Roxy Theater
116 Main Avenue North,
Twin Falls,
ID
83301
116 Main Avenue North,
Twin Falls,
ID
83301
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The Roxy did, indeed, show several 3D movies during the 1950s, including “Fort Ti,” “Dangerous Mission,” and several others from Columbia and RKO.
The 3-D experience was probably better at the Roxy than it was at the rival Orpheum and Idaho theaters. The narrow theater made the screen seem much larger than it really was.
The Roxy was fairly late in installing CinemaScope, but when they finally did, it was virtually wall-to-wall. It was flat (the orpheum’s original CinemaScope screen was slightly curved), and the ratio was more like 2:1, but “The Long Gray Line” and “The Eddy Duchin Story” did come off looking pretty good.
Chris Bolton’s “Twin Falls and the Silver Screen,†available at the Twin Falls Public Library, covers the history of cinema in Twin Falls.
The Roxy opened on May 16, 1931, in a former Woolworth building and was managed by Joe Koehler, who previously ran the Orpheum and Idaho theaters.
Personally, I remember the Roxy as being the smallest and plainest of the theaters in town. The auditorium was so long and narrow that when the camera panned across the horizon in many of the westerns it ran, someone at the rear of the theatre would have the illusion that the whole auditorium was moving.
Looking back at the Times-News movie pages from 1957 reinforced my memory of the Roxy: Their product was film from Columbia, Allied Artists, RKO and Walt Disney. The Bowery Boys and Abbott and Costello were a good bet at the Roxy. A typical movie at the Roxy in the 1950’s might have been RKO’s “Dangerous Mission,†a woman-in-distress thriller starring Victor Mature, Piper Laurie and Vincent Price. This was a 3-D film but I can’t even remember the Roxy showing it in 3-D.
Once in awhile by chance or luck they would play a movie that turned out to be a hit. To my recollection, in October of 1952 they had such fortune with “High Noon,†an independent production staring Gary Cooper, which was released by United Artists. In early 1956 they had similar luck with Gary Cooper’s “Friendly Persuasion,†which was released by Allied Artists and became a small-town favorite. It started on Christmas day and with holdovers ultimately ended with a 17-day run. Nationwide, “Persuasion†returned more in rentals than Elvis Presley’s “Love Me Tender,†which was also released in November of 1956. In comparison, the much nicer and larger Orpheum enjoyed a three-week run of “The Ten Commandments†starting on July 24, 1957.
Uncle Joe K. passed away in 1945 and management was taken over by his son-in-law until its 1958 closing.
The building where the Roxy was located still remains and is used for retail but there is no indication that it was ever a theatre as the facade and marquee have been removed and it has been given a false metal façade. One way to recognize it on Google street views is that it is the storefront with the arched entrance at approximately 120 Main Ave W.
The Roxy can be seen on the left in this 1939 photo.