National Theatre

The theatre was used by the Associate Artists Opera Company for a November 1974 production of Antonio Salieri's rarely-heard FALSTAFF.

I believe that the National was demolished some time ago after a plan to renovate it for the BCA proved too costly; a new theater space is now being built in the same spot.

This theater has been replaced by Atelier 505, which includes condominiums and two new live stages.

The new theatre complex at this site now open and is called the Calderwood Pavilion. A couple of photos from the ribbon-cutting are here.

The "Boston 200 Bicentennial Guidebook", published in 1975, says that the National was built in 1911 as the largest vaudeville house in New England, and it once hosted stars like Gene Autry and Mae West.

The guidebook lists the Associated Artists Opera, New England Regional Opera, and the Boston Philharmonia Orchestra as then-current users of the National.

At the time of that publication, the National was supposedly being "restored as a 3000-seat theater for concerts, dance, and opera", but this obviously did not happen.

According to the Globe and Herald archives, the National closed in 1978 and was demolished in April-May 1997. A selection process to develop new smaller theatres on the site started almost immediately after the demolition.

Sometime in the mid 79s the Loewe family granted a 100 year lease to a south end group that was going to restore the National to its former glory. I went to a reception there, and we toured around, the stage, etc-it was a mess and looked hopeless. Several times people wanted to restore it, but there was so little left. There were some protesters a few years ago when they finally decided to tear it down.
It had several come-back attempts. In 1969 it hosted the world premier of 'The Mad Room' w/ Shelly Winters; that was a remake of the 1941 Ida Lupino/Elsa Lanchester film 'Ladies in Retirement'
The new complex is very exciting, tho' I haven't seen anything there;it's going tp be legit only, and I think both the Huntington and Art are going to do some things there.

The "south end group" is the Boston Center for the Arts, who run the Cyclorama and a number of adjoining artists' studios and small stage theatres.

The Huntington Theatre Company are using the new theatre space here. The ART (American Repertory Theatre) will not; they have their own new small theatre space opening at Zero Arrow Street in Cambridge this week.

From the Bostonian Society Library, here's a 1931 photo of the National Theatre, along with the accompanying description. This record gives the address as 535 Tremont Street.

The Film Daily Yearbook, 1941 gives a seating capacity of 3,000. In the 1950 edition of F.D.Y. the seating capacity is given as 1,915.

Who owned the theatre in the 1930s - '40s?

The Film Daly Yearbook's 1941, '43 and '50 show the owner/operator of the National Theatre to be part of the E.M. Loew's Theaters Inc. circuit based at 216 Tremont St. Boston.

Another photo of the National, this one from 1946, described here. The marquee advertises a double feature of Kay Kyser in "My Favorite Spy", and "Powder Town"

Ken, could the seating reduction be the result of stricter fire laws that might have forced closing of a balcony? The Cocoanut Grove fire happened in 1942.

Looking at the exterior photo, it looks large enough to have had an upper circle/balcony which could have been closed off in later years.

I own a 1931 print of this theatre I was just wondering if anyone knows the names of the streets the are across the street from the theatre and what is currently located on the site of the former theatre?

The National has been replaced by the Atelier 505 condominiums and the Calderwood Pavilion, which contains two new live stages.

According to Donald C. King's new book The Theatres of Boston: A Stage and Screen History, the "gigantic" National Theatre opened on September 18, 1911, with 3500 seats. The grand opening caused a near-riot, as 8000 people pressed against its doors, shattering the glass.

King says "there was little else remarkable about this structure, other than its size."

In February 1913, the National and the B.F. Keith Theatre both offered Edison's Talking Pictures, "a phonograph and film device, some 13 years ahead of workable sound pictures. The problem was amplification: a phonograph horn, no matter how big, could not carry sound any further than a few rows."

In August 1915, the National was renamed the Boston Hippodrome, and it offered its customers free parking for their automobiles.

On March 19, 1919, it was renovated and renamed the Waldorf by Harry Kelcey, founder of the Waldorf restaurant chain. He established a policy of two-show-a-day vaudeville and photoplays, and also operated Waldorf theatres in suburban Lynn and Waltham. King doesn't say how long the Waldorf name lasted before it reverted to National again.

On pages 232-233, King talks about his days as an usher and assistant manager of the National in the late 1930s, and a subsequent visit in 1983 after it had closed. I won't quote all of it, but this sounds memorable:

"The National had Amateur Nights every Sunday, where contestants performed 'in one', that is, in front of the curtain. Those nights were wild, drawing a boisterous audience not averse to throwing objects at the performers....the manager, his assistant, and a policeman stood facing the audience while standing in front of its unused orchestra pit and organ remains. An usher was placed in each of the side boxes to keep watch. We never saw much of the would-be actors, since our eyes were focused on the audience. It all reminded me of wardens guarding their prisoners: the South End of Boston was really rough in those days, fallen from the rest of Back Bay elegance."

When King returned for a tour in 1983, "the orchestra pit and the first three rows of seating were filled with water seeping from the old Charles River bay." (The South End, like the Back Bay, was filled land.)

One winter night in the 1940s, my dumb friends and I were at Boylston station to take a trolley up to Park St. Somehow we got confused and boarded an outbound car which went down the Tremont Street tunnel under the Majestic, Wilbur, Met and Shubert, coming to the surface just south of the Shubert and continuing down Tremont Street in the South End. We stumbled off the car and started walking up Tremont and came across a wondrous sight, the National Th. just letting out of its evening show. I popped into the lobby, the houselights were on. It seemed so glamourous to me with its red velvet. Years later, when I told Donald King, he snickered at my youthful impressions. It was an old barn to him. He worked there in the late-1930s. The projection booth was built into the facade of the 2nd balcony. He had to haul cans of film up to the top of the 2nd balcony and then down an inside staircase to the booth. The National was the only one of the various Boston theatres which I went into in the 1960s which had poor houses, only a dozen people in the huge auditorium. It had 2 balconies and many large side boxes. The lobby was rather small, but it had a big stage and a spacious backstage area. After E.M.Loew closed it to movies, there were a number of attractions on stage, ballet and opera. There was a scandal involving the roof-- the City paid to have the leaking roof fixed but after the work, the roof leaked worse than before. I visited the house with Don King in July 1983 and there was over 6 feet of water under the stage-- one could have drowned down there. Many plans to reuse this house came to nothing and it was finally razed around 1997.

The architect for the National was Clarence Blackall, it opened on Sept. 18, 1911, and it had (take your pick) 3000 or 3500 seats. Apparently, the two other names, Hippodrome and Waldorf, did not last too long.

Richard Smith explained the role the National Theatre played in the founding of his father's theatre business which eventually became General Cinema.
"The Keith-Albee-Orpheum vaudeville chain hired Philip Smith to revive Keith's "white elephant", the National on Tremont St. Smith revived the floundering business by booking 14 movies a week, 2 new films each day and reverting to old time prices, 10 cents per seat. This high volume strategy was a success and Smith was able to become lessee-operator as Smith Theatrical Enterprises. From that base, he began by leasing properties and opening theatres in Weymouth, Reading, Hudson, and East Greenwich Rhode Island. In 1925, when his son Richard Smith was a year old, Phil Smith owned 12 theatres. By 1929, they had 18 theatres, some in partnership with the Stoneman's of Interstate Theatres. (the Broadway in South Boston was in partnership with the Doyle family. Philip Smith also had established a film distribution business called Piedmont Pictures, based in Boston's Bay Village section near the Coconut Grove. They handled independent film, usually booked into second run houses. But with the stock market crash of 1929, he was forced to sell all but three, the Strand Ipswich, and the two in South Boston." At the time, Philip Smith established a relationship with the First National Bank of Boston, in order to pay off debts. This led to a long term business relationship that later enabled the Smith family to grow what would become General Cinema in the 1950's and '60s.

The National Theatre is visible near the top left of this 1928 map.

It is on the north (left) side of Tremont Street, next to the the Boston Flower Exchange (which was built as the Cyclorama, and is called that again today).

A Boston Globe article published on December 28, 1982, lists the National as one of several cinemas showing Chinese-language movies in the 1960s.

[Brookline dentist Robert] Guen's Chinatown moviegoing dates back to the Sixties, when sword flicks were the rage. "That's where Chinese kids got their heroes," he says.

In those days, Guen and his friends took their Chinese movies where they found them - at the Stuart, at the State Theatre on Friday nights, where they put one on after the skin flicks.

"Or at the National Theater," says Guen. "That was the place to get together on Friday nights. Chinese parents were pretty strict about letting their daughters out. Parties had a bad connotation to them. So the girls would say they were going to the National Theater for the movies."

A wonderful second run theater. What a huge place this was. I spent much of my childhood seeing all sorts of movies here. Elvis movies, Jerry Lewis flicks, Beach Party flicks, Horror Fare, Sword and Sandal films, Sergio Leone's Eastwood films, I even caught James Bond films here.

I didn't realize the place had two balconies until my father and sister performed here as part of the old Boston Philharmonic. I greeted them onstage and looked out at the house to see the two balconies. The orchestra pit was all boarded up...this was say, 1977-78 I'm guessing. The place was in bad shape. But, I remember all the hubbub around the Boston Center for the Arts perhaps saving it, and the Boston Ballet possibly using it as performing space.

Too bad, I have fond memories of the place.

My friends and I spent many a Saturday afternoon at the National Theatre. I grew in Boston's South End right across from the theatre on Hanson St. The street directly across from the theatre is called Milford St. In the 50s and 60s on a Saturday afternoon we would see a double feature, newsreel, cartoons, trailers, wacky races and more for a 15 cent admission!! When it was torn down in 1997, I went to the site and retrieved two bricks from the building to keep as a momento of a time gone by.

This was quite a theater. Isn't there a fancy restaurant in it's place now?

It was replaced by condominiums and two new live-stage theatres. There might be a restaurant as well, I'm not sure.

I remember when it was being demolished.

I knew how Brooklyn Dodgers fans felt when Ebbets was torn down.

A piece of my heart gone...

I also felt bad when the Puritain burned down.

Hi, I lived on Hanson Street in South End of Boston the early fifties. We went to the National Theater every Saturday for the Matinees. If I remember correctly, the cost was only a nickle for Matinee. There were no ratings on movies at that time so I saw whatever was playing. I remember seeing Niagra in that theater. It was the first time I ever saw Marilyn Monroe and I became an instant fan. My older sister once took me to see The War of the Worlds with Gene Barry. I was so frightened I ran out of the theater. The sound of the alien ships was so big. I had to cover my ears at first but I was so scared I ran out screaming. I remember the look of the theater then. What I saw of it was beautiful and magical to me. It had lovely ornate carvings, and a red velvet curtain opened to the screen just as the movie was about to start. It was a great place to spend a Saturday afternoon. I am sorry to know that it is gone. It had a lot of history for a lot of people.
Leni

Nice memories, Leni ! I, too, thought the National was "beautiful and magical" (and glamourous) when I first went into it as a kid of 12 or so in the late-1940s. There were many plans to try to save it but nothing worked out and it was finally demolished around 1997, by which time it was a battered hulk.

During Christmas week of 1921, the National was featuring the Italian actor Giovanni Grasso and a company of 30 on stage in a repertoire of Italian plays. No movies.

I'm a Three Stooges Fan Club member, trying to confirm a personal appearance by the "3" Stooges (Moe Larry and Shemp), on a bill with Wee Bonnie Baker, the Barretts and Don Hooton, after an appearance by the A.B. Marcus Revue. The movie "Queen of Burlesque" was also shown. I have a display ad, but no dates (or town shown). Believe it was the Summer of 1946, and may have been Shemp's first appearance after Curly's strokes. The National was advertised as air cooled and showed a phone number of JA-7863.
Any help will be appreciated.
Thanks Frank Reighter fereighter@aol.com