This item is from the March 4, 1925, issue of The Film Daily:
“Sunbeam, New L. A. House
(Special to THE FILM DAILY) Los Angeles — The Sunbeam built jointly by C. W. Grubbs and West Coast Theaters, Inc., at Compton Ave. and 69th [sic] St. has opened. It seats 1,400. The owners recently opened another, but smaller house, known as the Kinema, at Manchester and Compton Aves.“
The May 1, 1926, issue of Moving Picture World said that Hoffman Enterprises had reopened the Gem Theatre in Willimantic on April 20. The company had bought the house on February 1 and closed it for extensive remodeling, which included the installation of a new ventilation system and an Austin organ. Hoffman retained as manager John R. Pickett, who had been in charge of the house since its opening in 1912.
The May 1, 1926, issue of Moving Picture World said that Saxe Enterprises was engaged in reconstruction of the Burke Theatre in Kenosha. The house had been destroyed the previous October, and the company had been waiting for the $26,000 insurance settlement to come through before rebuilding. The house was expected to reopen in June.
This item appeared in the September 12, 1925, issue of The Moving Picture World:
“Work has begun on a new 650-seat theatre in Longview, Wash. G. W. Swope, formerly of Marysville, Cal., an experienced theatre operator, will own the house, the estimated cost of which has been named as $24,000. The house will be dressed in Chinese colorings and designs and will be called the Peek-In. It will be a popular priced family theatre, and will have five dressing rooms under the stage, equipping it to handle roadshows and vaudeville. The house will occupy a site 100 by 50 feet. It will be ready in ninety days.”
I would imagine that the “…customer who fled without paying….” referred to in Katie Mac’s description of this theater was Mr. Swope. There might be a bit more to the story, though, considering this item from MPW of May 1, 1926:
“Quoidback Buys Peekin
In Longview, Wash.
“Moving Picture World Bureau, Seattle, April 17.
“G. M. QUOIDBACK and associates have purchased the recently opened Peekin Theatre, Longview, Wash., from G. W. Swope. As the name would indicate, the Peekin is Oriental in its interpretation. It occupies a site 50x120 feet and is housed in a two-story building of masonry construction. It contains seats for nearly 600. Mr. and Mrs. Quoidback will operate the house.”
Puget Sound Theatre Organ Society has this page about the Roxy, which includes a photo of Commerce Street in the 1920s showing the original Chinese style decoration above the theater entrance. It also cites David L. Junchen’s opus list of organs as saying that a 2/4 Robert Morton theatre organ was installed in the Longview “Peking Theatre” in 1921. I suspect that either Junchen or his source made the mistakes, giving the wrong year and theater name. MPW would not have published those notices four years late.
This weblog post says that the Palace opened in 1919 as the Wilselman Theatre, its name being a portmanteau of the surnames of its original owners, Floyd Williams and Sam Selman. Jeff Custer bought the house in 1920 and operated it through 1925.
The theater was remodeled and renamed the Palace by a new owner, Oscar Korn, in 1927. Later, the Palace was operated by Walter Buenger.
The page also mentions a house called the Cozy Theatre at the corner of 9th and Garza (very near the Palace, then) which was Slaton’s first movie house, opened sometime between 1911 and 1915.
This photo depicts the State Theatre in 1955, although it is captioned Slaton Theatre. The name on the theater itself is not visible due to the angle, but the vertical sign does appear to have spaces for six letters. An index for the June 13, 1952 Frontier Celebration Edition of the Slaton Slatonite lists advertisements for the Slaton Theatre and the Caprock Theatre (the drive-in.) I’ve also found a reference to the Slaton Theatre on this web page about the experiences of the Diaz family, who moved to Slaton in 1947.
Two poster cases remain intact on the building, one of them reading “Klemke’s Antiques and Gifts” and the other “Klemke’s Sausage Haus”, and it appears that at least the front section of the former theater houses the antique shop, while the entrance to the butcher shop (Klemke’s does operate a restaurant, but at a different location) is in the building next door at the corner of 10th Street. The company also does its own meat processing, and I think the processing plant is in this complex, possibly including the former auditorium.
A building with a 1930s streamline modern tile front, at 198 E. Dupont Avenue, now home of Pentacostals of Belle Church, was probably a movie theater. Here is a Google street view.
This photo purports to be the Royal Theatre in Chicago ca. 1904, but the copyright date on the photo itself is 1910. The copyright was held by the Decorators Supply Co., an outfit founded in 1883 and still in business today, with a web site.
jcarroll: The schedules for the Needham Theatre and for the Station Theatre at Point Mugu Naval Base (which follows the same policy) can be accessed from this page at the NavyLifeSW – Ventura web site. Hover your cursor over the word “movies” in the masthead and select the theater you wish to attend.
Louis Rugani posted part of the 1947 obituary of Steve Dorece earlier. Here is part of the 1996 obituary of his son, Leonard Dorece:
“Mr. Dorece served his country with the United States Army during World War II. While he was stationed in Italy, he was commissioned to operate the Goldoni Theater in Livorno, Italy because of his theater background. Although Mr. Dorece retired from American Motors in 1981, he will most be remembered for his work as the Owner and Operator of the Crown Theater, which was family-owned and operated until it closed in 1955.”
Union Cleaning Company, almost directly across the street from the site of the Hollywood Theatre’s entrance, is at 316 Third Street, so the most likely address for the theater would have been 317 Third.
This web page has a few photos of the Paramount, plus what appears to be a pre-1919 photo showing the original Columbia Theatre when it was a ten-cent movie house.
A two-manual, six rank Robert Morton organ, opus 2412, was installed in the Columbia Theatre in 1926. In a later restoration, the console was replaced by one from the Paramount in Clarksdale, Mississippi. The page linked in paragraph one has a link at the bottom leading to a page that links to an audio-only recording of the organ, played by the Paramount’s house organist, Dolton McAlpin. It’s quite impressive. The organ pipes and chestwork were later installed in a private home in Jackson, Mississippi.
This article mentions that the Columbia became the Paramount in 1929.
This article about Louisiana’s movie theaters is illustrated with a photo of what turns out to have been the second Cook’s Theatre.
The house was opened in the mid-1930s by James C. Cook and his wife, Ruby J. Darensbourg, and was the first movie house in Louisiana owned by an African-American family. The original wooden structure was destroyed by a fire in 1944, and replaced by a cinder block building in 1945. The gabled roof on the building now did not exist when the vintage photo was made.
The architect of the original Spanish Colonial Revival style buildings at the San Diego Naval Training Center, built from 1921 to 1923, was Frank Walter Stevenson. Among numerous other San Diego area landmarks, Stevenson also designed the Bush Egyptian Theatre, listed at Cinema Treasures as the Park Theatre.
The Marquee Cinemas at New Hartford and at Wheeling, West Virginia, are both listed on the web site of architects Paradigm Design as being among the firm’s projects (though the Wheeling project is actually in suburban Tridelphia.)
The web site of architects Paradigm Design lists the Formum 8 as one of the projects the firm designed for Goodrich Theatres. As the house was originally built for Dickinson Theatres I would presume that Paradigm only did a remodeling for Goodrich, although some older multiplexes Goodrich has acquired from other chains have been largely or entirely rebuilt.
The web site of architects Paradigm Design lists Goodrich’s Kendall 11 GDX as one of the firm’s projects. I don’t know if the firm designed the original 8-screen project built in 1998 or not.
This item is from the March 4, 1925, issue of The Film Daily:
The May 1, 1926, issue of Moving Picture World said that Hoffman Enterprises had reopened the Gem Theatre in Willimantic on April 20. The company had bought the house on February 1 and closed it for extensive remodeling, which included the installation of a new ventilation system and an Austin organ. Hoffman retained as manager John R. Pickett, who had been in charge of the house since its opening in 1912.
The May 1, 1926, issue of Moving Picture World said that Saxe Enterprises was engaged in reconstruction of the Burke Theatre in Kenosha. The house had been destroyed the previous October, and the company had been waiting for the $26,000 insurance settlement to come through before rebuilding. The house was expected to reopen in June.
This item appeared in the September 12, 1925, issue of The Moving Picture World:
I would imagine that the “…customer who fled without paying….” referred to in Katie Mac’s description of this theater was Mr. Swope. There might be a bit more to the story, though, considering this item from MPW of May 1, 1926:Puget Sound Theatre Organ Society has this page about the Roxy, which includes a photo of Commerce Street in the 1920s showing the original Chinese style decoration above the theater entrance. It also cites David L. Junchen’s opus list of organs as saying that a 2/4 Robert Morton theatre organ was installed in the Longview “Peking Theatre” in 1921. I suspect that either Junchen or his source made the mistakes, giving the wrong year and theater name. MPW would not have published those notices four years late.This weblog post says that the Palace opened in 1919 as the Wilselman Theatre, its name being a portmanteau of the surnames of its original owners, Floyd Williams and Sam Selman. Jeff Custer bought the house in 1920 and operated it through 1925.
The theater was remodeled and renamed the Palace by a new owner, Oscar Korn, in 1927. Later, the Palace was operated by Walter Buenger.
Here is an early photo of the Wilselma [sic] Theatre, dated 1920.
The page also mentions a house called the Cozy Theatre at the corner of 9th and Garza (very near the Palace, then) which was Slaton’s first movie house, opened sometime between 1911 and 1915.
This photo depicts the State Theatre in 1955, although it is captioned Slaton Theatre. The name on the theater itself is not visible due to the angle, but the vertical sign does appear to have spaces for six letters. An index for the June 13, 1952 Frontier Celebration Edition of the Slaton Slatonite lists advertisements for the Slaton Theatre and the Caprock Theatre (the drive-in.) I’ve also found a reference to the Slaton Theatre on this web page about the experiences of the Diaz family, who moved to Slaton in 1947.
Two poster cases remain intact on the building, one of them reading “Klemke’s Antiques and Gifts” and the other “Klemke’s Sausage Haus”, and it appears that at least the front section of the former theater houses the antique shop, while the entrance to the butcher shop (Klemke’s does operate a restaurant, but at a different location) is in the building next door at the corner of 10th Street. The company also does its own meat processing, and I think the processing plant is in this complex, possibly including the former auditorium.
A building with a 1930s streamline modern tile front, at 198 E. Dupont Avenue, now home of Pentacostals of Belle Church, was probably a movie theater. Here is a Google street view.
This photo purports to be the Royal Theatre in Chicago ca. 1904, but the copyright date on the photo itself is 1910. The copyright was held by the Decorators Supply Co., an outfit founded in 1883 and still in business today, with a web site.
jcarroll: The schedules for the Needham Theatre and for the Station Theatre at Point Mugu Naval Base (which follows the same policy) can be accessed from this page at the NavyLifeSW – Ventura web site. Hover your cursor over the word “movies” in the masthead and select the theater you wish to attend.
Louis Rugani posted part of the 1947 obituary of Steve Dorece earlier. Here is part of the 1996 obituary of his son, Leonard Dorece:
Union Cleaning Company, almost directly across the street from the site of the Hollywood Theatre’s entrance, is at 316 Third Street, so the most likely address for the theater would have been 317 Third.
This web page has a few photos of the Paramount, plus what appears to be a pre-1919 photo showing the original Columbia Theatre when it was a ten-cent movie house.
A two-manual, six rank Robert Morton organ, opus 2412, was installed in the Columbia Theatre in 1926. In a later restoration, the console was replaced by one from the Paramount in Clarksdale, Mississippi. The page linked in paragraph one has a link at the bottom leading to a page that links to an audio-only recording of the organ, played by the Paramount’s house organist, Dolton McAlpin. It’s quite impressive. The organ pipes and chestwork were later installed in a private home in Jackson, Mississippi.
This article mentions that the Columbia became the Paramount in 1929.
The Louisiana Theatre gets a short paragraph in this article, which says the house closed in 1954.
This article about Louisiana’s movie theaters is illustrated with a photo of what turns out to have been the second Cook’s Theatre.
The house was opened in the mid-1930s by James C. Cook and his wife, Ruby J. Darensbourg, and was the first movie house in Louisiana owned by an African-American family. The original wooden structure was destroyed by a fire in 1944, and replaced by a cinder block building in 1945. The gabled roof on the building now did not exist when the vintage photo was made.
The architect of the original Spanish Colonial Revival style buildings at the San Diego Naval Training Center, built from 1921 to 1923, was Frank Walter Stevenson. Among numerous other San Diego area landmarks, Stevenson also designed the Bush Egyptian Theatre, listed at Cinema Treasures as the Park Theatre.
The web site of Grand Rapids, Michigan, architectural firm Paradigm Design lists the Alamo Drafthouse in Corpus Christie as one of their projects.
The web site of Grand Rapids architectural firm Paradigm Design lists the Maiden Alley Cinema in Paducah as one of their projects.
Architects: Paradigm Design.
This multiplex was designed for Great Escape by the architectural firm Paradigm Design.
This multiplex was designed for Marquee Cinemas by the Grand Rapids, Michigan, architectural firm Paradigm Design.
The Marquee Cinemas at New Hartford and at Wheeling, West Virginia, are both listed on the web site of architects Paradigm Design as being among the firm’s projects (though the Wheeling project is actually in suburban Tridelphia.)
The web site of architects Paradigm Design lists the Formum 8 as one of the projects the firm designed for Goodrich Theatres. As the house was originally built for Dickinson Theatres I would presume that Paradigm only did a remodeling for Goodrich, although some older multiplexes Goodrich has acquired from other chains have been largely or entirely rebuilt.
The web site of architects Paradigm Design lists Goodrich’s Kendall 11 GDX as one of the firm’s projects. I don’t know if the firm designed the original 8-screen project built in 1998 or not.
Architects of the Goodrich Savoy 16 were Paradigm Design, but they don’t provide photos of this project on their web site.
A dozen photos and renderings of the MJR Grand Digital 16 Cinema can be found on this page of the web site of the architects, Paradigm Design.