Comments from Sue

Showing 1 comment

Sue
Sue commented about Dolton Cinema on Jun 3, 2006 at 7:23 am

I respectfully disagree with the previous post stating this movie house opened in the early 80s. The previous poster is off by many, many years.
The Dolton Cinema (AKA Dolton Theater) opened in the early 1900s. I’m almost certain it opened in either 1913 or 1914. It had many owners over the years, most of them local people. By the 1960s, the only types of movies shown were either B movies or movies that had already been out for quite sometime, but it was a good place to spend a Saturday afternoon and see a few Three Stooges shorts and a couple of cartoons, or if the kiddies were lucky, they’d get to see something along the lines of Plan 9 from Outer Space or The Incredible Shrinking Woman.
In the late 1960s or early 1970s there was a fire at the theater, and many local people wondered if it’d be torn down. It wasn’t. It was then bought out by someone who showed XXX movies, but thankfully didn’t last long.
An attempt was made to bring it back by a former owner, who largely succeded in bringing back people by charging only $1 per person. Unfortunately this owner became ill and died and the business was sold. It sat empty for awhile, but is now a nightclub.