I’ve found references to the Wayne Theatre as early as the November 9, 1935, issue of Boxoffice Magazine. At that time, and for many years after, the Wayne was operated by A. Macci & Sons. Members of the Macci family are mentioned in connection with the theater as late as 1953.
The February 3, 1975, issue of Boxoffice says that John Tabor had acquired the Wayne Theatre and Speedway Drive-In at Greenville. The item does not say whether or not the Wayne had been twinned yet.
A couple of issues of Movie Age from 1929 mention a National Theatre in Greenville. That might have been an earlier name for the Wayne or the State.
The earliest reference I’ve found to the State Theatre comes from Boxoffice Magazine, July 27, 1937, but that item says that the manager, Jonas Thomas, who was being transfered to another Chakeres Theatres house, had been at the State for the past four years, so the place was in operation by 1933.
A couple of issues of Movie Age from 1929 mention a National Theatre in Greenville. That might have been an earlier name for the State or the Wayne.
The May 4, 1929, issue of Movie Age said that the Capitol Theatre in Des Moines would close at the end of the week and would reopen about May 12 as the Paramount. The house would no longer employ a band or present stage shows.
There was indeed a Fort Theatre in Fort Atkinson. The May 15, 1937, issue of Boxoffice said “Walter Baier has constructed a penthouse atop his Fort Theatre in Fort Atkinson.” Then the June 25, 1938, issue says that plans were being drawn for a complete remodeling of the Fort Theatre, including a new front and marquee. Boxoffice mentions the Fort frequently, with references to it as late as 1978, when it was being operated by a small regional chain called Genoa Theatres. A 1974 item about another remodeling said that it had 450 seats.
As for the Uptown, the December 4, 1937, issue of Boxoffice ran this item datelined Fort Atkinson: “The new Uptown Theatre was opened here last week, with Herb Barrett as manager.” The Uptown was probably the subject of a brief item in the June 5, 1937, Boxoffice, datelined Fort Atkinson, which said “I.J. Crait, of Horicon Wis., has started building a new theatre here, to be 110x31 feet.” In 1938 Walter Baier, of the Fort Theatre, took control of the Uptown. Walter Baier is mentioned as operator of both the Uptown and Fort in Boxoffice items into the 1950s.
The March 11, 1974, issue of Boxoffice ran an item datelined Fort Atkinson and headed “Theatre Building Conversion.” A Mr. and Mrs. Reuben Gartman had purchased the Uptown Theatre from its last operator, National Theatres, and were converting the building for retail use. The item added that National Theatres had also sold the Fort Theatre less than two years earlier.
Fort Atkinson was also the site of the Highway 18 Drive-In, opened by Walter Baier in 1953 and first managed by his son, Robert.
According to an item in Boxoffice Magazine, November 2, 1964, the opening feature at the Capri was the Polly Bergen-Fred MacMurray comedy “Kisses for my President.” You never heard of it? Neither did I, and apparently neither has anyone else. There aren’t even any reviews of it at Rotten Tomatoes.
Boxoffice gave the original seating capacity of the Capri as 995. The house was equipped for both 35mm and 70mm projection.
In the December 2, 1950, issue of Boxoffice Magazine, columnist Harry Hart reported on the theater owners convention in Charlotte. One item in his report said “J.V. Dwiggins and H.M. Sloop of the Main Theatres in Kannapolis took this writer to luncheon the first day.”
The earliest mention in Boxoffice of what would become the Main Theatre appeared in the June 28, 1947, issue, which ran an item headed “600-Seat House Planned By Kannapolis Veterans,” which said that construction on the new theater, on Cannon Boulevard at Jackson, would begin in a few weeks.
Construction must have progressed very slowly, as there is nothing more about the Main Theatre until the January 28, 1950, issue of Boxoffice, where it is listed among the 761 new theaters opened in the United States during 1949.
Harry Hart visited the Main Theatre and wrote about his experience in his column in the October 21, 1950, issue of Boxoffice. In that column he mentioned P.G. Overcash, the theater’s bookkeeper; Thurmond Miller, the projectionist; and J.V. Dwiggins, vice president of the operating company. Dwiggins told Hart that “Annie Get Your Gun” and “Stars In My Crown” had been “real theater packers” for the Main.
The Riviera and Brainerd Theatres were both originally operated by Independent Theatres. At the time the Brainerd was under construction, the December 20, 1947, issue of Boxoffice Magazine ran an item which said that the chain’s Riviera Theatre had been built “…several years ago.”
I can’t find an exact opening year for the Riviera. It might have been built pre-war, but the earliest reference to it I’ve found in Boxoffice is in the October 19, 1946, issue, when a series of seven foreign films were booked for the house.
In 1955, the Riviera was remodeled and reopened with an art film policy, according to the April 23 issue of Boxoffice that year.
The opening date of the Brainerd Theatre was August 4, 1948, according to an item in Boxoffice Magazine of August 7 that year.
There’s a very good chance that Selmon T. Franklin was the architect of this theater. He designed a number of projects for Independent Theatres during the 1940s, and had been engaged to design a large theater on Brainerd Road as early as November, 1944. It’s possible that the 1944 project was the Brainerd Theatre, and construction was delayed by post-war materials shortages.
The conversion of the Brainerd for Cinerama in 1962 reduced the seating capacity to 640, according to the July 9 issue of Boxoffice, which also said that the reopening of the house had been scheduled for July 11.
The Brainerd Theatre was under construction, but not yet named, when an item about it appeared in Boxoffice Magazine’s issue of December 20, 1947. Owners of the house, Independent Theatres, offered a two year pass to the person who came up with the best name for the new theater. I can’t help but conclude that not too much effort was put into the winning name.
The item said that Independent had made the same offer several years earlier, when their Riviera Theatre was under construction. The Mediterranean coast may not be the first image that comes to mind when one thinks of Chattanooga, but at least whoever won that earlier competition used a bit of imagination.
Between the 1946 opening of the Pix and at least 1951, Nampa had three operating walk-in theaters. I’ve found references in Boxoffice to both the Majestic and a theater called the Adelaide, both operated by Fox Intermountain, as far back as 1938. The last mention of the Adelaide is in 1951, when it was listed along with the Majestic among the theaters Fox had the option of closing or divesting under the terms of the consent decree.
Either the Majestic or the Adelaide may have been the house referred to as the Nampa Theatre in a Boxoffice item of September 18, 1937. Construction had been set to begin on this new Fox house on September 15. As there are no later references in Boxoffice to a Nampa Theatre, then a new name must have been chosen before opening- assuming the new house was actually built.
For even earlier Nampa theaters, I can find only one reference, this to a Liberty Theatre briefly mentioned in the December 7, 1929, issue of The Reel Journal. Either the Majestic or the Adelaide might have been the Liberty renamed, or it might have been different theater.
Reel operated at two locations in Nampa. The Nampa Reel Theatre (this one) was previously called the Nampa 6 Cinemas. There was also the Karcher Reel Theatre, originally opened in 1973 as the Karcher Twin Cinemas, at 1509 Caldwell Boulevard in the Karcher Mall.
There’s finally a photo on the Internet showing the back wall of the Garfield’s stage house, with the Bard Circuit’s sailing ship logo still visible, though faded, decades after it was painted. You can make out the words “Vitaphone” and “Movietone” at upper left, and a bit lower, “Stage Plays” in this 1983 shot.
The Allen Theatre has been rescued twice. The first time was in 1968, when 19-year-old Richard Wolfe and his friend Paul Angstadt rented the vacant Astor, and after some restoration work reopened it on September 6 that year.
Within a couple of years, Wolfe and Angstadt had added the Strand Theatre at Kutztown and the Roxy Theatre at Northampton to their holdings.
They eventually sold the Astor and the Strand in order to concentrate their efforts on the restoration of the Roxy, which Wolfe still operates today. Wolfe also spent some time as director of the Theatre Historical Society of America.
In that 1982 photo it looks as though the theater has already been converted to some other use. The entrance is no longer theater-like. While there was a 1975 French movie called “La Coupe,” I’m pretty sure there was never a film called “Fruit A Freeze” nor a second feature called “Frozen Fruit Bars.”
I came across one more Boxoffice reference to the Academy, in Harry Hart’s column of August 18, 1951, though the only information about the theater in it was that the then-manager of the house, William N. Hissner, had held that position since 1904, when it was still the Academy of Music.
From the July, 1983, issue of Boxoffice Magazine: “Kenneth DeWees, owner of the 104-year-old Academy Theatre, in Lebanon, Pa., is giving community leaders an opportunity to raise funds to preserve the historic theatre building as a cultural arts center. He plans to demolish the movie house this summer if a buyer or user for it is not found.”
Apparently, Lebanon’s Academy of Music was a stop for the tours of many performers from the late 19th century at least into the 1920s. The Denishawn Dance Company gave an evening performance there on November 3, 1923. I’ve found one other references to a live performance at this theater, by a violinist named Hartman in 1906, but search engine results are, not surprisingly, dominated by references to the Academy of Music in Philadelphia, making it difficult to research the Lebanon house. One other reference I found in Boxoffice was trivial.
There’s this web page, though, with a brief paragraph about the Academy of Music, and a vintage photo of the stage as seen from the balcony. For a theater that lasted 104 years, there’s awfully little information about the Academy.
Now I’ve come across an item in the “From the Boxoffice Files: Twenty Years Ago” column in the magazine’s November 13, 1948, issue. It says: “The Star Theatre at Mason City is being remodeled and will open under the name of the Iowa as a first run location. M.R. Tournier is manager.”
Their dating must have been at least a few months off, as the September 28, 1929, issue of Movie Age said that the Iowa Theatre at Mason City had been sold by W.E. Millington and Mrs. Maynard Tournier.
I still haven’t been able to discover if the Star/Iowa did later become the State, but I’ve found more items confirming that the State became the Band Box Theatre in 1951, and was still operating under that name as late as 1955, when CinemaScope was installed.
Behold the Harlan Theatre! The name carved on the building says “Long’s Opera House,” with the date “1882.” It looks like they’ve expanded into the building next door to accommodate additional screens.
It looks like the Harlan Theatre is open again, and with four screens. There’s a page listing its current movies on the Harlan Municipal Utilities web site. I wonder if the municipal utility company operates the theater? Socialism comes to small-town Iowa!
The August 28, 1948, issue of Boxoffice Magazine mentioned the Harlan Theatre in their “From the Boxoffice Files: Twenty Years Ago” feature. In 1928, the house had recently been opened by Mr. and Mrs. R.E. Brown. A Boxoffice item about the Browns published in the October 7, 1946, issue said that the Browns had been in the exhibition business in Harlan for 20 years then, so they must have had another theater there before they opened the Harlan.
The Browns also ran the Cozy, at least during the 1940s and early 1950s. The Cozy was open only intermittently, though. There were items about it reopening at various times, and one 1947 item saying it was being closed for July and August. No air conditioning, I guess. The Browns were mentioned as operators of both theaters as late as 1951. The last mention of Ray Brown I’ve found is in 1957, when he vacationed in Florida while his son-in-law, Jamie Booth, ran the theater.
By 1961, the Harlan Theatre was being operated by Mr. and Mrs. S.J. Backer.
Although Boxoffice Magazine published a small architect’s drawing of this theater in their issue of December 20, 1965, they failed to give the name of the architect. Construction was about to begin, and completion was expected by spring, 1966. The theater was built for Lipsner Enterprises, and was originally called simply the Cinema. It was to be a single screen house equipped for 70mm movies, and would seat about 1000 patrons.
The drawing showed a rather plain, boxy building with one corner chopped off for the entrance. Instead of a traditional marquee there was a flat attraction board mounted above a canopy. The text of the article said that the house would also have a 24-foot stage with double drapes, so that live events could be presented.
American Classic Images was probably dating the photo by the 1936 movie on the Co-Ed’s marquee, but the theater must have been running it very late in its release. Boxoffice Magazine of September 4, 1937, said that the Co-Ed was nearing completion and was scheduled to open around September 15 that year. The Co-Ed was being built for Simon Galitzki.
The Co-Ed was closed during the summer of 1954, some time after Simon Galitzki died. His widow, Sarah, reopened the house that fall, after having a CinemaScope screen installed, and was still operating the house in early 1955, according to an article in the February 26 issue of Boxoffice that year. However, by the end of the year Mrs. Galitzki was advertising bits of the theater’s equipment for sale in the Clearing House section of various issues of Boxoffice, so the Co-Ed’s life as a theater apparently ended about that time.
From the March 18, 1950, issue of Boxoffice Magazine: “Also set to open in April is the Sunset in San Luis Obispo, a 500-car drive-in owned by Don McClaren and Charles Pasquini. McClaren, a former branch manager for J.P. Filbert Co. here, served as his own architect.”
J.P. Filbert Co. was a theater supply outfit in Los Angeles.
The October 19, 1946, issue of Boxoffice magazine said that R.D. Ervin had recently opened his new Park Theatre at Walden. The opening had been postponed due to the danger of polio.
Other issues of Boxoffice, both earlier and later, say there was another theater in Walden. The June 25, 1938, issue says that the Walden Theatre at Walden had been renamed the Star. The April 26, 1947, issue says that R.D. Ervin had installed new projectors at the Star Theatre in Walden.
The June 24, 1944, issue of Boxoffice Magazine ran an article about pioneer New Orleans exhibitor Al Durning, who built the Happy Hour Theatre. Here’s an extract from the article, quoting Durning as he recalled the early days of movie exhibition in the Crescent City:[quote]“During the early part of the 20th century, all kind of moving picture theatres and airdomes sprang up over the city, at one time there being more than a hundred. Many types of projectors were used, the Edison predominating. St. Louis was said to be the only other city which compared as to the number of theatres.
“When I heard about the first real structural theatre built in Denver, I decided then and there to erect a first-class show house. So I promoted a company and we built the first suburban theatre building here and named it the Happy Hour. For years it was the pride and one of the show places of New Orleans. In spite of the competition from downtown nickelodeons, our price was ten cents. However, we packed them in daily and generally used the SRO sign over the weekend.”[/quote]Durning mentions a few of the earlier theaters in New Orleans, and says that during the summer, Charles Rock and Billie Reed would move their Vitascope projector from their theater at Exchange Alley and Canal Street, and set it up in the popular resort of West End on Lake Ponchartrain.
He mentions movies being shown at the old Grand Opera House on Canal Street, primarily a vaudeville theater. He names Messrs Scully and Streetly as the operators of the second motion picture house in the city, located at Canal and Basin, and credits them with starting the first film exchange in town as well. Streetly later opened the first airdome in the city, at Annunciation and Erato.
Charles Pearce then opened a movie house in a remodeled building at 932 Canal Street. This was later remodeled and renamed the Electric Theatre. Unfortunately he doesn’t give the dates these various houses opened, but all of them were in operation before he built the Happy Hour.
The building looks fairly old.
I’ve found references to the Wayne Theatre as early as the November 9, 1935, issue of Boxoffice Magazine. At that time, and for many years after, the Wayne was operated by A. Macci & Sons. Members of the Macci family are mentioned in connection with the theater as late as 1953.
The February 3, 1975, issue of Boxoffice says that John Tabor had acquired the Wayne Theatre and Speedway Drive-In at Greenville. The item does not say whether or not the Wayne had been twinned yet.
A couple of issues of Movie Age from 1929 mention a National Theatre in Greenville. That might have been an earlier name for the Wayne or the State.
The earliest reference I’ve found to the State Theatre comes from Boxoffice Magazine, July 27, 1937, but that item says that the manager, Jonas Thomas, who was being transfered to another Chakeres Theatres house, had been at the State for the past four years, so the place was in operation by 1933.
A couple of issues of Movie Age from 1929 mention a National Theatre in Greenville. That might have been an earlier name for the State or the Wayne.
The May 4, 1929, issue of Movie Age said that the Capitol Theatre in Des Moines would close at the end of the week and would reopen about May 12 as the Paramount. The house would no longer employ a band or present stage shows.
The November 28, 1953, issue of Boxoffice said that the Port Theatre had opened on November 25. It was owned by Western Amusement Co..
The De Anza Theatre opened June 6, 1939, according to the June 10 issue of Boxoffice. The first feature was “Young Mr. Lincoln.”
There was indeed a Fort Theatre in Fort Atkinson. The May 15, 1937, issue of Boxoffice said “Walter Baier has constructed a penthouse atop his Fort Theatre in Fort Atkinson.” Then the June 25, 1938, issue says that plans were being drawn for a complete remodeling of the Fort Theatre, including a new front and marquee. Boxoffice mentions the Fort frequently, with references to it as late as 1978, when it was being operated by a small regional chain called Genoa Theatres. A 1974 item about another remodeling said that it had 450 seats.
As for the Uptown, the December 4, 1937, issue of Boxoffice ran this item datelined Fort Atkinson: “The new Uptown Theatre was opened here last week, with Herb Barrett as manager.” The Uptown was probably the subject of a brief item in the June 5, 1937, Boxoffice, datelined Fort Atkinson, which said “I.J. Crait, of Horicon Wis., has started building a new theatre here, to be 110x31 feet.” In 1938 Walter Baier, of the Fort Theatre, took control of the Uptown. Walter Baier is mentioned as operator of both the Uptown and Fort in Boxoffice items into the 1950s.
The March 11, 1974, issue of Boxoffice ran an item datelined Fort Atkinson and headed “Theatre Building Conversion.” A Mr. and Mrs. Reuben Gartman had purchased the Uptown Theatre from its last operator, National Theatres, and were converting the building for retail use. The item added that National Theatres had also sold the Fort Theatre less than two years earlier.
Fort Atkinson was also the site of the Highway 18 Drive-In, opened by Walter Baier in 1953 and first managed by his son, Robert.
According to an item in Boxoffice Magazine, November 2, 1964, the opening feature at the Capri was the Polly Bergen-Fred MacMurray comedy “Kisses for my President.” You never heard of it? Neither did I, and apparently neither has anyone else. There aren’t even any reviews of it at Rotten Tomatoes.
Boxoffice gave the original seating capacity of the Capri as 995. The house was equipped for both 35mm and 70mm projection.
In the December 2, 1950, issue of Boxoffice Magazine, columnist Harry Hart reported on the theater owners convention in Charlotte. One item in his report said “J.V. Dwiggins and H.M. Sloop of the Main Theatres in Kannapolis took this writer to luncheon the first day.”
The earliest mention in Boxoffice of what would become the Main Theatre appeared in the June 28, 1947, issue, which ran an item headed “600-Seat House Planned By Kannapolis Veterans,” which said that construction on the new theater, on Cannon Boulevard at Jackson, would begin in a few weeks.
Construction must have progressed very slowly, as there is nothing more about the Main Theatre until the January 28, 1950, issue of Boxoffice, where it is listed among the 761 new theaters opened in the United States during 1949.
Harry Hart visited the Main Theatre and wrote about his experience in his column in the October 21, 1950, issue of Boxoffice. In that column he mentioned P.G. Overcash, the theater’s bookkeeper; Thurmond Miller, the projectionist; and J.V. Dwiggins, vice president of the operating company. Dwiggins told Hart that “Annie Get Your Gun” and “Stars In My Crown” had been “real theater packers” for the Main.
The Riviera and Brainerd Theatres were both originally operated by Independent Theatres. At the time the Brainerd was under construction, the December 20, 1947, issue of Boxoffice Magazine ran an item which said that the chain’s Riviera Theatre had been built “…several years ago.”
I can’t find an exact opening year for the Riviera. It might have been built pre-war, but the earliest reference to it I’ve found in Boxoffice is in the October 19, 1946, issue, when a series of seven foreign films were booked for the house.
In 1955, the Riviera was remodeled and reopened with an art film policy, according to the April 23 issue of Boxoffice that year.
The opening date of the Brainerd Theatre was August 4, 1948, according to an item in Boxoffice Magazine of August 7 that year.
There’s a very good chance that Selmon T. Franklin was the architect of this theater. He designed a number of projects for Independent Theatres during the 1940s, and had been engaged to design a large theater on Brainerd Road as early as November, 1944. It’s possible that the 1944 project was the Brainerd Theatre, and construction was delayed by post-war materials shortages.
The conversion of the Brainerd for Cinerama in 1962 reduced the seating capacity to 640, according to the July 9 issue of Boxoffice, which also said that the reopening of the house had been scheduled for July 11.
The Brainerd Theatre was under construction, but not yet named, when an item about it appeared in Boxoffice Magazine’s issue of December 20, 1947. Owners of the house, Independent Theatres, offered a two year pass to the person who came up with the best name for the new theater. I can’t help but conclude that not too much effort was put into the winning name.
The item said that Independent had made the same offer several years earlier, when their Riviera Theatre was under construction. The Mediterranean coast may not be the first image that comes to mind when one thinks of Chattanooga, but at least whoever won that earlier competition used a bit of imagination.
Between the 1946 opening of the Pix and at least 1951, Nampa had three operating walk-in theaters. I’ve found references in Boxoffice to both the Majestic and a theater called the Adelaide, both operated by Fox Intermountain, as far back as 1938. The last mention of the Adelaide is in 1951, when it was listed along with the Majestic among the theaters Fox had the option of closing or divesting under the terms of the consent decree.
Either the Majestic or the Adelaide may have been the house referred to as the Nampa Theatre in a Boxoffice item of September 18, 1937. Construction had been set to begin on this new Fox house on September 15. As there are no later references in Boxoffice to a Nampa Theatre, then a new name must have been chosen before opening- assuming the new house was actually built.
For even earlier Nampa theaters, I can find only one reference, this to a Liberty Theatre briefly mentioned in the December 7, 1929, issue of The Reel Journal. Either the Majestic or the Adelaide might have been the Liberty renamed, or it might have been different theater.
Reel operated at two locations in Nampa. The Nampa Reel Theatre (this one) was previously called the Nampa 6 Cinemas. There was also the Karcher Reel Theatre, originally opened in 1973 as the Karcher Twin Cinemas, at 1509 Caldwell Boulevard in the Karcher Mall.
There’s finally a photo on the Internet showing the back wall of the Garfield’s stage house, with the Bard Circuit’s sailing ship logo still visible, though faded, decades after it was painted. You can make out the words “Vitaphone” and “Movietone” at upper left, and a bit lower, “Stage Plays” in this 1983 shot.
The Allen Theatre has been rescued twice. The first time was in 1968, when 19-year-old Richard Wolfe and his friend Paul Angstadt rented the vacant Astor, and after some restoration work reopened it on September 6 that year.
Within a couple of years, Wolfe and Angstadt had added the Strand Theatre at Kutztown and the Roxy Theatre at Northampton to their holdings.
They eventually sold the Astor and the Strand in order to concentrate their efforts on the restoration of the Roxy, which Wolfe still operates today. Wolfe also spent some time as director of the Theatre Historical Society of America.
In that 1982 photo it looks as though the theater has already been converted to some other use. The entrance is no longer theater-like. While there was a 1975 French movie called “La Coupe,” I’m pretty sure there was never a film called “Fruit A Freeze” nor a second feature called “Frozen Fruit Bars.”
I came across one more Boxoffice reference to the Academy, in Harry Hart’s column of August 18, 1951, though the only information about the theater in it was that the then-manager of the house, William N. Hissner, had held that position since 1904, when it was still the Academy of Music.
From the July, 1983, issue of Boxoffice Magazine: “Kenneth DeWees, owner of the 104-year-old Academy Theatre, in Lebanon, Pa., is giving community leaders an opportunity to raise funds to preserve the historic theatre building as a cultural arts center. He plans to demolish the movie house this summer if a buyer or user for it is not found.”
Apparently, Lebanon’s Academy of Music was a stop for the tours of many performers from the late 19th century at least into the 1920s. The Denishawn Dance Company gave an evening performance there on November 3, 1923. I’ve found one other references to a live performance at this theater, by a violinist named Hartman in 1906, but search engine results are, not surprisingly, dominated by references to the Academy of Music in Philadelphia, making it difficult to research the Lebanon house. One other reference I found in Boxoffice was trivial.
There’s this web page, though, with a brief paragraph about the Academy of Music, and a vintage photo of the stage as seen from the balcony. For a theater that lasted 104 years, there’s awfully little information about the Academy.
Now I’ve come across an item in the “From the Boxoffice Files: Twenty Years Ago” column in the magazine’s November 13, 1948, issue. It says: “The Star Theatre at Mason City is being remodeled and will open under the name of the Iowa as a first run location. M.R. Tournier is manager.”
Their dating must have been at least a few months off, as the September 28, 1929, issue of Movie Age said that the Iowa Theatre at Mason City had been sold by W.E. Millington and Mrs. Maynard Tournier.
I still haven’t been able to discover if the Star/Iowa did later become the State, but I’ve found more items confirming that the State became the Band Box Theatre in 1951, and was still operating under that name as late as 1955, when CinemaScope was installed.
Behold the Harlan Theatre! The name carved on the building says “Long’s Opera House,” with the date “1882.” It looks like they’ve expanded into the building next door to accommodate additional screens.
It looks like the Harlan Theatre is open again, and with four screens. There’s a page listing its current movies on the Harlan Municipal Utilities web site. I wonder if the municipal utility company operates the theater? Socialism comes to small-town Iowa!
The August 28, 1948, issue of Boxoffice Magazine mentioned the Harlan Theatre in their “From the Boxoffice Files: Twenty Years Ago” feature. In 1928, the house had recently been opened by Mr. and Mrs. R.E. Brown. A Boxoffice item about the Browns published in the October 7, 1946, issue said that the Browns had been in the exhibition business in Harlan for 20 years then, so they must have had another theater there before they opened the Harlan.
The Browns also ran the Cozy, at least during the 1940s and early 1950s. The Cozy was open only intermittently, though. There were items about it reopening at various times, and one 1947 item saying it was being closed for July and August. No air conditioning, I guess. The Browns were mentioned as operators of both theaters as late as 1951. The last mention of Ray Brown I’ve found is in 1957, when he vacationed in Florida while his son-in-law, Jamie Booth, ran the theater.
By 1961, the Harlan Theatre was being operated by Mr. and Mrs. S.J. Backer.
Although Boxoffice Magazine published a small architect’s drawing of this theater in their issue of December 20, 1965, they failed to give the name of the architect. Construction was about to begin, and completion was expected by spring, 1966. The theater was built for Lipsner Enterprises, and was originally called simply the Cinema. It was to be a single screen house equipped for 70mm movies, and would seat about 1000 patrons.
The drawing showed a rather plain, boxy building with one corner chopped off for the entrance. Instead of a traditional marquee there was a flat attraction board mounted above a canopy. The text of the article said that the house would also have a 24-foot stage with double drapes, so that live events could be presented.
American Classic Images was probably dating the photo by the 1936 movie on the Co-Ed’s marquee, but the theater must have been running it very late in its release. Boxoffice Magazine of September 4, 1937, said that the Co-Ed was nearing completion and was scheduled to open around September 15 that year. The Co-Ed was being built for Simon Galitzki.
The Co-Ed was closed during the summer of 1954, some time after Simon Galitzki died. His widow, Sarah, reopened the house that fall, after having a CinemaScope screen installed, and was still operating the house in early 1955, according to an article in the February 26 issue of Boxoffice that year. However, by the end of the year Mrs. Galitzki was advertising bits of the theater’s equipment for sale in the Clearing House section of various issues of Boxoffice, so the Co-Ed’s life as a theater apparently ended about that time.
From the March 18, 1950, issue of Boxoffice Magazine: “Also set to open in April is the Sunset in San Luis Obispo, a 500-car drive-in owned by Don McClaren and Charles Pasquini. McClaren, a former branch manager for J.P. Filbert Co. here, served as his own architect.”
J.P. Filbert Co. was a theater supply outfit in Los Angeles.
The October 19, 1946, issue of Boxoffice magazine said that R.D. Ervin had recently opened his new Park Theatre at Walden. The opening had been postponed due to the danger of polio.
Other issues of Boxoffice, both earlier and later, say there was another theater in Walden. The June 25, 1938, issue says that the Walden Theatre at Walden had been renamed the Star. The April 26, 1947, issue says that R.D. Ervin had installed new projectors at the Star Theatre in Walden.
The June 24, 1944, issue of Boxoffice Magazine ran an article about pioneer New Orleans exhibitor Al Durning, who built the Happy Hour Theatre. Here’s an extract from the article, quoting Durning as he recalled the early days of movie exhibition in the Crescent City:[quote]“During the early part of the 20th century, all kind of moving picture theatres and airdomes sprang up over the city, at one time there being more than a hundred. Many types of projectors were used, the Edison predominating. St. Louis was said to be the only other city which compared as to the number of theatres.
“When I heard about the first real structural theatre built in Denver, I decided then and there to erect a first-class show house. So I promoted a company and we built the first suburban theatre building here and named it the Happy Hour. For years it was the pride and one of the show places of New Orleans. In spite of the competition from downtown nickelodeons, our price was ten cents. However, we packed them in daily and generally used the SRO sign over the weekend.”[/quote]Durning mentions a few of the earlier theaters in New Orleans, and says that during the summer, Charles Rock and Billie Reed would move their Vitascope projector from their theater at Exchange Alley and Canal Street, and set it up in the popular resort of West End on Lake Ponchartrain.
He mentions movies being shown at the old Grand Opera House on Canal Street, primarily a vaudeville theater. He names Messrs Scully and Streetly as the operators of the second motion picture house in the city, located at Canal and Basin, and credits them with starting the first film exchange in town as well. Streetly later opened the first airdome in the city, at Annunciation and Erato.
Charles Pearce then opened a movie house in a remodeled building at 932 Canal Street. This was later remodeled and renamed the Electric Theatre. Unfortunately he doesn’t give the dates these various houses opened, but all of them were in operation before he built the Happy Hour.