Criterion Theater
118 W. Main Street,
Oklahoma City,
OK
73102
118 W. Main Street,
Oklahoma City,
OK
73102
3 people
favorited this theater
The Criterion Theatre had a lovely 3 manual, 16 rank Wurlitzer theatre pipe organ. In 1972 the organ was sold to organ man Paul Haggard who kept it running until 1974, when he installed it in a nice French restaurant named ‘The Showplace’ on the sixth floor of the Meridian Tower on South Meridian Street, Oklahoma City. It was a nice idea, but the sound of the instrument at its softest was too loud for conversation and the restaurant closed, and the organ was sold and enlarged by a pizza parlor in Galveston, Texas. Sadly, it was ruined in the flood of 2009.
Contributed by
Wallace Brown
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Recent comments (view all 36 comments)
1920’s picture
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1935 photo of Milton Slosser playing the Criterion pipe organ,
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In the mid-1970s I saw, of all things, Ken Russell’s film “Tommy” in a veru large, traditional downtown movie palace in Oklahoma City. I now believe it was the Criterion. About three of us were at the showing of the film (which was about right).
@ pugpapaokc pugpapaokc – I would be interested in the paper you wrote – my email is
@ Joe Vogel
I would love to see the article but can’t get to it from the link – do you have it where you could send it to me? My email is
Does anyone have any info on the giant Marilyn Monroe displayed in front of the Criterion when they showed Niagra in 1953? I see multiple copies of the image on line but nothing stating if it was a display from the movie company, or something local, etc. Thanks!
SK: Sorry for the delayed response, but my subscription to this page lapsed and I didn’t see your question until today.
The August 7, 1954, article about the remodeling of the Criterion now begins at this link.
The scans of Boxoffice that used to be at issuu.com have been moved to a section of the magazine’s own web site called The Vault. If you find any more of my old links that I haven’t gotten around to updating, you can (if you have javascript installed, and your browser supports it) find the date of the issue and the page number of the article by hovering your cursor over the obsolete link (it’s 080754/103 for the Criterion article, for example.) Then you can go to The Vault and navigate through it to find the article. Some of the pages at The Vault are one or two numbers off from the page numbers they had at issuu (the Criterion article starts on Vault page 102, not page 103.)
Some issues of the magazine haven’t yet been uploaded to the Vault, and sometimes The Vault has different editions of an issue, and they will be missing a particular article, but most of the Boxoffice stuff I linked to can still be found by this method.
Hello.. I was wondering if anyone can help me identify a beautiful large piece of molding from the old Criterion Theater in Okc. It was given to me years ago by my neighbor. I helped do her yard, every year.. She in return gave me things here and there, like tea cups, ruby glass, flo blue plates.. etc and this… piece of history, a very large and ornate, very heavy , looks to be made of pottery, large 3d like ovals in sky blue, with a heart and tons of repousse work .. appears to be maybe a crown molding section.. Its beautiful.. It sits in my garden, its about 3ft tall by 2 ft wide or so… Hopeing someone can help me, as she passed away years ago, and sadly I didnt ask many questions about it, just that it was something she had that i liked very much, so I planted her begonia’s and had tea, and she gave it to me as a gift… I would like to know what part of the theater it came from and such… thanks so much for any help.. K.
1935 Night time photo of Criterion Theater just added to photo section.
SK, saw your question above of 2/14/2012,,,A local Company named Basil Displays, was located in the basement of the Civic Center Auditorium that made displays for theaters..i.e. false fronts for Cinerama at Warner and Cooper also Cimarron for Midwest..My guess is that probably was the case for the giant Marilyn Monroe promoting Niagra…Basis was in operation in 50’s & 60’s, I may not have correct spelling of Basil but, it is close to being right..Anyway, that’s who I think produced the display…Motion picture’s would send out the prints and a local would build out the displays or false fronts for the outside of theaters..An era gone by.