Westwood Art Theatre

For many years until probably the mid 50’s the Westwood was operated by the East Side Amusement Company. The East Side Amusement Company was owned by Martin G. Smith and James Beidler, Sr. The Westwood gained notoriety in the early 50’s when Mr. Smith intentionally showed a benign film without first submitting it to the State of Ohio for approval. The law requiring submission was found to be in violation of constitutional guarntee of free speech (108 N.E. 2d 582, 63 Ohio Law Abs. 452,48 O.O. 310). Mr. Smith was the President of the Ohio Association of Independent Theater Owners for a long period of time.

Hello all,

I am doing a large-scale research project on adult theatres and would be very interested to hear from anything who either worked at or attended this theatre during its time showing adult films. If you would like to help me out, you can email me at .

Thanks!

Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/10707024@N04/5239502568/

Thanks Evan.

The Westwood presumably was owned by the same owners as the Westwood, Heights and Continental in Cleveland during the 60s and 70s—same logo and films as the Heights & Westwood (the Continental went toward blaxploitation fare in its later days). Whereas the Cleveland theaters quit showing X-rated films in the 70s, the Westwood continued to do so. The theater anchored what used to be the shopping district for what was known as “West Toledo”.

This was the Westwood Art in 2002.

Here is a photo from the Toledo Public Library
http://tinyurl.com/29xgnz