St. George Theater
79 Concord Street,
Framingham,
MA
79 Concord Street,
Framingham,
MA
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Correction: “Open 6 days”.
The St. George in Framingham is listed in the 1927 Film Daily Yearbook as having 650 seats and open 7 days/week. That seat count doesn’t seem right.
A Robert-Morton theater organ size 2/4 style 75 was installed in the St. George Theater in 1920.
Thank you for the compliment. I don’t know when the marquee was installed, but they had one by 1940. I have a picture taken in 1940, which shows it.
Thats a very nice web page that you have dwodeyla. I enjoyed seeing the old ads. Any idea when this theater had its first marquee installed? Its not there in the 1923 photo. The second photo on your web page shows a marquee. That photo is probably from the mid 1940s.
The only interior photo of the St. George I can find, is the one I showed on my web page devoted to the theatre, linked by Lost Memory where the photos and ads are, above. It came from the large book titled “American Theatres of Today.”
The St. George Theater can be seen in this 1923 photo.
Some photos and more ads can be found here.
The MGM Theatre Photograph and Report form for the St. George has a photo taken in 1941. The rather narrow entrance is 2-plus stories high and has a rectangular marquee. The front has two lines with white letters on black background. Movies are “Sleepers West” and “The Great Dictator”. The Report states that the theatre is on Concord St. and has beeen playing MGM product for over 15 years. The house is in “DeLuxe” condition. There are 772 seats on the main floor, and 546 in the balcony, total: 1318 seats.
Same theatre, the name changed for a short time. I haven’t looked at enough microfilm to get the exact dates.
Many of the ads on that page are for the Paramount Theatre. Was this another name for the St. George, or a different theatre?
There is a website that has some newspaper movie ads from 1933 for the St. George Theater.
http://natickmass.info/StGeorgeAds1933.htm
Before the St. George Theater, there was another theater located at this very same address. It was called The Princess Theater. It had 500 seats and operated from around 1908 to 1917.
Sometime before 1917 the Princess was taken over by the George Giles Circuit Co. In 1917 it was torn down. The new St. George Theater on Concord St. opened for it’s initial performance on Monday April 18, 1921.
There is a photo of the Princess theater here:
http://natickmass.info/images/princesstheatre.JPG
Thanks Charles, but the address was already mentioned by Ken Roe, and the town is Framingham, not Farmington. (I know, sometimes the Film Daily has typos)
The address for the Saint George Theatre, was 79 Concord Street, Farmington, Ma.
Many good memories of taking the bus from Holliston in the 1950’s to attend the matinee movies at the St. George. The theatre seemed pretty grand to we young people, and you got two features plus a short and a cartoon for a reasonable price – try that now!
Blackall, Clapp & Whittemore are credited as the architects of the Boston Colonial, Wilbur, Metropolitan (later known as the Music Hall and now called the Wang Center), as well as the Modern. The Modern had the first installed sound projection equipment in New England. The St George opened in 1921, and had sound installed in 1929. The Manager of the St George was George Sumter until he retired in 1946, followed by Anthony Capobianco, then James Collins who later became the Manager of the Natick Drive In, then John Berry.
The architects of the St. George Theater were Clarence H. Blackall, Clapp & Whittemore. The seating capacity (taken from architects plans) was for 1,299. The street address was 79 Concord St.
The St George was a General Cinema, aka Smith Management, from the late 1940’s until it closed.