Boxoffice Magazine references to the El Rey go back as far as the July 17, 1937, issue, which reported that Dan Tocchini, who had recently taken over the house from Bruno Vecharelli, was planning to spend $15,000 on renovations for the 400-seat theater.
Various issues of Boxoffice from 1946 to 1948 tell of progress on a new theater in Sebastopol called the Analy, built by Tocchini and Tony Gambogi, operators of the El Rey. The item about the new house in the May 15, 1948, issue says that the partners would probably runt he El Rey on a weekends-only policy after the Analy opened.
The Analy is mentioned in various issues of Boxoffice into the 1950s, but the El Rey disappears by the late 1940s, so was probably closed completely after the Analy opened. I can’t find an address for the Analy, but Boxoffice gives the seating capacity as 850, and says it was to be a “stadium style” house.
It’s difficult to find the fate of the Analy on the Internet, as Sebastopol has an Analy High School with an active theatre arts program, and the school calls its auditorium the Analy Theatre. I don’t think it’s the same building, though, as the high school is out on the edge of town, and its web site says that their theatre, currently under renovation, has been in use for eighty years.
Interestingly enough, the recent occupant of the premises at the El Rey’s address as listed above is the Analy Furniture Co-op.
The November 12, 1949, issue of Boxoffice Magazine said that Blumenfeld Theatres had recently opened their new Belmont Theatre on El Camino Real. The magazine said that 900-seat house was designed by William B. David, and William W. Wolf of San Francisco was the architect (meaning Wolf probably signed his name to the permits, but David was the actual architect.)
Neither the Lodi nor the State is here yet. I was going to submit them last night but got distracted. In the meantime, I found a couple more references to the State in Boxoffice. It might have been operating as late as 1956.
There are also items about a Midway Drive-In in Lodi that opened in 1949, and a Tokay Drive-In which changed owners in 1955. I don’t know if these are actually the same theater with a name change, though. There was no address given for either.
The State must have had some prestige at one time. The January 15, 1938, issue of Boxoffice Magazine said that the musical film “The Goldwyn Follies” would have its world premier at Wometco’s State Theatre in Miami on January 28. It referred to the State as a “popular Flagler Street house.”
Boxoffice, September 17, 1949: “The Ritz, Huron, Calif., has been opened by R.D. Ruff.” (They got his first initial wrong in this one.)
Then, in the December 3, 1949 issue: “A.D. Ruff opened his new Ritz Theatre in Huron, California, a 700-seat house.”
There are several items mentioning the Ritz being operated by Roy Martinez in various issues of Boxoffice into the 1970s, and then it drops from sight.
Food blogger Chowhound says that La Esquinita Mi Pueblo Taqueria is right next door to the Ritz. The taqueria’s address is 36905 S. Lassen Ave., so the Ritz, being next door to the south, must be at or about 36907 S. Lassen Ave.. Google Maps finds it there, at least.
This is from Boxoffice Magazine, October 22, 1944: “OAK RIDGE, TENN— The Grove Theatre, newest and largest of the three motion picture houses here, has opened its doors. It is located in the western section and will serve also for concert and road attractions playing here. It will seat 1000 persons.”
This Grove Theater replaced an earlier house of the same name that was destroyed by fire.
From Boxoffice Magazine, November 13, 1943: “DALLAS— P.G. Cameron is watching finishing touches go into his new Grove Theatre at Pleasant Grove, about five miles southeast of here. Chairs which he purchased in several lots over the country, about 500 in all, are being installed. The Grove was destroyed by fire early in the year and permission to rebuild was obtained by Cameron from WPB.”
WPB was the War Production Board, a WWII government agency which controlled access to materials critical to the war effort, including most building materials.
The Lodi Theatre has been demolished and replaced by a modern post office building, but the State Theatre’s building is still there. It is now occupied by a banquet hall called The Merlot. The give their address as 23 W. Elm, but it’s the same building. The Merlot’s web site says the State opened in 1912 (the building looks that old) and was owned by Paramount Pictures (local urban legend, most likely. The State probably just had a contract to run Paramount releases at some time in its history.)
Lodi also had a Lodi Theatre and a State Theatre operating in the 1940s and 1950s. From brief items in various issues of Boxoffice, I’ve found that the State had 400 seats, closed in 1954, and was last operated by Fox West Coast after being operated for some time by T&D. I haven’t yet found any other details about either of them.
Additional information: The July 24, 1948, issue of Boxoffice said that Mason Shaw’s new 485-seat theater at Saratoga was being designed by architect A.A. Cantin.
Another missing (or not aka'ed) Altoona Theater is the Sun, listed in the September 3, 1949, issue of Boxoffice as being under renovation by Lewis Hausser.
This Paseo Theatre was a replacement for an earlier house of the same name which was destroyed by fire on January 25, 1943. The July 8, 1944, issue of Boxoffice Magazine said that a permit to rebuild the theater had been issued and contracts were to be let within a month. Both the new and old houses had 750 seats. The architect of the rebuilt Paseo was Charles A. Smith.
The new Paseo opened in 1945, and was the subject of an article in the May 26 issue of Boxoffice that year. This article says that architect Smith had designed the original Paseo, which had been built in an existing, pre-1920 building in 1940. The article does not make clear whether or not the existing building had ever been a theater.
There was also a walk-in Spot Theatre in Siloam Springs. It was scheduled to open on November 9, 1946, according to the November 2 issue of Boxoffice Magazine that year.
Don: The April 9, 1962, issue of Boxoffice Magazine said that the premier of “The Music Man” was to be presented at the Palace Theatre in Mason City. The July 2 issue of the same publication reported on the event, which was held in conjunction with the North Iowa Band Festival and a national Music Man Band Competition.
About 125,000 people crowded into the town, and Meredith Wilson headed a three-hour parade, leading the Mason City band. A total of 8000 bandsmen participated in the parade, and the invitational press premier of the movie was held at the Palace that evening.
The Majestic was one of the theaters listed as being under construction in the March 26, 1949, issue of Boxoffice Magazine. It was slated to open in September. Listed seating capacity was 1,450, which sounds a bit high for the theater in the photos.
This is one of several multiplexes designed for Harkins by The Beck Group, a Dallas, Texas-based architecture, development, and construction company.
Joe Vogel
commented about
Mayanon
Mar 23, 2009 at 6:06 am
Ah, I didn’t see that. Well, even if they were just 1950s soft core porn movies, I think that should qualify the Belasco for a page. Lots of little store front porn houses from the 1970s are listed, and the Belasco is certainly more interesting as a theater than they are.
If this house is located in the Muscatine Shopping Center, then it was probably the twin opened as the 850-seat Plaza Cinema I & II by the L&M Circuit in 1971. It was listed among the new theaters opened the previous year, in Boxoffice Magazine’s issue of May 15, 1972.
Muscatine had two Palace Theatres. An item in the May 5, 1945, issue of Boxoffice Magazine said that Fox Midwest had announced that the opening of the new Palace Theatre was scheduled for May 8. The item said that the new house replaced a theater of the same name which had burned the previous year. It didn’t say if the new theater was on the same site as the original Palace.
An article about Ludy Bosten, a long-time Muscatine exhibitor, published in Boxoffice Magazine on April 9, 1962, said that he had operated the Palace Theatre for a time, but didn’t specify the period. It did say that the Palace had closed two years earlier, though, suggesting that he had taken over the second Palace, perhaps in the early 1950s when various Fox operating companies were required by the courts to divest themselves of many of their theaters.
The 1940s were a bad time for Muscatine’s historic theaters. The Grand burned down the same year the new Palace opened.
Muscatine’s Grand and Palace Theatres were sold by Midland Theatres to Fox West Coast Theatres in 1929, according to an item in Movie Age, November 2 that year. Both were among the Muscatine theaters operated at one time by Ludy Bosten, an exhibitor in the town from 1912 into the 1960s, according to an article about his career in the April 9, 1962, issue of Boxoffice Magazine.
The Grand Theatre’s demise was recorded by a brief item in the March 17, 1945, issue of Boxoffice, which said that the house had been destroyed by a fire the previous week.
Forgot to mention this: The October 16, 1948, issue of Boxoffice said the A-Muse-U had been completely remodeled and redecorated, with a new facade and marquee, new screen and alterations to the stage, an expanded balcony and new stairway, and new carpets.
An article about long-time Muscatine exhibitor Ludy Bosten, published in the April 9, 1962, issue of Boxoffice Magazine, says that he opened his first theater in Muscatine, a nickelodeon called the Princess (later renamed the Gayety) in 1912, and that “several years later” he opened the A-Muse-U Theater.
Bosten was interviewed for the article, and reminisced about the early days of the A-Muse-U, telling the interviewer of the ten-piece orchestra, and how on Sundays people would come from as far away as Cedar Rapids to attend the shows, and all the theater’s 543 seats would be filled.
Maybe when Bosten said he opened the A-Muse-U several years after opening the Princess in 1912, he meant that he took over the existing theater, as I’m sure Mr. Richman was not a time traveller, and could not have written, in a book published in 1911, about a theater not yet built.
That Bosten performed some alteration of the building and then reopened it is a possibility, of course, as Richman says the house was given over to moving pictures exclusively, and Bosten said he presented live acts as well as movies at his A-Muse-U. Richman also gives a bigger seating capacity (600) than Bosten does (543), suggesting that some of the seats might have been removed to make room for a stage.
Boxoffice Magazine has mentions of the A-Muse-U in various issues, the last as late as November 20, 1954, when it said that the house had been reopened after having been closed for some unspecified length of time.
A biographical sketch of the original owner of the Uptown, Ludy Bosten, appeared in the April 9, 1962, issue of Boxoffice Magazine, on the occasion of his fiftieth anniversary in the theater business.
The Uptown opened in 1929, and was located in a former National Guard armory. An 11-inch concrete floor had to be ripped out in order to convert the building into a theater.
Bosten opened his first theater in Muscatine, a nickelodeon called the Princess, in 1912. Later, the Princess was known as the Gayety. A few years later he opened the A-Muse-U Theatre, and at one time operated the Family Theatre in partnership with Carl Laemmle Jr., who would later found Universal Pictures.
Other Muscatine theaters operated by Bosten included the Grand and the Palace, which had closed two years before the article was published. In 1962, he was still operating the Uptown Theatre and the Hilltop Drive-In in Muscatine, and the Wapello Theatre in Wapello, Iowa.
Boxoffice Magazine references to the El Rey go back as far as the July 17, 1937, issue, which reported that Dan Tocchini, who had recently taken over the house from Bruno Vecharelli, was planning to spend $15,000 on renovations for the 400-seat theater.
Various issues of Boxoffice from 1946 to 1948 tell of progress on a new theater in Sebastopol called the Analy, built by Tocchini and Tony Gambogi, operators of the El Rey. The item about the new house in the May 15, 1948, issue says that the partners would probably runt he El Rey on a weekends-only policy after the Analy opened.
The Analy is mentioned in various issues of Boxoffice into the 1950s, but the El Rey disappears by the late 1940s, so was probably closed completely after the Analy opened. I can’t find an address for the Analy, but Boxoffice gives the seating capacity as 850, and says it was to be a “stadium style” house.
It’s difficult to find the fate of the Analy on the Internet, as Sebastopol has an Analy High School with an active theatre arts program, and the school calls its auditorium the Analy Theatre. I don’t think it’s the same building, though, as the high school is out on the edge of town, and its web site says that their theatre, currently under renovation, has been in use for eighty years.
Interestingly enough, the recent occupant of the premises at the El Rey’s address as listed above is the Analy Furniture Co-op.
The November 12, 1949, issue of Boxoffice Magazine said that Blumenfeld Theatres had recently opened their new Belmont Theatre on El Camino Real. The magazine said that 900-seat house was designed by William B. David, and William W. Wolf of San Francisco was the architect (meaning Wolf probably signed his name to the permits, but David was the actual architect.)
Neither the Lodi nor the State is here yet. I was going to submit them last night but got distracted. In the meantime, I found a couple more references to the State in Boxoffice. It might have been operating as late as 1956.
There are also items about a Midway Drive-In in Lodi that opened in 1949, and a Tokay Drive-In which changed owners in 1955. I don’t know if these are actually the same theater with a name change, though. There was no address given for either.
The State must have had some prestige at one time. The January 15, 1938, issue of Boxoffice Magazine said that the musical film “The Goldwyn Follies” would have its world premier at Wometco’s State Theatre in Miami on January 28. It referred to the State as a “popular Flagler Street house.”
Boxoffice, September 17, 1949: “The Ritz, Huron, Calif., has been opened by R.D. Ruff.” (They got his first initial wrong in this one.)
Then, in the December 3, 1949 issue: “A.D. Ruff opened his new Ritz Theatre in Huron, California, a 700-seat house.”
There are several items mentioning the Ritz being operated by Roy Martinez in various issues of Boxoffice into the 1970s, and then it drops from sight.
Food blogger Chowhound says that La Esquinita Mi Pueblo Taqueria is right next door to the Ritz. The taqueria’s address is 36905 S. Lassen Ave., so the Ritz, being next door to the south, must be at or about 36907 S. Lassen Ave.. Google Maps finds it there, at least.
This is from Boxoffice Magazine, October 22, 1944: “OAK RIDGE, TENN— The Grove Theatre, newest and largest of the three motion picture houses here, has opened its doors. It is located in the western section and will serve also for concert and road attractions playing here. It will seat 1000 persons.”
This Grove Theater replaced an earlier house of the same name that was destroyed by fire.
From Boxoffice Magazine, November 13, 1943: “DALLAS— P.G. Cameron is watching finishing touches go into his new Grove Theatre at Pleasant Grove, about five miles southeast of here. Chairs which he purchased in several lots over the country, about 500 in all, are being installed. The Grove was destroyed by fire early in the year and permission to rebuild was obtained by Cameron from WPB.”
WPB was the War Production Board, a WWII government agency which controlled access to materials critical to the war effort, including most building materials.
Thanks, Ken.
The Lodi Theatre has been demolished and replaced by a modern post office building, but the State Theatre’s building is still there. It is now occupied by a banquet hall called The Merlot. The give their address as 23 W. Elm, but it’s the same building. The Merlot’s web site says the State opened in 1912 (the building looks that old) and was owned by Paramount Pictures (local urban legend, most likely. The State probably just had a contract to run Paramount releases at some time in its history.)
Lodi also had a Lodi Theatre and a State Theatre operating in the 1940s and 1950s. From brief items in various issues of Boxoffice, I’ve found that the State had 400 seats, closed in 1954, and was last operated by Fox West Coast after being operated for some time by T&D. I haven’t yet found any other details about either of them.
Additional information: The July 24, 1948, issue of Boxoffice said that Mason Shaw’s new 485-seat theater at Saratoga was being designed by architect A.A. Cantin.
Another missing (or not aka'ed) Altoona Theater is the Sun, listed in the September 3, 1949, issue of Boxoffice as being under renovation by Lewis Hausser.
This Paseo Theatre was a replacement for an earlier house of the same name which was destroyed by fire on January 25, 1943. The July 8, 1944, issue of Boxoffice Magazine said that a permit to rebuild the theater had been issued and contracts were to be let within a month. Both the new and old houses had 750 seats. The architect of the rebuilt Paseo was Charles A. Smith.
The new Paseo opened in 1945, and was the subject of an article in the May 26 issue of Boxoffice that year. This article says that architect Smith had designed the original Paseo, which had been built in an existing, pre-1920 building in 1940. The article does not make clear whether or not the existing building had ever been a theater.
There was also a walk-in Spot Theatre in Siloam Springs. It was scheduled to open on November 9, 1946, according to the November 2 issue of Boxoffice Magazine that year.
Don: The April 9, 1962, issue of Boxoffice Magazine said that the premier of “The Music Man” was to be presented at the Palace Theatre in Mason City. The July 2 issue of the same publication reported on the event, which was held in conjunction with the North Iowa Band Festival and a national Music Man Band Competition.
About 125,000 people crowded into the town, and Meredith Wilson headed a three-hour parade, leading the Mason City band. A total of 8000 bandsmen participated in the parade, and the invitational press premier of the movie was held at the Palace that evening.
The Majestic was one of the theaters listed as being under construction in the March 26, 1949, issue of Boxoffice Magazine. It was slated to open in September. Listed seating capacity was 1,450, which sounds a bit high for the theater in the photos.
This is one of several multiplexes designed for Harkins by The Beck Group, a Dallas, Texas architecture, development, and construction company.
This is one of several multiplexes designed for Harkins by The Beck Group, a Dallas, Texas architecture, development, and construction company.
This is one of several multiplexes designed for Harkins by The Beck Group, a Dallas, Texas-based architecture, development, and construction company.
Ah, I didn’t see that. Well, even if they were just 1950s soft core porn movies, I think that should qualify the Belasco for a page. Lots of little store front porn houses from the 1970s are listed, and the Belasco is certainly more interesting as a theater than they are.
If this house is located in the Muscatine Shopping Center, then it was probably the twin opened as the 850-seat Plaza Cinema I & II by the L&M Circuit in 1971. It was listed among the new theaters opened the previous year, in Boxoffice Magazine’s issue of May 15, 1972.
Muscatine had two Palace Theatres. An item in the May 5, 1945, issue of Boxoffice Magazine said that Fox Midwest had announced that the opening of the new Palace Theatre was scheduled for May 8. The item said that the new house replaced a theater of the same name which had burned the previous year. It didn’t say if the new theater was on the same site as the original Palace.
An article about Ludy Bosten, a long-time Muscatine exhibitor, published in Boxoffice Magazine on April 9, 1962, said that he had operated the Palace Theatre for a time, but didn’t specify the period. It did say that the Palace had closed two years earlier, though, suggesting that he had taken over the second Palace, perhaps in the early 1950s when various Fox operating companies were required by the courts to divest themselves of many of their theaters.
The 1940s were a bad time for Muscatine’s historic theaters. The Grand burned down the same year the new Palace opened.
Muscatine’s Grand and Palace Theatres were sold by Midland Theatres to Fox West Coast Theatres in 1929, according to an item in Movie Age, November 2 that year. Both were among the Muscatine theaters operated at one time by Ludy Bosten, an exhibitor in the town from 1912 into the 1960s, according to an article about his career in the April 9, 1962, issue of Boxoffice Magazine.
The Grand Theatre’s demise was recorded by a brief item in the March 17, 1945, issue of Boxoffice, which said that the house had been destroyed by a fire the previous week.
Forgot to mention this: The October 16, 1948, issue of Boxoffice said the A-Muse-U had been completely remodeled and redecorated, with a new facade and marquee, new screen and alterations to the stage, an expanded balcony and new stairway, and new carpets.
An article about long-time Muscatine exhibitor Ludy Bosten, published in the April 9, 1962, issue of Boxoffice Magazine, says that he opened his first theater in Muscatine, a nickelodeon called the Princess (later renamed the Gayety) in 1912, and that “several years later” he opened the A-Muse-U Theater.
Bosten was interviewed for the article, and reminisced about the early days of the A-Muse-U, telling the interviewer of the ten-piece orchestra, and how on Sundays people would come from as far away as Cedar Rapids to attend the shows, and all the theater’s 543 seats would be filled.
Maybe when Bosten said he opened the A-Muse-U several years after opening the Princess in 1912, he meant that he took over the existing theater, as I’m sure Mr. Richman was not a time traveller, and could not have written, in a book published in 1911, about a theater not yet built.
That Bosten performed some alteration of the building and then reopened it is a possibility, of course, as Richman says the house was given over to moving pictures exclusively, and Bosten said he presented live acts as well as movies at his A-Muse-U. Richman also gives a bigger seating capacity (600) than Bosten does (543), suggesting that some of the seats might have been removed to make room for a stage.
Boxoffice Magazine has mentions of the A-Muse-U in various issues, the last as late as November 20, 1954, when it said that the house had been reopened after having been closed for some unspecified length of time.
A biographical sketch of the original owner of the Uptown, Ludy Bosten, appeared in the April 9, 1962, issue of Boxoffice Magazine, on the occasion of his fiftieth anniversary in the theater business.
The Uptown opened in 1929, and was located in a former National Guard armory. An 11-inch concrete floor had to be ripped out in order to convert the building into a theater.
Bosten opened his first theater in Muscatine, a nickelodeon called the Princess, in 1912. Later, the Princess was known as the Gayety. A few years later he opened the A-Muse-U Theatre, and at one time operated the Family Theatre in partnership with Carl Laemmle Jr., who would later found Universal Pictures.
Other Muscatine theaters operated by Bosten included the Grand and the Palace, which had closed two years before the article was published. In 1962, he was still operating the Uptown Theatre and the Hilltop Drive-In in Muscatine, and the Wapello Theatre in Wapello, Iowa.