Benn Theatre
6316 Woodland Avenue,
Philadelphia,
PA
19142
6316 Woodland Avenue,
Philadelphia,
PA
19142
4 people
favorited this theater
Opened on September 1, 1923, the Benn Theatre was later renovated in 1929 and closed in 1975.
Contributed by
George Quirk
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Recent comments (view all 11 comments)
Here is a link to some thumbnails of the Benn Theatre
View link
A Kimball theater organ size 3/13 was installed in the Benn Theater in 1923.
The Benn is listed as an RKO-Stanley Warner theater in the 1970 IMPA.
Here is an expanded version of one of the PAB thumbnails posted on 4/2/05. The photo is from the Irvin Glazer collection:
http://tinyurl.com/256jt6
The Impossible Years with David Niven was released in December of 1968.
It looks like the building is now occupied by a Dynamic Dollar store, which I imagine is like the 7-11. They didn’t have any Dynamic Dollar places when I lived in town.
The only thing I can recall about the Benn was the curtains – or lack thereof. They stayed in the open position partly because the rod was snapped in half above the screen. Nice look for a movie theater, no?
Here is a blurb from Boxoffice magazine, April 1950:
Robert Kessler, manager of S-W’s Benn Theater, following a successful “Miss Sunshine” contest, is getting ready to set up his annual baby contest.
I remember going to the Benn when I was a kid back in the 70’s. I went to saturday matinees when I could. There was always a line all the way to 63rd Street and the theater was always full. Too bad it’s closed. Jupiter’s was next to it, which was a Kmart store.
This theater was owned by my grandfather & great grandfather, Abraham Benn & Marcus Benn. My mom used to have movie parties there… I believe the Benner and the Alan were also part of that group. My Avitar is Alan & Esther Benn