Paramount Theatre

A recent picture is on www.preservationdirectory.com/photodatabase_theaters.html

A current photo of the Paramount Theatre.
http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y147/Chuck1231/ParamountTheatreDenverCo.jpg

Modern exterior and interior photos of the Paramount Theater in Denver can be seen at this website.

I don't see a listing for the Denver theatre which was across the street from the Paramount. There doesn't seem to be many postings for the city of Denver. Could someone list the downtown theatres of Denver.brucec

This is a B/W photo of the Paramount in Denver.

Large color photo of the exterior with the vertical and marquee.
http://www.agilitynut.com/p/param904.jpg

I think that I can help brucec with some of the theatres doentoen DENVER. I started working at the FOX RIALTO in 1949 and worker there till 1953. The DENVER Theatre was across the street from the PARAMOUNT, and go around the corner on 16th and Welron street, on the east side of the street was the TELENEWS Theatre which was later nmed the WELTON Theatre, and across the street on the west side was the beautiful ORPHEUM Theatre. Going down 16th street to Curtis, turn siuth towards 15th and the RIALTO Theatre was on the east side. On 16th and curtis, mid block on 16th was the world famous TABOR Theatre facing north. Going towards 17th street north on curtis was the VICTORY Theatre, nest door was the COLORADO and down the street was the PALACE Theatre. Crossing 17th on the west side was the PLAZA Theatre which was later named rhe ROUND UP that showed only westerns. On 18th and curtis on the east side wsas the GEM Theatre, coming south to 17th street on the east side was the ISIS Theatre. Coming up curtis stree going south in the middleof the block on the east side was the STATE Theatre. In 1951 FOX built the NEW CENTRE Theatre I believe it was Broadway and 16th. There was the BROADWAY Theatre on 18th and Broadway and going down to 18th and California was the DENHAM Theatre. I hope this was easy to understand. posted by richard dudley on Nov 1, 2005 at 8:35pm.

There was a premiere at this theater a few years ago:
http://www.dragonandthehawk.com/premiere.html

1930:
http://tinyurl.com/efghq

1920s:
http://tinyurl.com/ebs5u

It looks like my link directly above was alreadty added by lostmemory. Sorry for the duplication.

Here is a photo of the Denver Theater:
http://tinyurl.com/jkprt

The photo posted on Mar 5, 2006 at 1:09pm was already posted by me on Sep 15, 2005 at 11:34am.

Here is another view of the Paramount Theater in Denver.

That's what I pointed out, as you can see.

Why was the Denver Theatre Posted on the Paramount page?

There was a discussion further up the page about the theaters in downtown Denver. The Denver theater has not yet been listed in CT, and someone had a question about it.

Unique B&W photo of the Paramount vertical.
http://snipurl.com/oby1

What is the current status of this theatre in the mile high city....Denver?

And what other theatres was Temple Buell, architect involved with?

House of Blues is gone. Wonder what's happening these days.

Here is a 1938 photo:
http://tinyurl.com/jb87q

Cool photo. You got two theatres for the price of one. haha

Does anyone remember where the Towne Theater was located? I suppose it is gone now. Sally

ken mc: Your b/w photos posted on Sept. 13 were wonderful to see with 2 vertical marquees across the street in downtown Denver!

What happened to the theatre with the DENVER marquee?

It was demolished.

William: I would have bet that would have been the answer and reading the word....DEMOLISHED! My next question is....why? Must look to see if the former DENVER is listed with CT.

During that time many of the chains were unloading under performing locations and selling properties as leases were up. So if you where a chain that operated a good number of large theatres in the downtown area of the city. You can't keep all of them operating like the good old days before people all moved to the burbs. When I was based in Los Angeles. I went & worked many times along the Broadway area theatres. During the mid 80's all those theatres ran full Fri. thru Sun., I'm talking about over 1500 people a show for 5 shows daily. The chain made lots of money on those days, so Mon thru Thur did fair. Those others kept those theatres open for a few more years. But just two years after that Fri thru Sun, the theatres where only pulling in 50 to 100 a show. And during the week you where lucky to get 10 people for a show with a theatre that seats 2000 people. So as a business you can't keep operating these large houses at that type of a loss. So you slow down the maintenace on the houses and that happened on many of them. During that time frame NGC sold many theatres from the chain. When MANN Theatre bought the chain a few years later. They cut more theatres that where under performing or leases that where up. Look at the Vogue and Hollywood and Fox Theatre in Hollywood are now. Mann Theatres put in some of the sales agreements that the theatres could not operate as movie theatres for a set number of years. The Denver was lucky to operated afew more years. For a theatre at that time that seated over 2000 people, there was not enough good films to keep it a profit making house.

http://cinematreasures.org/theater/15683/

Architect Temple H Buell is credited for the Facade and entry on Glenarm Place. It is in a mix of Gothic Revival & Art Deco styles carried out in white terra cotta.

The remainder of the building was by Chicago based architects Rapp & Rapp. Styled in a mix of Art Deco & French Renaissance which is similar to the treatment they applied to the Paramount Aurora, IL the following year (1931).

The 1942 Film Daily Year Book lists these theatres for Denver. The number after the name is seating capacity. I can not guarantee the accuracy of this information:
Aladdin, 1400
Alameda, 450
Alpine, 506
Bluebird, 561
Broadway, 1031
Cameron, 728
Colorado, 350
Comet, 350
Denham, 1392
Denver, 2525
Egyptian, 669
Federal, 800
Gem, 500
Granada, 516
Hiawatha, 785
Isis, 1811
Jewell, 575
Kiva, 450
Lincoln, 400
Mayan, 966
Mexico, 394
Mission, 590
Navajo, 380
New Victory, 1100
Ogden, 1221
Oriental, 992
Orpheum, 2600
Palace, 417
Palm, 360
Paramount, 2096
Park, 450
Plaza, 938
Rex, 480
Rialto, 878
Rivoli, 1700
Roxy, 561
Santa Fe, 894
Senate, 540
State, 1000
Sun, na
Tabor, 2269
Tivoli, na
Webber, 910

I'm till trying to find information about the Towne Theater in Denver. It was around in the 60s. I went to a Beatles' movie premiere there. Sally

I'm till trying to find information about the Towne Theater in Denver. It was around in the 60s. I went to a Beatles' movie premiere there. Sally

This is the website for the Paramount Theater. Current seating is 1,870. Click on the "Photo Gallery" for some nice interior views of this theater.

Added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1980

Paramount Theater (added 1980 - Building - #80000893)
519 16th St., Denver
Historic Significance: Architecture/Engineering
Architect, builder, or engineer: Buell,Temple H.
Architectural Style: Art Deco
Area of Significance: Architecture, Art
Period of Significance: 1925-1949
Owner: Private
Historic Function: Recreation And Culture
Historic Sub-function: Theater
Current Function: Commerce/Trade, Recreation And Culture
Current Sub-function: Theater

The stage/proscenium seems unusually narrow. Is that true? If so, what's the reason--built only to show movies, perhaps?

Well the size of movie screens were not that big in the 1930's. In the early 50's Cinerama and CinemaScope and Todd-AO expanded the size of the movie screen.

When in Denver last year i walked to the Paramount and found it a very beautiful building stretching a good way down the street, quit impressive tho i found it strange not to see a fly house at the stage area. The theatre was open as there was a concert of something there that night, i approached a young girl who was cleaning the foyer area. I asked if i could possibly take a quick look at the auditorium. After i told i used to work in the cinema industry she walked me in. A very long and narrow auditorium leading up to a not too exciting prosenium arch. Reminded me a little of the Waner Grand in San pedro L.A.The decor was in very good condition. The girl told me that Denver was very proud of the Paramount and in the future a large amount of money was due to be spent on renovation.

Ian, thanks for your post. I wondered earlier if the narrow proscenium indicated that it was built only to show movies. Your note about the lack of a stage house further suggests that.

When i stood in the auditorium the stage curtain was up and the stage was very shallow indeed. Theres no way it could hold major musicals etc. I guess its just luck its still standing and in such good condition playing the concerts it does. As i mention now the condition its in i just took a look at the official Paramount website and the photos of the auditorium show that work has been done on the auditorium very recently. It does look strange tho as you look down the street and if you know that theres a theatre theres no fly house!

the towne theatre was located in 16th and welton street right across the street from the RKO International theatre. It was located in the middle of the block.

Does anyone have a photo of the Paramount 16th strre side..the main entry was on 16th street, most of the pictures shown are the Glenarm street side. I used to manage the paramount theatre from 1968 to 1977.

Nobody mentions the unique fact that the Denver Paramount was, and still is, the one of two existing US theatres with twin console Wurlitzer theatre organs. The other, of course, is Radio City.

The main console is the lefthand one (from the sudience) and is, naturally, the one most frequently played. The righthand console was, once, at my vociferous insistence, brought up to play in tandem for a Denver Film Festival Opening Night.As you might imagine, the resulting cacaphony went unnoticed by most in attendance.

Except by a few, among them...

Randini

Here is a recent night view of the Paramount Theater.

Interior photo of The Paramount Theatre
Interior views of the Paramount Theatre

http://photoswest.org/cgi-bin/imager?10022421+X-22421
http://photoswest.org/cgi-bin/imager?10024718+X-24718
http://photoswest.org/cgi-bin/imager?10024711+X-24711
http://photoswest.org/cgi-bin/imager?10024713+X-24713
http://photoswest.org/cgi-bin/imager?10024720+X-24720
http://photoswest.org/cgi-bin/imager?10024719+X-24719
http://photoswest.org/cgi-bin/imager?10024717+X-24717
http://photoswest.org/cgi-bin/imager?10024715+X-24715
http://photoswest.org/cgi-bin/imager?10024716+X-24716

randini--I played a concert at the paramount in 1990 for the Rocky mountian chapter of the ATOS on that great Wurlitzer.

This is a recent exterior view.

Did many of the downtown theaters actually show CinemaScope full height as well as full width? I ask because in the late 1970s, a friend of mine was writing a story on film formats and asked me to photograph the Paramount's screen in both flat and scope configurations. The Paramount management was very helpful and masked the screen for me in both formats.

I struck by the fact that at 1.85, the screen was larger and that they masked it vertically for scope -- resulting in a smaller image. I still see many theaters of recent vintage doing this today.

Makes me wonder just how impressed folks were back in the day with scope films that were projected smaller than a masked presentation.

Here is a 2008 photo.

This is a nice November 2008 photo.

"zoltanf" obviously made a special effort to post that image in an internet scrapbook, and the best that the phantom poster can say is "nice?" What inconsiderate audacity!

That was meant as a compliment to the photographer "Warren". Something that you rarely give anyone on this site. When I thank people for photos, some people don't like me doing that. I can't please everyone!

1972 Photo

1984 Photo

1984 Interior

Here are more 1984 photos:

Photo1

Photo2

The marquee on the 16th street side (main entry) was very large. It had the words PARAMOUNT on a revolving yellow sign and white on the other side that moved and small bright lights surrounded it. It was great a night. I have not seen any photo's of the large concession stand within the main doors or a photo of the large majestic staircase that went to the mezzanine. On the mezzanine were large bathroom all with marble casing and below on the first floor were lounges for both men and women. There are no photo's of this beautiful theatre interiorally, if anyone has please post them.