The Wheaton Plaza Playhouse was built by John J. Broumas, according to an item in Boxoffice Magazine, December 25, 1961. The single-screen house was expected to be open by March, 1962. The comment above indicates that it opened several months behind schedule.
The article said that the architect, Edmund W. Dreyfuss had designed many other theaters, but I can’t find any references to any of them on the Internet, and not even in any other issues of Boxoffice. A tantalizing mystery.
The July 4, 1966, issue of Boxoffice said that Ira Sichelman and Louis Heon had acquired John Broumas’s stock in the Wheaton Plaza Playhouse, and would operate the theater.
The Wheaton Plaza was being operated by S&H Theatres in 1974, when the October 28 issue of Boxoffice said that a 600 seat two-screen addition adjacent to the original theater was scheduled for an early November opening. The architectural firm of Gitlin & Canton designed the addition. The theater was to be renamed the Wheaton Plaza 3.
I can’t find any references to when, or how, the complex was converted to four screens.
The Princess Theatre was designed by the Nashville architecture firm Marr & Holman.
This house was either opened or reopened in 1948. The October 6, 1945, issue of Boxoffice said that J.C. Tune had hired Marr & Holman to prepare plans for a complete rebuilding of his Princess Theatre at Shelbyville.
Then the March 2, 1946 issue of Boxoffice had carried the following notice: “Last rites were held in Shelbyville, Tenn. for J.C. Tune, who operated the Princess there.”
And then Boxoffice Magazine’s issue of November 13, 1948, carried a brief announcement that the new Princess Theatre in Shelbyville had recently opened after seven months of construction. The seating capacity was given as 800. The owner-manager of the house was named J.T. Tune.
A J.M. Tune is briefly mentioned as the operator of the Princess and of the 41 Drive-In at Shelbyville, in the March 24, 1958, issue of Boxoffice.
The Tune family’s operation of the Princess came to an end by 1968, according to an item in the January 22 issue of Boxoffice that year. It said that Morton Tune had sold the house to Fred H. Massey, president of Masco, operators of the Belcourt Cinema in Nashville. Massey planned an extensive remodeling of the Princess, with the plans to be done by the original architectural firm, Marr & Holman.
I can’t find any references to the Princess in Boxoffice, or anywhere else on the Internet, earlier than 1945, so I have no idea how long the place was around before the 1940s rebuilding, but if it needed a rebuilding then I’d guess it was already pretty old.
This was one of at least four 1970s multi-screen theaters designed for Plitt Theatres by the Chicago architectural firm of Finck, Stowell & Frolichstein. The others were:
This was one of at least four 1970s multi-screen theaters designed for Plitt Theatres by the Chicago architectural firm of Finck, Stowell & Frolichstein. The others were:
This was one of at least four 1970s multi-screen theaters designed for Plitt Theatres by the Chicago architectural firm of Finck, Stowell & Frolichstein. The others were:
This was one of at least four 1970s multi-screen theaters designed for Plitt Theatres by the Chicago architectural firm of Finck, Stowell & Frolichstein. Others included quads in the Chicago suburbs of Vernon Hills and Orland Park, and another in Aurora, Illinois.
The Cherryvale Mall triplex had 1494 seats, according to an ad for the Massey Seating Company published in Boxoffice Magazine, August 2, 1976.
The L.A. Library’s California Index has a few other references to the Glade Theatre. The L.A. Times of March 30, 1924, said that a pipe organ was being installed there. The August 4, 1929, Times said that improvements were being made to the Glade Theater. Motion Picture Herald of January 2, 1932, said that the Glade had been sold to J.L. Seiter and William Gustine.
Another reference may or may not concern the Glade. The Rounder, September 23, 1911, said that a new theater was to be built in Lindsay.
The earliest reference to the Lindsay Theatre I’ve found so far is in the July 4, 1942, issue of Boxoffice, which mentions an advertising campaign. It says that the manager at that time was named Harry Stark.
However, the Glade Theatre at Lindsay is listed in an ad for the Pacific Coast Theatre Supply Company in the August 13, 1938, issue of Boxoffice. It was a list of theaters in the area which had installed Floating Comfort Theatre Chairs made by the International Seat Corporation. No temporal overlap between the names increases the likelihood that the rebuilt Glade and the Lindsay were the same theater.
Here’s more confusion: The November 6, 1948, issue of Boxoffice says that the new Parsons Theatre in Lindsay almost didn’t open on schedule because of a problem with the delivery of one of the movies. The owner of the house was named Aubrey Parsons, so maybe Boxoffice just lost track of the actual name of the theater and substituted the owner’s name. This could have been the Grove, but then if it was I don’t see why it would have been remodeled only two years after it was built.
It’s possible that the Grove just didn’t last very long. The early 1950s were not the best of times for movie theaters, and a lot of them closed, especially in smaller towns that had competing theaters.
Were there two Santikos multiplexes called the Northwest? A Wikipedia article on Santikos Theatres says that the “Northwest 10” was the second Santikos theater at this intersection, and also says that it had a four-screen annex which had been closed for repairs, and then two of those screens had been reopened.
This is stuff I found that’s not in the Wikipedia article: A 3000 seat multiplex called the Northwest Six was opened by Santikos Theatres in April of 1975, according to a special issue of Boxoffice Magazine published in August 2, 1976. Then, the September, 1988, issue of Boxoffice reported that Santikos had completed a four-screen addition to their former Northwest 10-plex. Were the Northwest Six and Northwest 10/14 the same theater? If so, then the Northwest Six must have had an earlier addition or must have had some of its auditoriums spilt.
The 1976 Boxoffice item said that the Northwest Six had pairs of 400, 500, and 600 seat auditoriums. If it isn’t the same house as the Northwest 10/Northwest 14, does anybody know what became of it?
The Plaza Twin was designed by architect Mandel Sprachman, known for his restoration work on the Elgin and Winter Garden Theatres and for designing the first large multiplex, Nat Taylor’s Eaton Centre Cinemas, also in Toronto.
The Plaza Twin was featured in a special Modern Theatre issue of Boxoffice Magazine published on August 2, 1976. The recently opened Famous Players house had 1049 seats, with 664 in the larger and 385 in the smaller auditorium.
The May 20, 1950, issue of Boxoffice Magazine said that the Grove Theatre in Lindsay had recently reopened after being completely remodeled and redecorated.
The May 20, 1950 issue of Boxoffice Magazine said that the Serra Theatre had opened on May 18. Operated by Golden State Theatres, the house had a stadium section, and a total (probably rounded off) seating capacity of 1000.
Ground was broken for the Fox Theatre in November, 1968. The November 18, 1968, issue of Boxoffice said that National General’s chief of construction, J. Walter Bantau, was supervising the project.
The June 16, 1969, issue of Boxoffice Magazine ran a brief item announcing that the Fox had opened on May 27. The new house had 814 seats. NGC’s Fox-West Coast Theatres division was already operating three other theaters in Ventura County; the Fox in Ventura, the Fox in Santa Paula, and the Conejo in Thousand Oaks.
The November 2, 1964, issue of Boxoffice said that the Annandale Theatre had recently opened. It also named the architect as Dwight G. Chase, and said that interior decoration was by Sydell Sandy, Alexandria. The house was operated by the Town Theatre Group.
The October 11, 1965, issue of Boxoffice Magazine said that Stanley Warner’s new Topanga Theatre was scheduled to open on October 26 with the premier of “The Bedford Incident”. The regular opening would be on the 27th, with “Ship of Fools.”
The seating capacity of the new house was given as 1350, which would be in line with the other theaters Stanley Warner was building at the time. There’s a small reproduction of a rendering of the theater in Boxoffice, but it isn’t clear enough in the scan that I can read the architect’s name, which is not mentioned in the article.
The introductory paragraph on this page currently says that Reinhardt Dempwolf was the architect of the Strand. The theater’s official website attributes the Strand to E.C. Horn & Sons, as does spectrum in the comment of Oct 17, 2007, above.
Reinhardt Dempwolf was the architect of the Capitol Theatre. See this essay about J.A. Dempwolf Architects by Jim McClure, editor of the York Daily Record/Sunday News.
I’m going to put this here so it won’t get lost. Isaac “Ike” Silverman was Altoona’s first theater operator. He opened the Pastime Theatre as a nickelodeon in 1906, and eventually expanded it to 500 seats. Silverman opened the new Strand Theatre on the same block in 1916, and the Pastime was closed a year later and its building converted to retail use.
Boxoffice Magazine published an item in its August 21, 1937, issue saying that the Pastime Theatre building was being demolished. No address or street name was given for either theater in the Boxoffice article, but I’ve seen possibly reliable claims that the Strand (and thus the Pastime as well) was on 11th Avenue. If anybody can dig up addresses feel free to submit either or both theaters to Cinema Treasures.
The Blair Theatre was scheduled to open on December 23, 1937, according to the December 25 issue of Boxoffice Magazine that year. It was designed for the Silverman brothers by Pittsburgh architect Victor A. Rigaumont.
The Logan might be the theater described in an item published by Boxoffice Magazine on July 17, 1937, which said that Jacob and Isaac Silverman were building two new theaters in Pennsylvania: a 750 seat house in Hollidaysburg, and a two-story theatre 50'x120' in Altoona. Victor A. Rigaumont was the architect of both houses.
The Silverman Brothers were already operating a theater in Altoona called the Strand. I’ll poke around and see if I can find anything else about any of these theaters.
::pokes::
OK, the Logan was indeed the Rigaumont-designed house in Altoona, and had been re-scheduled for a grand opening on January 10, 1938, according to the December 25, 1937, issue of Boxoffice. Apparently there were more delays, because the February 12, 1938, issue of Boxoffice said that the Logan had opened “last week.”
The Hollidaysburg theater Rigaumont also designed was the Blair.
From the “Theatre Construction, Openings and Sales” column in the February 5, 1950, issue of Boxoffice Magazine: “Premont, Tex.– R.H. Smith Theatres Inc., opened 500 seat Rig.”
The January, 1987, issue of Boxoffice Magazine announced that the City of Elkhart had ordered the demolition of the Bucklen Theatre building. A part of the theater’s roof had collapsed in March, 1978. This had been repaired, but another section of roof collapsed in December, 1981. Attempts to raise money to restore the venerable house were made, but had been unsuccessful.
The Elkhart Opera House had opened on September 29, 1884, with Mr. and Mrs. George S. Knight & Company appearing in their comic play “Over the Garden Wall,” which had been a great success in many cities across the country that year. Movies were first shown at the Opera House in the late 1890s, but the Boxoffice article fails to say when the theater became a full-time movie house.
The January 13, 1975, issue of Boxoffice Magazine said that the former Fox Twin in San Antonio had reopened as a triplex on December 20, 1974. Actress Rhonda Fleming made a personal appearance at the opening. She had attended the opening of another Mann Theatre the previous day, at Lubbock.
Mann Theatres had plans to add three more screens to the Fox Central Park 3 at a future date, but it looks like they never got around to it.
The Wheaton Plaza Playhouse was built by John J. Broumas, according to an item in Boxoffice Magazine, December 25, 1961. The single-screen house was expected to be open by March, 1962. The comment above indicates that it opened several months behind schedule.
The article said that the architect, Edmund W. Dreyfuss had designed many other theaters, but I can’t find any references to any of them on the Internet, and not even in any other issues of Boxoffice. A tantalizing mystery.
The July 4, 1966, issue of Boxoffice said that Ira Sichelman and Louis Heon had acquired John Broumas’s stock in the Wheaton Plaza Playhouse, and would operate the theater.
The Wheaton Plaza was being operated by S&H Theatres in 1974, when the October 28 issue of Boxoffice said that a 600 seat two-screen addition adjacent to the original theater was scheduled for an early November opening. The architectural firm of Gitlin & Canton designed the addition. The theater was to be renamed the Wheaton Plaza 3.
I can’t find any references to when, or how, the complex was converted to four screens.
The Princess Theatre was designed by the Nashville architecture firm Marr & Holman.
This house was either opened or reopened in 1948. The October 6, 1945, issue of Boxoffice said that J.C. Tune had hired Marr & Holman to prepare plans for a complete rebuilding of his Princess Theatre at Shelbyville.
Then the March 2, 1946 issue of Boxoffice had carried the following notice: “Last rites were held in Shelbyville, Tenn. for J.C. Tune, who operated the Princess there.”
And then Boxoffice Magazine’s issue of November 13, 1948, carried a brief announcement that the new Princess Theatre in Shelbyville had recently opened after seven months of construction. The seating capacity was given as 800. The owner-manager of the house was named J.T. Tune.
A J.M. Tune is briefly mentioned as the operator of the Princess and of the 41 Drive-In at Shelbyville, in the March 24, 1958, issue of Boxoffice.
The Tune family’s operation of the Princess came to an end by 1968, according to an item in the January 22 issue of Boxoffice that year. It said that Morton Tune had sold the house to Fred H. Massey, president of Masco, operators of the Belcourt Cinema in Nashville. Massey planned an extensive remodeling of the Princess, with the plans to be done by the original architectural firm, Marr & Holman.
I can’t find any references to the Princess in Boxoffice, or anywhere else on the Internet, earlier than 1945, so I have no idea how long the place was around before the 1940s rebuilding, but if it needed a rebuilding then I’d guess it was already pretty old.
This was one of at least four 1970s multi-screen theaters designed for Plitt Theatres by the Chicago architectural firm of Finck, Stowell & Frolichstein. The others were:
Cherryvale Mall Cinema, Rockford, Illinois.
Orland Square Cinemas, Orland Park, Illinois.
Hawthorne Theatres, Vernon Hills, Illinois.
The other three Plitt theaters designed by Finck, Stowell & Frolichstein are also listed at Cinema Treasures:
Hawthorne Theatres, Vernon Hills, Illinois.
Fox Valley Theatres, Aurora, Illinois.
Orland Square Cinemas, Orland Park, Illinois.
This was one of at least four 1970s multi-screen theaters designed for Plitt Theatres by the Chicago architectural firm of Finck, Stowell & Frolichstein. The others were:
Cherryvale Mall Cinema, Rockford, Illinois.
Hawthorne Theatres, Vernon Hills, Illinois.
Fox Valley Theatres, Aurora, Illinois.
This was one of at least four 1970s multi-screen theaters designed for Plitt Theatres by the Chicago architectural firm of Finck, Stowell & Frolichstein. The others were:
Cherryvale Mall Cinema, Rockford, Illinois.
Orland Square Cinemas, Orland Park, Illinois.
Fox Valley Theatres, Aurora, Illinois.
This was one of at least four 1970s multi-screen theaters designed for Plitt Theatres by the Chicago architectural firm of Finck, Stowell & Frolichstein. Others included quads in the Chicago suburbs of Vernon Hills and Orland Park, and another in Aurora, Illinois.
The Cherryvale Mall triplex had 1494 seats, according to an ad for the Massey Seating Company published in Boxoffice Magazine, August 2, 1976.
The L.A. Library’s California Index has a few other references to the Glade Theatre. The L.A. Times of March 30, 1924, said that a pipe organ was being installed there. The August 4, 1929, Times said that improvements were being made to the Glade Theater. Motion Picture Herald of January 2, 1932, said that the Glade had been sold to J.L. Seiter and William Gustine.
Another reference may or may not concern the Glade. The Rounder, September 23, 1911, said that a new theater was to be built in Lindsay.
The earliest reference to the Lindsay Theatre I’ve found so far is in the July 4, 1942, issue of Boxoffice, which mentions an advertising campaign. It says that the manager at that time was named Harry Stark.
However, the Glade Theatre at Lindsay is listed in an ad for the Pacific Coast Theatre Supply Company in the August 13, 1938, issue of Boxoffice. It was a list of theaters in the area which had installed Floating Comfort Theatre Chairs made by the International Seat Corporation. No temporal overlap between the names increases the likelihood that the rebuilt Glade and the Lindsay were the same theater.
Here’s more confusion: The November 6, 1948, issue of Boxoffice says that the new Parsons Theatre in Lindsay almost didn’t open on schedule because of a problem with the delivery of one of the movies. The owner of the house was named Aubrey Parsons, so maybe Boxoffice just lost track of the actual name of the theater and substituted the owner’s name. This could have been the Grove, but then if it was I don’t see why it would have been remodeled only two years after it was built.
It’s possible that the Grove just didn’t last very long. The early 1950s were not the best of times for movie theaters, and a lot of them closed, especially in smaller towns that had competing theaters.
Were there two Santikos multiplexes called the Northwest? A Wikipedia article on Santikos Theatres says that the “Northwest 10” was the second Santikos theater at this intersection, and also says that it had a four-screen annex which had been closed for repairs, and then two of those screens had been reopened.
This is stuff I found that’s not in the Wikipedia article: A 3000 seat multiplex called the Northwest Six was opened by Santikos Theatres in April of 1975, according to a special issue of Boxoffice Magazine published in August 2, 1976. Then, the September, 1988, issue of Boxoffice reported that Santikos had completed a four-screen addition to their former Northwest 10-plex. Were the Northwest Six and Northwest 10/14 the same theater? If so, then the Northwest Six must have had an earlier addition or must have had some of its auditoriums spilt.
The 1976 Boxoffice item said that the Northwest Six had pairs of 400, 500, and 600 seat auditoriums. If it isn’t the same house as the Northwest 10/Northwest 14, does anybody know what became of it?
The Plaza Twin was designed by architect Mandel Sprachman, known for his restoration work on the Elgin and Winter Garden Theatres and for designing the first large multiplex, Nat Taylor’s Eaton Centre Cinemas, also in Toronto.
The Plaza Twin was featured in a special Modern Theatre issue of Boxoffice Magazine published on August 2, 1976. The recently opened Famous Players house had 1049 seats, with 664 in the larger and 385 in the smaller auditorium.
The May 20, 1950, issue of Boxoffice Magazine said that the Grove Theatre in Lindsay had recently reopened after being completely remodeled and redecorated.
The May 20, 1950 issue of Boxoffice Magazine said that the Serra Theatre had opened on May 18. Operated by Golden State Theatres, the house had a stadium section, and a total (probably rounded off) seating capacity of 1000.
The Sunset Theatre opened on January 20, 1950. The new T&D Jr. house had 1000 seats.
Ground was broken for the Fox Theatre in November, 1968. The November 18, 1968, issue of Boxoffice said that National General’s chief of construction, J. Walter Bantau, was supervising the project.
The June 16, 1969, issue of Boxoffice Magazine ran a brief item announcing that the Fox had opened on May 27. The new house had 814 seats. NGC’s Fox-West Coast Theatres division was already operating three other theaters in Ventura County; the Fox in Ventura, the Fox in Santa Paula, and the Conejo in Thousand Oaks.
The November 2, 1964, issue of Boxoffice said that the Annandale Theatre had recently opened. It also named the architect as Dwight G. Chase, and said that interior decoration was by Sydell Sandy, Alexandria. The house was operated by the Town Theatre Group.
The October 11, 1965, issue of Boxoffice Magazine said that Stanley Warner’s new Topanga Theatre was scheduled to open on October 26 with the premier of “The Bedford Incident”. The regular opening would be on the 27th, with “Ship of Fools.”
The seating capacity of the new house was given as 1350, which would be in line with the other theaters Stanley Warner was building at the time. There’s a small reproduction of a rendering of the theater in Boxoffice, but it isn’t clear enough in the scan that I can read the architect’s name, which is not mentioned in the article.
The introductory paragraph on this page currently says that Reinhardt Dempwolf was the architect of the Strand. The theater’s official website attributes the Strand to E.C. Horn & Sons, as does spectrum in the comment of Oct 17, 2007, above.
Reinhardt Dempwolf was the architect of the Capitol Theatre. See this essay about J.A. Dempwolf Architects by Jim McClure, editor of the York Daily Record/Sunday News.
I’m going to put this here so it won’t get lost. Isaac “Ike” Silverman was Altoona’s first theater operator. He opened the Pastime Theatre as a nickelodeon in 1906, and eventually expanded it to 500 seats. Silverman opened the new Strand Theatre on the same block in 1916, and the Pastime was closed a year later and its building converted to retail use.
Boxoffice Magazine published an item in its August 21, 1937, issue saying that the Pastime Theatre building was being demolished. No address or street name was given for either theater in the Boxoffice article, but I’ve seen possibly reliable claims that the Strand (and thus the Pastime as well) was on 11th Avenue. If anybody can dig up addresses feel free to submit either or both theaters to Cinema Treasures.
The Blair Theatre was scheduled to open on December 23, 1937, according to the December 25 issue of Boxoffice Magazine that year. It was designed for the Silverman brothers by Pittsburgh architect Victor A. Rigaumont.
The Logan might be the theater described in an item published by Boxoffice Magazine on July 17, 1937, which said that Jacob and Isaac Silverman were building two new theaters in Pennsylvania: a 750 seat house in Hollidaysburg, and a two-story theatre 50'x120' in Altoona. Victor A. Rigaumont was the architect of both houses.
The Silverman Brothers were already operating a theater in Altoona called the Strand. I’ll poke around and see if I can find anything else about any of these theaters.
::pokes::
OK, the Logan was indeed the Rigaumont-designed house in Altoona, and had been re-scheduled for a grand opening on January 10, 1938, according to the December 25, 1937, issue of Boxoffice. Apparently there were more delays, because the February 12, 1938, issue of Boxoffice said that the Logan had opened “last week.”
The Hollidaysburg theater Rigaumont also designed was the Blair.
From the “Theatre Construction, Openings and Sales” column in the February 5, 1950, issue of Boxoffice Magazine: “Premont, Tex.– R.H. Smith Theatres Inc., opened 500 seat Rig.”
The January, 1987, issue of Boxoffice Magazine announced that the City of Elkhart had ordered the demolition of the Bucklen Theatre building. A part of the theater’s roof had collapsed in March, 1978. This had been repaired, but another section of roof collapsed in December, 1981. Attempts to raise money to restore the venerable house were made, but had been unsuccessful.
The Elkhart Opera House had opened on September 29, 1884, with Mr. and Mrs. George S. Knight & Company appearing in their comic play “Over the Garden Wall,” which had been a great success in many cities across the country that year. Movies were first shown at the Opera House in the late 1890s, but the Boxoffice article fails to say when the theater became a full-time movie house.
As it says Fox Pantages on the ticket, I’d say that’s definitely an aka.
The January 13, 1975, issue of Boxoffice Magazine said that the former Fox Twin in San Antonio had reopened as a triplex on December 20, 1974. Actress Rhonda Fleming made a personal appearance at the opening. She had attended the opening of another Mann Theatre the previous day, at Lubbock.
Mann Theatres had plans to add three more screens to the Fox Central Park 3 at a future date, but it looks like they never got around to it.