Fox Theatre

The Stage Door Theatre was a smaller theatre that was added to the back of the Fox Theatre in the mid 1960's

The Fox had a wonderful neon marquee.To bad Philly let it get away. I remember when the Godfather played the Fox, Variety reported the theatre was selling out and had the largest gross in the entire state of Pennsylvania.brucec

The Shubert Foundation bought many of the seats. Star Trek: The Motion Picture was the final movie to play here. The Fox still reguarly grossed $50,000 to 100,000 per week even in its final years. The 15-story building in which the theater was housed was also demolished.
The Stage Door Cinema on 16th Street was built into the Fox backstage. The Milgram (Stanton), the Fox's neighbor just to the west on Market Street, closed along with the Fox and Stage Door. All three were demolished in 1980.

Another great movie palace permitted to be demolished. For many years I would walk past this theatre on my way to the Stanley, Boyd, Goldman, Midtown, or Randolph. The Fox did not play any of the 70mm films until near the end of it's existence. I did see "Star Trek: The Motion Picture" and "Superman 1" at the Fox. Only then did I appreciate what I had been walking past all those years before. Having visited the theatre during its "pre-demolition sale" I have in my collection a poster of "Star Trek," a marquee letter, and piece of marble from the lobby. Again, what a waste!

If I remember correctly, didn't "The Exorcist" also play at the Fox in 1973? It seems like I remember lines around the corner of Market Street for that movie, and I think it was at the Fox. Anybody know?

To Ciani;

"The Exorcist" played at the Milgram next door, the lines for both theatres would go down Market Street and turn down 16th street.

Andy P.

I also attended the pre-demolition sale during which I got, among other items, parts of a 4-channel pre-amp, several glass slides reading "Starts Wednesday," many 35mm "snipes," and on a core, about half a reel of a 70mm print of "Capricorn One." A church purchased the seating...I don't know who got the screen. One nice thought to keep in mind: the Fox didn't close because of lack of business. The owner, Bill Milgram, simply got what really had to be called (inasmuch as "Godfather" premiered there) an "offer he couldn't refuse." Newspaper reports at the time mentioned the huge sum he had already turned over to Fox to book the upcoming 3rd "Star Wars" film.
A bit of techno history. Of course, this was the Philly house for CinemaScope and CinemaScope 55. But how many of us remember "Thrillarama," the 2-projector system that played only 5 or 6 theatres anywhere? The one and only film, "Thrillarama Adventure," ran on a 72-foot screen installed specifically for this presentation for an amazingly short six days only and then quietly left town.
During the 1959 "theatre renovation" period around the country, the Fox closed for nearly a month not so much renovating but restoring, opening in December 1959 with brand new 70mm projection equipment with "Solomon and Sheba." For years, one of the glass display cases on the 16th street side had a poster announcing that the Fox could show any widescreen process around. Clearly a bit of hype, but fun to look at. Milgram updated his 70mm equipment to include the newest flavor of Dolby called "Baby Boom" with "split surrounds," opening with "Superman" in 1978, I have memories of Mr. Milgram on opening day running up and down the aisles trying out different seating positions to check on the sound levels. There weren't many like him.

Here are some photos of the Fox. Unfortunately, you have to be a member of PAB to see the full size photos ($40).

The final film to show at the Fox was not "Star Trek," but one of those "Sun" 4-wall deals, "The Life of Jesus" or something like that. As for the note above, that the house didnt run 70mm films initially....it reopened in 1959 with a 70mm print of "Solomon and Sheba," many years later ran a reissue of "Sound of Music," a moveover run of "Star Wars," and "Capricorn One", all in glorious 70mm and 6-track sound.

The Fox opened in 1923.

i actually have a newspaper ad showing "the Excorist" opening at The Stage Door Cinema Theatre, not the Milgram/Stanton Theatre.

Right, "Exorcist" opened at the Stage Door, which was actualy built into the stage house of the Fox Theatre. Needless to say, because of its limited seating capacity, it ran for months on end.

I saw the first Star Trek film at the Fox in the fall of 1979. The theater was great. The film was not great.

A couple photos of the Fox Theatre, exterior and auditorium.
http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y147/Chuck1231/Pennsylvania%20Theatres/FoxTheatrePhiladelphiaPa.jpg
http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y147/Chuck1231/Pennsylvania%20Theatres/FoxTheatreAuditoriumPhiladelphiaPa.jpg

In the early 1940's, The Fox Theatre was part of Warner Brothers' Stanley Warner Theatres division, along with the Stanton, the Stanley, the Karlton, the Boyd, the Aldine, the Earle, the Palace, and the Mastbaum. Today, only the Boyd (closed as REG United Artists Sameric 4 Theatre), the Karlton (AKA William Goldman's Midtown Theatre, AMC-Budco Midtown Twin Theatre and Prince Music Theatre) and the Aldine (AKA Viking Theatre, Rugoff's Cinema 19 Theatre, Sameric-United Artists Sam's Place Twin, and CVS/pharmacy) is all that remains from the Stanley Warner-RKO Stanley Warner chain.

The Fox was for many years one of the FEW glories of center city Philadelphia. Born in 1935 I grew up at the movies in the in the suburbs of northwest Philly and spent my youth at the Erlen, Renel, Lane, Yorktown and Keswick...all reachable by trolley and/or bus during the war years of WWII. What a time that was despite the horrors of the war! The films were glorious and the theaters were also.

I live in Connecticut now...and have seen the demise in Philly of the great palaces of the past. Thank God that the Friends of the Boyd apparently have saved it. NO NYC center city Broadway movie theater exists from the golden age, except Radio City which is not strictly speaking a movie theater today. (And the Ziegfeld wasn't even built until the late 60's and is SMALLER than many of the neighborhood Philadelphia movie theaters from my youth.) SOOOOOOOOOO sad.....

Here in Connecticut many of the great palaces and atmospherics like the Erlen...HAVE been saved.....like the Keswick was.....by turning them into legitimate theaters. As the sun seems to be setting on movies because of the poor prints, lousy projection, end of continuous showings, elimination of short subjects, cartoons or ANY sense of LIFE and community....and the addition of ENDLESS ads and previews in ugly curtainless auditoriums from hell....theater seems to be booming. The 3,000 seat Palace in Waterbury, CT, which, like the Erlen, was closed for decades and rotting away, roof collapsing, etc....was restored last year TOTALLY....and today is a SMASH with touring Broadway shows, concerts, ballet, singing groups. WHY was a MAGNIFCENT theater like the Erlen allowed to die?

Philadelphians for many years....most of my life.....had NO appreciation for theaters and even as other cities began to save them, renovate them, and use them...Phildelphians just let them rot until they were torn down. To have lost the Keith/Randolph, the Fox, the Stanley, Stanton, Arcadia, Earle, Aldine, and Karlton/Midtown as well as the Goldman is just heartbreaking. And the MASTBAUM...operated for awhile by Roxy Rothafel himself....the loss of that INCREDIBLE structure was a CRTME.

My mother used to say that the rich in Philadelphia...those on the Main Line....and elsewhere....were the least supportive people in America of the arts. Yes...yes...the Art Museum....but WHAT ELSE from the golden age survives besides that and the Academy of Music. Even the GORGEOUS Erlanger legitimate theater is gone....as is the Locust. How sad....when other cities preserved their heritage by adapting it to new forms.

The Fox was a beautiful theater in its day.....and home to SO many of the great films from 20th Century Fox....THE ROBE (first film in Cinemascope), Captain From Castile, Letter To Three Wizes, The Day the Earth Stood Still, Viva Zapata, Love Is A Many Splendored Thing, An Affair to Remember, There's No Business Like Show Business, Call Me Madam....those and SO many more I saw at that wonderful place.

To tear it down was a disgrace only surpassed by tearing down the Mastbaum. If money alone is the criteria by which we live, then we are condemning ourselves to the dustbin of history.

In Asian countries they have curtains in THEIR movie palaces. Are we sooooo far along toward third worldism...that we cannot?

What a sad ending for a great American industry.

Bob Ketler:

I just recently learned first hand exactly what you're saying about the Main Line's being indifferent to the arts and historic preservation here in Philadelphia. Here in Northeast Philadelphia where I reside -- which had been Philadelphia's original Main Line (and, from what I can gather had been a thousand times better for Philadelphia than what we call the Main Line today!) -- we have an excellent theater building in Northeast Philadelphia's Holmesburg section which had been designed by the great 20th century movie theater pioneer William Harold Lee. Built in 1929 and called the Holme Theatre, it was renamed the Pennypack Theatre in 1946 after nearby Pennypack Park. It closed its doors as a theater sometime in the late 1950s and currently is being transformed into a type of mini mall which, when completed, will have a Dollar Tree Store, Pizza Hut Express, Cold Stone Creamery plus possibly a laundromat, the last not fully decided yet. But while this has been going on, I've been campaigning very heavily for it to become a movie theater once again. Yet it appears no one has fought my efforts more than those out on the Main Line. Case in point, the Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance has totally refused to lift a finger in helping me to attain for this building historic landmark status. Undaunted by this, however, I feel Northeast Philadelphia is long overdue for reacquiring its Main Line standing once more and that restoring this theater building as a theater would be a very positive step in that direction.

As for the Fox in Center City, it was indeed a very beautiful movie palace, and I saw Superman there in 1978.

I ran one of the last shows at the FOX. I rented the theatre regularly from Bill Milgram and held giant ALL NIGHT MOVIETHONS that started at midnight and lasted til dawn. The police came by and asked us to stop them because we were flooding breakfast merchants with 1,000-1,500 people at 7am and they were harassing customers and clerks. We hired security and things calmed down. When the FOX closed we moved to the MILGRAM, but it didn't hold as many people and when we turned them away, they became unruly. This was the end of the martial arts and blaxploitation era.

One of the greatest first-run movie theaters in the country. I went there often when I lived in Philadelphia (1940s-1960s). It was truly a beautiful theater.

Found this on eBay, but it appears that, before Milgram Theatres owned the Fox Theatre, and after Stanley Warner owned it, The Fox Theatre was owned by National Theatres Inc., who also owned Fox West Coast Theatres Corp. (today known as Mann Theatres), and The Fox Theatre in Detroit, and The Roxy Theatre in NYC

http://cgi.ebay.com/Orig-1958-RKO-Theatres-National-Fox-Movie-Theaters-Ad_W0QQitemZ7231345760QQcategoryZ37833QQssPageNameZWD1VQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

Here is a 1963 photo of the Fox from Temple University:
http://tinyurl.com/lny7j

This 1931 photo shows the Fox with the name spelled out on the office building above the theater. I ate at the Horn & Hardart on Broad Street many times when I was a kid. I don't think they have any more of those in the city.
http://tinyurl.com/gtmfl

I remebered seeing "The Godfather" there. It was a beautiful old theater!

The Philadelphia Fox was a gorgeous theatre. So sad that it's gone. My best memory was when I saw a sneak preview of Peter Yate's "The Hot Rock" in 1972. It was advertised on the Penn and Temple campuses and was shown at 9 in the morning. Yates himself was there and spoke to the audience after the screening. I believe this was a true preview in that he was still in the final editing stage.

Speaking of stages, I want to clear up what I firmly believe are inaccuracies in comments here. I am sure that "The Excorcist" did NOT premiere at the Stage Door. I clearly remember seeing it at the Milgram. I believe it's quite possible, however, that "Exorcist II" was at the Stage Door in 1977.

I moved to Philly in 1970 and there were several years before the Stage Door was created. It was a nice little theatre, but it was built within the stage area of the Fox, which meant that the Fox could never again present stage shows.

When they tore down the Fox I couldn't believe it! We called the structure that replaced it "The Darth Vader Building" because it was big, shiny black, and imposing.

No, "The Exorcist" opened at the StageDoor. This theatre was carved out of the Fox' stage. The Milgram, formerly the Stanton, formerly the (first) Stanley, was just a few doors west of the Fox fronting on Market Street. The S tageDoor fronted around the corner on 16th Street. You may indeed have seen EX at the StageDoor at some time subsequent to its opening, but, go check the newspapers yourself, THE EXORCIST opened in Philadelphia downtown at the Stage Door.

Er, speaking of which, this city could really use an exorcist right now, plus a Superman...

And a Godfather couldn't hurt.

Heck, I'd like a Cine-Miracle!

Well, I can't argue with actual documentation from a newspaper. I searched the web for a long time and cannot anywhere find a date that the Stage Door opened. I thought it was later rather than earlier, but I may be wrong. I wonder when the last stage show at the Fox was. What I do know with certainty is that I saw The Exorist at the Milgram. I remember because it was an awful experience. It was clearly an audience who had not read the book, and was not well trained in the art of theatre etiquette. I remember that there was as much dialogue from the audience as there was on the screen. And people coming and going all the time. I hated the movie. I always called it "excerpts from The Exorcist." But it was a hit. The Stage Door was smaller, so they probably moved it over to the Milgram to increase revenue. Personally, I'd like my money back. With interest.

William e303
The Stage Door opened in 1971 with Carnal Knowledge which was also at the Milgram. The last film to play there was a film with Natalie Wood called The Last Married COuple In America.
The Exocrist opened there Dec 25 ,1973 not at the Milgram as posted earlier.

The movie going experiences I remember the fondest were those where the theater itself added a dimension of reality to what was happening on screen. For instance, I saw DiPalma's THE UNTOUCHABLES at the Strand Theatre in Ocean City, NJ in 1987 at a time when that town was crawling with mob figures. As a small child I saw MOBY DICK at some theater at the shore where you could actually hear and feel the vibrations of the ocean washing up under the theater's floorboards. I saw BEN HUR at the Boyd, and for that movie it felt like being in an enormous Roman palace. And when I saw SUPERMAN at the Fox, it was the perfect setting to see a movie such as that, smack dab in the middle of the big city where all the tall skyscrapers are.

Meaning that when it comes to a movie like THE EXORCIST, isn't this the very sort of movie where you want to feel somewhat annoyed and put off? I mean, I think of THE EXORCIST and what comes to mind is people behaving rudely and out of control. So it sounds like the audience you shared seeing that movie with was perfect for it, the "full movie-going experience," as they say. And just think, you got all that for free atop the basic ticket price!

A Moller theater organ opus 3509 size 3/22 was installed in the Fox Theater in 1923 at a cost of $14,780.00.

why is it that most, if not all photo links on this site are dead ends?

It's because those who hijacked the city of Philadelphia and wiped it clean of its once many great movie palaces wanted to do a thorough job of it.

"The Exorcist" opened at The Stage Door Cinema, on Chirstmas Day. It was so successful, it eventually played both The Stage Door and The Milgrim, at the same time.

I loved The Fox Theater, and spent many hours there, over my lifetime in Philadelphia. The last film I saw there was "Suspriria", in September of 1977.

Here is a photo, circa 1946:
http://tinyurl.com/2xt7e9

Centennial Summer with Jeanne Crain and Cornel Wilde was released in August of 1946.

Here is a 1959 photo from phillyhistory.org. The Stanton can be seen next door:
http://tinyurl.com/5j4uht

Here is the new link for the 1963 photo:
http://tinyurl.com/6cyuz5

I too was there when they were selling contents of the theatre. I vividly recall a woman who either bought or was very close to buying the golden railing that lead to the balcony area. I purchased - and still own - my initials from the marquee at $2.50 each. Took a stroll around the balcony area and up to the projectionist's booth because my mom never wanted to sit that high! Darn it -- where were digital cameras in 1980?

What an awesome marquee

Here is a 1939 photo from Life Magazine:
http://tinyurl.com/6ckxkd

The auditorium was cavernous, especially if the crowd was small. Sitting in that theater really gave you a feeling for how the old days must have been.

Google search exactly
Boxoffice May 22,1948
punch page 136 in the box
for photo in ad of Fox auditorium with much fiberglass drapery

Suffice it to say those particular curtains weren't there anymore in the '70s. There were curtains in front of the screen just before the Fox was demolished, but not nearly as plentiful or dazzling. Never looked at curtains from a public-safety perspective, though. Always thought they were mere decor, but in that photo they looked fabulous as well as being functional.

If you google search exactly Boxoffice April 5, 1941
and type 142 in the page box
you will see a photo of Fox exterior including ticket booth for movie “International Forum”

Boxoffice July 19, 1941
type 179 in the page box
you will see photo of the auditorium rear/lobby of the Fox

Here is a 1970 photo:
http://tinyurl.com/c9emgs

1968 photo of the Fox Theatre.
http://americanclassicimages.com/Default.aspx?tabid=141&txtSearch=CATAdvancedSearch1%2c38%2c3%2c2268&catpageindex=7&ProductID=33159
1974 photo of the Fox Theatre.
http://americanclassicimages.com/Default.aspx?tabid=141&txtSearch=CATAdvancedSearch1%2c38%2c3%2c2268&catpageindex=7&ProductID=33159

Renewing link

Chuck's 1974 photo does not have the right link.

Here is some Fox history from late 1930s and 1940s. "Some Like it Hot” was shown in 1939. "The Mark of Zorro" was shown in late 1940. Hitchcock's Lifeboat" was doing good box office in early 1944. In July 1944 "Double Indemnity" was shown. The Eastern premiere of "G.I. Joe" was hosted on July 27, 1944.

Thanks Howard, that is a 1968 photo.
Here is the 1974 photo.
http://americanclassicimages.com/Default.aspx?tabid=141&txtSearch=CATAdvancedSearch1%2c38%2c3%2c2268&catpageindex=2&catpagesize=25&ProductID=33161

The "Some Like It Hot" of 1939 should not be confused with the later and more famous Billy Wilder comedy with Marilyn Monroe, Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon. The 1939 "SLIH" was a Bob Hope-Shirley Ross comedy. After Wilder acquired the right to use the title, the Paramount release was re-titled "Rhythm Romance" for TV and home video.

Re a comment in the introduction, the Capitol Theatre in NYC was well above Times Square, situated on the west side of Broadway between 50th and 51st Streets.

Here's some more Fox history from Box Office:

24 June 1939 Box Office “Young Mr. Lincoln” with vaudeville show

20 July 1946 Box Office “Centennial Summer” exterior photos at Fox with crowd

15 Nov 1947 Box Office p 16, Catholic students & war veterans protested showing of film "Forever Amber"

18 March 1949 Box Office "A Letter to Three Wives" in its 3rd week at the Fox

11 Feb 1950 Box Office "Twelve O'Clock High" being shown at Fox

22 Sept 1951 Box Office p 13 photo of huge crowd outside Fox for the film "The Frogmen"

22 March 1952 Box Office: movie "Viva Zapata!" at Fox, 3rd week

24 May 1952 Box Office: “Deadline-U.S.A.” being shown

4 Oct 1952 Box Office: Fox recent policy to play film from other studios, not just Fox


16 June 1956 at Fox, for opening of movie "D-Day the Sixth of June" a tank driven by the Army

14 July 1956 Box Office to promote "The King and I" movie opening at Fox, Thailand finance minister's wife Princess Rudivorian appeared

In the introduction, how can "Current function" be "unknown?" The Fox was demolished in 1980.

Warren, the reason it is listed as unknown is that when they submitted the theatre they didn't know what was on the site of the theatre at the time or what the site was occupied by at that time.

Hello moviemachine, My Grandfather Max Moskovitz was a projectionist at the Fox, any chance you worked with him. The only movie I remember seeing ther was Superman. I watched the movie from the booth. As an eleven year old I couldn't understand why I had to watch it without any sound and wasn't allowed to go down to the theater. I guess the neighborhood had gotten a little rough by 1978.

Cheers, Michael

Was there a particular art to hanging letters on the marquee? I viewed the online pictures and saw that the lettering was perfectly aligned and spaced, no matter how large the marquee.