackson at all, so I don’t know how much, if any, input that firm had in the final design of the Leaf Theatre.
The plans had already been revised several times by early 1948, according to an item in Boxoffice of January 24 that year, due to repeated refusal by government authorities to issue a permit for construction of the theater as designed.
Interstate Enterprises, a company with theaters in Georgia and Florida, not to be confused with Texas-based Interstate Theatres, already operated two other theaters in Quincy, the Shaw and the Roxy, and later opened a drive-in there as well.
Boxoffice of August 26, 1950, announced that ground had been broken for a new theater on N. 4th Street in Baton Rouge. The house was being built for Gordon Theatres Inc., a local chain headed by Gordon Ogden. Architects for the project were the local firm of Bodman & Murrell (Ralph Bodman and Richard Murrell.) The house was expected to be open by January 1, 1951.
The successor firm to Bodman & Murrell, Bodman, Murrell, Landry & Webb, designed at least one theater that would be operated by Gordon Theatres' successor firm, Gordon-Perry Theatres, in 1964. There was also an intermediate firm called Bodman, Murrell & Smith. Other theaters might have been designed under one or another of the firms names, but I’m having a hard time tracking down information about them. Boxoffice has very few references on the subject.
The article ken mc linked to says the University Cinema had existed since 1960, but Boxoffice of February 16, 1970, says that a University Twin Theatre was to be built in the University Shopping Center at Highland Road and State Street in Baton Rouge. Presumably it opened later that year. I’ve been unable to find any references to any other theaters being in the neighborhood, so I think the University Cinema 4 must have been that 1970 project.
The house was built for Theo Cangelosi, who also had an interest in the Broadmoor Theatre in Baton Rouge, though he was not a theater operator (the Broadmoor was leased to Gordon-Perry Theatres.) The University Twin was designed by local architectural firm Wilson & Coleman, and had 704 seats, divided 412 and 292. Completion of the project was expected by July, 1970.
The Orpheum in Mapleton is mentioned in Boxoffice in December, 1937, and in August and October, 1938. The first item names the operator as Ray Richards, and the last says it is Roy Reichard. I haven’t found either the Maple or the Princess mentioned in any issues from the 1930s.
Orpheum probably is an aka for the Princess/first Maple, though I wouldn’t yet rule out the possibility that the Princess closed and the Orpheum was a different theater that later became the Maple. I doubt that Mapleton was ever large enough to support two theaters at once, though.
kdinkcmo: The 1948 year of opening currently given in the intro is wrong. The Maple opened in 1950. Boxoffice Magazine ran a brief item datelined Mapleton in its June 25, 1949, issue which said: “Construction of a 50x100-foot brick building to house the new Mapleton Theatre has begun here. The business is owned by F. W. Kugel of Holstein and will be managed by F. D. ‘Doc’ Naulteus.”
Then the January 7, 1950, issue of Boxoffice had an item saying that the opening of the new Maple Theatre was scheduled for January 10. The first movie was to be “Challenge to Lassie.” Boxoffice said the house had 400 seats, but Boxoffice was frequently a bit off on seating capacity. Their items also had frequent spelling errors (“Doc” Naulteus might have been Nalteus or Nulteus or even Multeus, depending on which issue of Boxoffice you look at.)
I think Chuck probably got the 1948 date from the Boller Brothers Architectural Records (PDF here) which lists the Maple Theatre as a 1948 project. I think the Boller records give the year in which the firm began working on a given project, though, which is often not the year the buildings were completed.
Unless it was replaced at some time between 1928 and 1942, when F.W. Kugel bought it, the original Maple Theatre, closed when the new Maple Theatre opened in 1950, was called the Princess when it was sold to Mrs. Charles Weeks of Ord, Nebraska, by Harry Day in 1928. The information about that sale was reprinted in the “From the Boxoffice Files, Twenty Years Ago” feature in Boxoffice of August 28, 1948. Unless the name Princess was given to the 1950 Maple Theatre at some later date, this page should be renamed Maple Theatre and the aka Princess should go to a new page for the original Maple Theatre, which must have been at a different location.
I’d say if it’s an entirely new building, it should have its own page, as long as it shows movies. However, in the photo on this page at the center’s web site you can see that they’ve only got a big digital setup for movies.
The .pdf with the theater’s technical specifications says they have a 12'x20' high-definition screen and are equipped for Blu-Ray digital DVD playback. I guess 12'x20' is about as big as the screens many movie theaters had for decades, and probably bigger than the screens in some of the early multiplexes, so presentation is probably decent.
The .pdf has a few photos. I wish they’d given as much architectural attention to the outside of the new building as they did to the interior, which is not half bad. The facade looks strip mall dull, though, even with the restored marquee in place.
A Town and Country Cinema opened as a 600-seat single-screener in the Town & Country Shopping Center in Southern Pines in 1966. Originally operated by Stewart & Everett Theatres, it was one of at least two theaters designed about this time for the chain by Charles H. Wheatley & Associates. S&E was then operating over 70 theatres in North Carolina and Virginia, the Sunrise in Southern Pines among them.
The June 6, 1977, issue of Boxoffice listed among new theater projects completed in 1976 a 325-seat Town & Country Cinema 2, at Southern Pines, for Stewart & Everett Theatres. This was apparently either a second screen added to (or carved from) the original Town and Country Cinema, or an entirely new twin built as a replacement for the 1966 single-screen house. Boxoffice does not specify. Old reports or ads from the area’s newspaper(s) could undoubtedly clear this up.
The January 22, 1968, issue of Boxoffice said that Chakeres Theatres' University Cinema in Morehead had opened on January 11th. The item gave the seating capacity as 750.
The Mills was probably called the Cozy prior to 1940. A December 9, 1939, Boxoffice item said that L.H. Mills was taking over the Cozy Theatre in Morehead. By 1943, Boxoffice is mentioning Lou Mills as operator of the Mills Theatre in Morehead.
Warren Schafer, operator of the Trail Theatre in Morehead, operated the Cozy for about two months in 1939 before selling it to Mills, then bought the Mills Theatre from Mills early in 1944. I don’t find the Cozy mentioned after 1939 or the Mills mentioned before 1942. They were probably the same theater. In 1948, Schafer sold both houses to Chakeres Theatres.
A July 15, 1939, Boxoffice item said that all three of the theaters in Morehead had escaped damage from recent flooding. Though none of the theater names were given in the item, the third theater must have been the Morehead College Theatre, which a 1935 Boxoffice item said was operated as a regular movie theater, open to the public, operated in the school’s auditorium by a professor.
This 1935 item also mentions a “…defunct Blue Eagle….” in Morehead, whose operator had unsuccessfully sued the college to prevent it from competing with has privately-owned theater. By the early 1940s Boxoffice was saying there were two theaters in Morehead, so the College operation, last mentioned by name in the magazine in 1938, must have shut down by then.
The most recent mention of the Mills I’ve found in Boxoffice is in the December 15, 1952, issue, when Chakeres Theatres announced plans for a new drive-in at Morehead. The Trail, a 400-seat house opened by Schafer in 1937, is mentioned as late as 1954, when CinemaScope was installed.
I found a reference to this theater as the Lillian in the February 22, 1941, issue of Boxoffice. The item said that Crescent had acquired the theater three years earlier. They were having the house remodeled. Plans were by the local architectural firm of Speight & Hibbs. A new facade and marquee were planned, so this may be when the name was changed.
In any case, the theater had been renamed the Roxy by 1946, when its destruction by fire was reported in the January 19 issue of Boxoffice. So far I’ve been unable to find anything in Boxoffice about the reconstruction, but I suspect that Speight & Hibbs did the design for that, too. From the photos it certainly resembles their other work of the period.
This one is a real puzzle, and I’ve pretty much come to a dead end. I haven’t found a single reference to it in Boxoffice or any of that magazine’s predecessors. The only other reference to the Hippodrome I’ve found on the Internet is in a 1911 book (hosted at Google Books) listing an “Indianapolis Hippodrome Company” which had filed articles of incorporation at Cincinnati on April 2, 1910.
Information about this theater will probably be hard to track down. It might have been an old house that didn’t survive far into the 20th century (the 1910 incorporation doesn’t mean the theater was new in 1910. It might have been a new operating company formed to operate an existing theater.)
Or the place might have burned, as many theaters did in those days, or the land might have become valuable for other purposes, and the theater demolished, or the theater might have been renamed and the original name largely forgotten- in which case the house might already be listed at Cinema Treasures under a later name and that page simply be missing the aka Hippodrome.
I think that somebody who has access to old publications and public records in Indianapolis itself will have to research the Hippodrome before we’ll find out much more about it. It must have been listed in city directories and advertised in local newspapers, and there might be news articles about it.
The Guild was one of the world’s rare reverse theaters even before an extensive remodeling took place in 1956. After several years of successful operation as an art house (before 1948 it had been a triple-feature grind house for some years) the operators spent $70,000 on a remodeling, for which they engaged the noted Portland architectural firm of Wick & Hilgers.
The theater’s reverse auditorium was retained, largely unchanged except for redecoration, but the rest of the interior was reconfigured, with the former stage being removed to provide space for a two-level lobby and lounge area, as well as space for a curved baffle to minimize light leaking from the new lobby into the auditorium. A more spacious entrance was also provided by moving the box office.
Photos of the remodeled Guild appeared with an article published in Boxoffice of October 20, 1956. The remodeling was done over a period of six months, while the theater remained open.
According to an article in Boxoffice of November 16, 1946, the Fox Theatre in Leadville had opened as the Liberty Bell Theatre on January 1, 1917, and became part of the Fox circuit on August 1, 1935.
A 1968 Boxoffice item about a new theater then being built in Leadville said that the town had been without a theater since the closing of the Fox. This item didn’t give the date the Fox closed, but I’ve found references to it being in operation as late as 1963. I’ve been unable to find out when it reopened as the Silver City Cinema.
The 1946 article said that Fox was also then operating the Elks Opera House in Leadville, a theater which had opened as the Tabor Opera House in 1879. In addition, the article said, Fox was operating a theater at Climax, Colorado, about 13 miles from Leadville. Other issues of Boxoffice indicate that this was the 200-seat Climax Theatre, opened in late 1938 or early 1937.
According to an item in Boxoffice of March 30, 1957, Paul Volkman took over operation of the Liberty Theatre from his parents in 1933 and operated it until 1957. The purchaser in 1957 was C.A. Dunn. However, a February 21, 1953, Boxoffice obituary of Joseph Blaschke said the Blaschke had built the Liberty in 1920 and had run it until turning it over to his grandson in October, 1933.
The 1957 item mentioned that Volkman had earlier rebuilt and remodeled the Liberty. This rebuilding was covered in an October 7, 1946, Boxoffice article which said that Volkman was then in the process of rebuilding the house. The project was to include the addition of a 400-seat section of stadium seating. The wording of the article is imprecise, but the rebuilt Liberty was apparently to have 775 seats.
The article said that Paul Volkman was trained in architecture and had taught architectural drawing at the high school level, and that he had drawn the plans for the rebuilding of the Liberty, as he had drawn the plans for his second theater at Wapato, the Dickon, in 1939.
The letting of the contract for construction of what was to become the Vale Theatre was announced in Boxoffice, May 4, 1946. The new house was to be operated by Ted Wilson, operator of the Kent Theatre in Kent.
Before the Vale was completed, Wilson sold his entire operation in Kent to brothers Will and Roy Andre, operators of the Community Theatre in Tacoma, according to Boxoffice of November 6, 1946. The Vale probably opened later that year or early in 1947. The Vale was still being reported as owned by Will Andre in issues of Boxoffice as late as 1954. After that I don’t find it mentioned at all.
The El Rancho was featured in an illustrated article in Boxoffice of October 2, 1954. The style of the theater was Rustic, all its buildings being built of cedar logs and having cedar shake roofs. A photo of the concession stand showed the employees dressed in western outfits, with cowboy hats. The drive-in could accommodate 575 cars.
Boxoffice didn’t give the name of an architect, but said “The El Rancho was engineered and is being managed by Oscar L. Chiniquy who has spent 20 years with National Theatre Supply and has devoted a lot of time in advising others on how to build.”
The article gave the names of Chiniquy’s partners as Fay Honey and Lloyd Honey. Boxoffice and its predecessor Movie Age frequently mention Fay Honey, as far back as 1929 and into the 1950s. His son Lloyd Honey died in 1977, and his obituary appeared in the May 2 issue of Boxoffice that year.
The name Elton Fay appears in a brief item in Boxoffice of August 28, 1954, about the opening of the El Rancho. That is the only appearance of the name Elton Fay in Boxoffice.
The February 5, 1955 issue of Boxoffice said that Oscar Chiniquy had sold his interest in the El Rancho to William Foreman and associates.
A photo of the auditorium of the New Village Theatre in Sacramento was featured in an ad for Heywood-Wakefield theatre chairs in the April 1, 1950, issue of Boxoffice. The house seated 903 on opening, including 199 loges.
It’s impossible to tell from the black and white photo in the magazine, but the murals in the auditorium which look like fairly stark, two-tone silhouettes of trees and flying birds, might have been more complex than the photo reveals as they might have used the black light techniques then in vogue.
The construction of the building was unusual as well. Ceiling beams that appear to be of laminated wood curve at the wall and descend to the floor like thin internal buttresses. I wish I could have seen this theater before it was demolished. I’ve never seen anything quite like it.
The Village was originally part of the small, regional Harvey circuit, operated by Julian Harvey.
The Berea Theatre was featured in an article by Hanns Teichert in Boxoffice, July 1, 1950. The article credited the design of the house to Paul Matzinger, of Matzinger & Grosel. The Art Moderne decor was by Rex M. Davis of the Teichert Studios.
An article in the June 15, 1959, issue of Boxoffice described an ad for the Rialto’s grand opening that was published in the Cleveland Leader of Sunday, October 19, 1919. The house had probably opened a few days earlier. The first feature shown was “The Girl from Outside” with Dorothy Gish. The Boxoffice article said that the Rialto had closed in 1957.
The September 28, 1929, issue of the trade publication Movie Age said that the Century Theatre had been opened by the Publix circuit the previous Saturday.
The article said that the plans for the rebuilding of the former Garrick Theatre had been done by the architectural firm of Lieberman & Kaplan, but they must have meant Liebenberg & Kaplan.
Boxoffice of November 5, 1938, ran an item saying that George Kerasotes was planning to build a theater called the Varsity in Peoria. The Varsity was being designed by one of Peoria’s leading architects, J. Fletcher Lankton.
A photo of the foyer of the Varsity appeared on the cover of the Modern Theatre section of Boxoffice for March 30, 1940. The Varsity was located in an existing building, formerly a garage, which was extensively altered to serve as a theater.
There were two theaters at this location. The first, called the Highland Theatre, was a 300-seat, single-floor house that was demolished to make way for the much larger Lee Theatre. An article about the Lee appeared in Boxoffice, March 30, 1940.
The Lee Theatre was designed by Jack Corgan, of Corgan & Moore. The Boxoffice article claimed that the Lee had 950 seats, with 750 on the main floor and 200 in the segregated balcony. The art moderne style of the interior was achieved largely through paint effects in this budget project costing $25,000.
S&M Theatres, operators of the Tomah Theatre, opened the Erwin Theatre in 1947, according to Boxoffice of May 27 that year. Construction of the house had begun in 1945 but suffered delays. The original seating capacity was 632. The caption of a photo of the front of the Erwin described the building: “…concrete sidewalls, and ornamental brick front, designed along highly modern lines inside and out…. Elaborately decorated, the lobby displays rich pile carpets, as well as notable lighting effects.”
S&M Theatres, earlier called Marcus & Swirnoff Theatres Inc., had been planning a new theater in Tomah since at least 1942, when Boxoffice of April 18 announced the chain’s intention to build an 800-seat house there, tentatively called the Camp Theatre.
The S&M chain, headed by Ben Marcus, became Marcus Theatres, which is now one of the larger theater chains in the U.S., operating more than 600 screens in the Midwest, including a theater in Tomah, the six-screen Ho-Chunk Cinema, opened in 2004.
The Tomah Theatre was mentioned in Movie Age as early as 1929, when Vitaphone sound equipment was installed in the house.
The name Gasoline Alley was given to Superior Avenue in honor of Tomah native Frank King, whose comic strip of that name ran in some 300 American newspapers for several decades. This is noted on this page at the city’s official web site.
There’s an April 23, 1949, Boxoffice article about the Joy Circuit which mentions an official of the company named B.W. Stevens who was in charged of exploitation (which I believe was Boxoffice’s term for advertising and publicity.) I wonder if this B.W. Stevens was somehow conflated by the authors of No More Joy with the New Orleans architect B.W. Stevens who designed Fiske Theatre in Oak Grove? As Francine Stock noted in a comment of Jan. 14, 2009, above, the architects of record for the Joy Theatre were Favrot & Reed.
Incidentally, Cinema Treasures has mistakenly called the firm Favrot, Reed & Fred. If you check the Teche Theatre web site, you’ll see that it says that the Teche was designed by Favrot & Reed, with architect Fred Nehrbass associated.
The Leaf Theatre opened on October 24, 1949, with 1022 seats- 700 on the main floor and 322 in a segregated balcony. The house was operated by Interstate Enterprises, according to items in Boxoffice Magazine on November 5 and November 19, 1949. These items attribute the design of the theater to Prentiss Huddleston & Associates, Tallahassee.
An Item in 1947 said that Kemp, Bunch & Jackson would design the new theater at Quincy, with Prentiss Huddleston as a local associate architect. A September, 1948 item names Prentiss Huddleston as the lead architect of the Leaf Theatre, with Kemp, Bunch & Jackson as the associated architects. The items about the opening don’t mention Kemp, Bunch & Jackson at all, so I don’t know how much, if any, input that firm had in the final design of the Leaf Theatre.
The plans had already been revised several times by early 1948, according to an item in Boxoffice of January 24 that year, due to repeated refusal by government authorities to issue a permit for construction of the theater as designed.
Interstate Enterprises, a company with theaters in Georgia and Florida, not to be confused with Texas-based Interstate Theatres, already operated two other theaters in Quincy, the Shaw and the Roxy, and later opened a drive-in there as well.
Boxoffice of August 26, 1950, announced that ground had been broken for a new theater on N. 4th Street in Baton Rouge. The house was being built for Gordon Theatres Inc., a local chain headed by Gordon Ogden. Architects for the project were the local firm of Bodman & Murrell (Ralph Bodman and Richard Murrell.) The house was expected to be open by January 1, 1951.
The successor firm to Bodman & Murrell, Bodman, Murrell, Landry & Webb, designed at least one theater that would be operated by Gordon Theatres' successor firm, Gordon-Perry Theatres, in 1964. There was also an intermediate firm called Bodman, Murrell & Smith. Other theaters might have been designed under one or another of the firms names, but I’m having a hard time tracking down information about them. Boxoffice has very few references on the subject.
This list of historic New Orleans buildings attributes the design of the Carver Theatre to the firm of August Perez & Associates (it’s listed third from the bottom.)
The article ken mc linked to says the University Cinema had existed since 1960, but Boxoffice of February 16, 1970, says that a University Twin Theatre was to be built in the University Shopping Center at Highland Road and State Street in Baton Rouge. Presumably it opened later that year. I’ve been unable to find any references to any other theaters being in the neighborhood, so I think the University Cinema 4 must have been that 1970 project.
The house was built for Theo Cangelosi, who also had an interest in the Broadmoor Theatre in Baton Rouge, though he was not a theater operator (the Broadmoor was leased to Gordon-Perry Theatres.) The University Twin was designed by local architectural firm Wilson & Coleman, and had 704 seats, divided 412 and 292. Completion of the project was expected by July, 1970.
The Orpheum in Mapleton is mentioned in Boxoffice in December, 1937, and in August and October, 1938. The first item names the operator as Ray Richards, and the last says it is Roy Reichard. I haven’t found either the Maple or the Princess mentioned in any issues from the 1930s.
Orpheum probably is an aka for the Princess/first Maple, though I wouldn’t yet rule out the possibility that the Princess closed and the Orpheum was a different theater that later became the Maple. I doubt that Mapleton was ever large enough to support two theaters at once, though.
kdinkcmo: The 1948 year of opening currently given in the intro is wrong. The Maple opened in 1950. Boxoffice Magazine ran a brief item datelined Mapleton in its June 25, 1949, issue which said: “Construction of a 50x100-foot brick building to house the new Mapleton Theatre has begun here. The business is owned by F. W. Kugel of Holstein and will be managed by F. D. ‘Doc’ Naulteus.”
Then the January 7, 1950, issue of Boxoffice had an item saying that the opening of the new Maple Theatre was scheduled for January 10. The first movie was to be “Challenge to Lassie.” Boxoffice said the house had 400 seats, but Boxoffice was frequently a bit off on seating capacity. Their items also had frequent spelling errors (“Doc” Naulteus might have been Nalteus or Nulteus or even Multeus, depending on which issue of Boxoffice you look at.)
I think Chuck probably got the 1948 date from the Boller Brothers Architectural Records (PDF here) which lists the Maple Theatre as a 1948 project. I think the Boller records give the year in which the firm began working on a given project, though, which is often not the year the buildings were completed.
Unless it was replaced at some time between 1928 and 1942, when F.W. Kugel bought it, the original Maple Theatre, closed when the new Maple Theatre opened in 1950, was called the Princess when it was sold to Mrs. Charles Weeks of Ord, Nebraska, by Harry Day in 1928. The information about that sale was reprinted in the “From the Boxoffice Files, Twenty Years Ago” feature in Boxoffice of August 28, 1948. Unless the name Princess was given to the 1950 Maple Theatre at some later date, this page should be renamed Maple Theatre and the aka Princess should go to a new page for the original Maple Theatre, which must have been at a different location.
I’d say if it’s an entirely new building, it should have its own page, as long as it shows movies. However, in the photo on this page at the center’s web site you can see that they’ve only got a big digital setup for movies.
The .pdf with the theater’s technical specifications says they have a 12'x20' high-definition screen and are equipped for Blu-Ray digital DVD playback. I guess 12'x20' is about as big as the screens many movie theaters had for decades, and probably bigger than the screens in some of the early multiplexes, so presentation is probably decent.
The .pdf has a few photos. I wish they’d given as much architectural attention to the outside of the new building as they did to the interior, which is not half bad. The facade looks strip mall dull, though, even with the restored marquee in place.
A Town and Country Cinema opened as a 600-seat single-screener in the Town & Country Shopping Center in Southern Pines in 1966. Originally operated by Stewart & Everett Theatres, it was one of at least two theaters designed about this time for the chain by Charles H. Wheatley & Associates. S&E was then operating over 70 theatres in North Carolina and Virginia, the Sunrise in Southern Pines among them.
The June 6, 1977, issue of Boxoffice listed among new theater projects completed in 1976 a 325-seat Town & Country Cinema 2, at Southern Pines, for Stewart & Everett Theatres. This was apparently either a second screen added to (or carved from) the original Town and Country Cinema, or an entirely new twin built as a replacement for the 1966 single-screen house. Boxoffice does not specify. Old reports or ads from the area’s newspaper(s) could undoubtedly clear this up.
The January 22, 1968, issue of Boxoffice said that Chakeres Theatres' University Cinema in Morehead had opened on January 11th. The item gave the seating capacity as 750.
The Mills was probably called the Cozy prior to 1940. A December 9, 1939, Boxoffice item said that L.H. Mills was taking over the Cozy Theatre in Morehead. By 1943, Boxoffice is mentioning Lou Mills as operator of the Mills Theatre in Morehead.
Warren Schafer, operator of the Trail Theatre in Morehead, operated the Cozy for about two months in 1939 before selling it to Mills, then bought the Mills Theatre from Mills early in 1944. I don’t find the Cozy mentioned after 1939 or the Mills mentioned before 1942. They were probably the same theater. In 1948, Schafer sold both houses to Chakeres Theatres.
A July 15, 1939, Boxoffice item said that all three of the theaters in Morehead had escaped damage from recent flooding. Though none of the theater names were given in the item, the third theater must have been the Morehead College Theatre, which a 1935 Boxoffice item said was operated as a regular movie theater, open to the public, operated in the school’s auditorium by a professor.
This 1935 item also mentions a “…defunct Blue Eagle….” in Morehead, whose operator had unsuccessfully sued the college to prevent it from competing with has privately-owned theater. By the early 1940s Boxoffice was saying there were two theaters in Morehead, so the College operation, last mentioned by name in the magazine in 1938, must have shut down by then.
The most recent mention of the Mills I’ve found in Boxoffice is in the December 15, 1952, issue, when Chakeres Theatres announced plans for a new drive-in at Morehead. The Trail, a 400-seat house opened by Schafer in 1937, is mentioned as late as 1954, when CinemaScope was installed.
I found a reference to this theater as the Lillian in the February 22, 1941, issue of Boxoffice. The item said that Crescent had acquired the theater three years earlier. They were having the house remodeled. Plans were by the local architectural firm of Speight & Hibbs. A new facade and marquee were planned, so this may be when the name was changed.
In any case, the theater had been renamed the Roxy by 1946, when its destruction by fire was reported in the January 19 issue of Boxoffice. So far I’ve been unable to find anything in Boxoffice about the reconstruction, but I suspect that Speight & Hibbs did the design for that, too. From the photos it certainly resembles their other work of the period.