Chuck and Jack – regarding the Bijou being a “negro” theatre: Memphis has long suffered from segregation. For much of the 20th century the area of downtown south of Beale catered to African Americans. A theatre at 275 South Main would be in the appropriate area to be listed as a “negro” theatre. (Just for reference, the Orpheum is at the southwest corner of Main and Beale, the address is 195-197 South Main).
I notice that on CT there is not a listing in Memphis for the Lyceum Theatre. I wonder if the theatre listed here as the Bijou might be the Lyceum renamed by Jake Wells for his performances.
The Lyceum was a large handsom hall, built as a legit house around 1893, to go into competition with the Grand Opera House. I believe the Lycem was torn down in the mid-to-late 1930’s.
I’ve never known the address of the Lyceum, but do remember that it was briefly leased by Loew’s (and was advertised as Loew’s Lyceum) as Loew’s prepared to build the two palatial theatres: Loew’s State and Loew’s Palace. (q.v.) That would have had the Loew’s Lyceum operating around 1918 – 1919.
With a long list of friends interested in Memphis theatre history I remain surprised that none have ever heard of this hall, especially considering its very prominent address and size.
The Film Daily year book for 1935 lists this as Loew’s Strand. The big theatres in downtown Memphis changed hands a good deal during the ‘30’s. Loew’s Palace went to Paramount for a while and then to MALCO. Apparently Lowe’s operated the Strand right next door to their magnificent State for a while. Loew’s got the Palace back around 1940 when MALCO got the RKO Orpheum. As an old theatre manager friend said of that time: “the employees in the downtown theatres didn’t know who they were working for from day to day.”
The Bijou opened under the management of Jake Wells and was (at least briefly) known as Wells' Bijou. Refer to the link listed just above from the East Tennessee Paranormal Society. Wells also operated the Bijou Theatre in Memphis Tennessee.
Recent acquisition is a playbill from Wells' Bijou, Memphis, Tennessee for the week beginning Monday October 8 1906. It lists the following performance:
A. H. Woods presents
America’s Foremost Comedians
Bickle, Watson and Wrothe
in the musical concoction
TOM DICK and HARRY
The cast list is as follows:
George Bickel, Harry Watson, Ed Lee Wrothe, Harrison Steadman, Walter Pearson, James Williams, Cyrus Gould, Harry Hewitt, R.C. Mudge, Roy Waddles, Jenne LaBeau, Fanny Thatcher, Louise Auber.
The following are listed as “Our Kittens"
Mayme Harrison, Marie Melville, Ethel Dunbar, Kitty Nelson, Velda Russel, Florrie Allen, Dority Phelps, Mable Zeere, Garr Sideman, Nettie Coleman.
The “Show Girls” are
Maude Stanley, Evelyn Leroy, Florence Bernard, Josephine Carter, Ethely Curtis, Josie COlman, Bertina Wells, Mattie Williams.
The “West Point Cadets” are
Willaim Blair, Clay Price, Harry Hewitt, John Costello, Walter Webber, Geroge Flamer, Frank Perry.
The show was in two acts with a total of 14 songs in various combinations of solos, duets and choruses.
Following TOM DICK and HARRY was a musical programme with Paul Schneider listed as “leader.” (This is apparently an after piece.) There were six songs by different popular composers of the day including “The Governor’s Son Medley Selection” by G.M. Cohan.
Also listed in the program is this note: Evening performances at the Bijou Theater begin promptly at 8:15. The Matinees, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays begin at 2:15. The box office is open daily from 9:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m.
The next show was to be Sidney Toler in the charming musical drama HOW BAXTER BUTTED IN.
The program is 16 pages long, every page – including front and back covers – is covered in advertising. The implication from the quality of the playbill and the size of the cast is that this is a busy legitimate theatre. Jake Wells had Bijou Theatres in several other cities, including Knoxville (q.v.)
My old friends and long-time theatre history fans know nothing of this hall. Again, the implication is that it must have be taken down a long long time ago.
Jack et al, I think the Fifth Avenue theatre building is gone. A quick look at Google Earth and the map link above show 218 North Fifth at the north east corner of Fifth and Church. This would put it directly across the street from the famous Eqyptian Revival Downtown Presbyterian Church (formerly 1st Presbyterian) and that corner is now occupied by a large skyscraper with a deep fore-court built in the mid 1980’s.
Here’s a link to a Nashville Tennessean newspaper article about the Park Theatre in McMinnville. The description sounds interesting, though using the title “movie palace” for this hall seems a little overly generous.
PC, I was never in the Loew’s State, but know it was very similar in style (Thomas Lamb’s “Loew’s Anywhere Adam”)to the Loew’s Palace around the corner on Union. The LP had a faux fireplace in the women’s smoker. There was a steam radiator behind a grill, then grill fit inside what normally would be the firebox, a traditional mantle finished out the effect. The mantle found its way into a friend’s dining room shortly after the LP was torn down.
It’s nice to know that the State was similarly equipped.
LM, thanks for the photo links. Any ideas about the brick facade on the Prytania? I don’t remember it looking like that at all, but the last time I was there was in 1989. Has this little operation been so successful that they could afford a whole new (and rather nice looking) exterior? Or is my memory lost too?
In re-reading the notes above, I come across something of an in-consistancy. In Jim’s opening description he mentions stadium seating and the possibility of moving between orchestra and balcony without going back to the lobby.
the side view of the auditorium looks very much like a standard orchestra/balcony arrangement.
Jim’s research is always meticulous. If he says stadium, I believe stadium. But it also leads me to wonder if there was a more complex plan than is visible in the somewhat cropped side view.
Also, what happened to the auditorium and balcony during the years as a furniture store?
Last question: what is behind the windows visible above – and to the sides of – the marquee? Did they open into the main lobby? Mezzanine space? Offices?
The Venetian may not be long for this world: your memories of this building, recorded on this site, may soon be the only record of this once lovely facility.
The Fox was a single screen box built as the downtown theatres ended their careers: late 1960’s or early 1970’s. It still stands, as a retail space, the exterior covered in E.I.F.S. and wedding dresses of questionable taste hanging in what once was the lobby.
Jack thanks for the photo (and for the one of the Princess in Lebanon). Notice the storefront immediately to the left of the marquee. The theatre’s steel facade decor and part of the marquee once covered the upper story of the storefront (see my note above 4/9/2004). Above the retail shop was a suite of offices for the theatre: a dead-end hallway ran from the balcony corridor back toward the street with office doors opening off the left (west) side. It was quite a surprise to open the doors, because not only had offices never been used, there was no floor in them!!! Opening one of those doors – I think there were three of them – let you see down to the ceiling of the Western Auto store below. How did they EVER got that past the codes even back in 1956???
Jack, thanks for the photo. I notice the dates 1945-1955 on the image. Are these the operating dates of the Princess? Grandma might have been wrong about which theatre she saw films in. Or maybe this building replaced an earlier one. Grandma has been gone for many years now, too late to ask for additional details.
Joe, thanks for the post. The Tivoli is a jewel and Chattanooga is lucky to still have it and have it in such good condition.
I am a little surprised by the comment about air conditioning, not that the Tivoli was retro-fitted in 1931, that sounds about right, but the comment, “and one of the first in the nation.” Many southern “public” buildings had air conditioning. Two of Tennessee’s four surviving movie palaces, (Memphis’s Orpheum and Knoxville’s Tennessee both) opened in October 1928 with mechanical air conditioning. (The Orpheum’s old machinery is still in the basement, too big to remove). I could cite many others.
Forgive me for sounding like an obsessive, that’s not my intention at all. But as they say, the devil is in the details, or is it god is in the details, either way, the utterly unimportant detail is that it might have been Chattanooga’s first airconditioned public building, but certainly not the country’s.
Hope you can come to Knoxville and visit the lovely Tennessee some day. It’d be worth the trip.
Forgive the general nature of this question, but does anyone know the current name and or status of the theatre which was once known as the Civic in New Orleans? It was closed and had had its floor leveled when I last saw it in 1989, but it was undisputably a movie or vaudeville palace.
Great exerpt from “A Confederacy of Dunces!” Thanks. I was in the Prytannia only once, many years ago and don’t remember the film I saw. The building was certainly – uh, how to say it, simple. I remember a smallish, low ceilinged, flat-floored room with a tiny lobby and no decor at all. It is an interesting location, the only commercial property on a residential street. Clever management and shear force of will must have kept this business going. Best wishes to the management for a job well done!
If I’m not mistaken, the Quartet was the first purpose built multi-plex in Memphis. It is an interesting design, occupying the middle of a large square 2-story shopping center. There is no marquee and hardly any indication that a theatre exists in the building. The box office doesn’t even face the street. Inside the Quartet is very plain (a Malco trademark) draped walls with a waterfall curtain over the screen.
The Quartet was built across the street from – and to compete with -the very handsome “Mamie-Eisenhower-Modern” Plaza theatre (q.v.).
The Booth is still standing, currently a university-neighborhood bar. The space has been divided vertically: a 2nd floor has been inserted into the auditorium space. Reports are that the ornate proscenium is intact and visible in an upper level store-room. The marquee is gone, the original facade is covered with E.I.F.S. The exterior side and back walls are visible and unremarkable. The architectural firm that designed the Booth was Bowman and Bowman. The architect’s son is an active local historian and philanthropist.
The Peabody building was still standing when I left Memphis in 1993 and a quick look at GoogleEarth shows what appears to be the building still standing (whenever that photo was taken anyway). When I saw it, the building had been converted into a stained glass studio. The floor had been leveled for the most part, except at the very back of the building. The stage and part of the original sloping floor were still exposed. The foot prints from the seats and the outlines of the carpet runners were plainly visible. The stage was just deep enough to hang the screen, a main curtain and put in a speaker: maybe 10 feet. There was no decoration surviving that I remember. There were no organ chambers or a pit, as some of the small neighborhood theaters in Memphis had. I infer from this that the Peabody was built after 1927.
I saw Natalie Wood’s last film “Brain Storm” at the Park. It was still clean and well kept. I remember the hall being very long and narrow – something like a bowling lane. The sight lines were good with a decent slope to the floor. The most notable exterior feature was it’s late ‘Deco name sign on the triangle marquee. When the recording studio took it over, they kept the name “Park” and did a nice job with their adaptive re-use. Sorry to hear that it’s gone now.
Since there is a certain interest here in “the first atmospheric theatre” it might be useful to have a look at the (still standing) Teatro Olimpico in Vicenza, Italy. It was built in the 1580’s to the designs of Andrea Palladio. It’s a fully enclosed stage theatre built to look like a classical Roman, outdoor, amphitheatre with statues, sky, clouds and decorative proscenium. There is a permanent stage set with amazingly realistic forced-perspectives seen through the portals.
This is one of the most famous historic theatres in Europe and John Eberson must have seen it, or at least photos and drawings of it. I’ve never heard anyone make the connection between the Teatro Olimpico and Eberson’s atmospherics, but it does seem logical.
Chuck and Jack – regarding the Bijou being a “negro” theatre: Memphis has long suffered from segregation. For much of the 20th century the area of downtown south of Beale catered to African Americans. A theatre at 275 South Main would be in the appropriate area to be listed as a “negro” theatre. (Just for reference, the Orpheum is at the southwest corner of Main and Beale, the address is 195-197 South Main).
I notice that on CT there is not a listing in Memphis for the Lyceum Theatre. I wonder if the theatre listed here as the Bijou might be the Lyceum renamed by Jake Wells for his performances.
The Lyceum was a large handsom hall, built as a legit house around 1893, to go into competition with the Grand Opera House. I believe the Lycem was torn down in the mid-to-late 1930’s.
I’ve never known the address of the Lyceum, but do remember that it was briefly leased by Loew’s (and was advertised as Loew’s Lyceum) as Loew’s prepared to build the two palatial theatres: Loew’s State and Loew’s Palace. (q.v.) That would have had the Loew’s Lyceum operating around 1918 – 1919.
With a long list of friends interested in Memphis theatre history I remain surprised that none have ever heard of this hall, especially considering its very prominent address and size.
Best
Bway, great shot. The Orpheum is also visible to the left.
The Film Daily year book for 1935 lists this as Loew’s Strand. The big theatres in downtown Memphis changed hands a good deal during the ‘30’s. Loew’s Palace went to Paramount for a while and then to MALCO. Apparently Lowe’s operated the Strand right next door to their magnificent State for a while. Loew’s got the Palace back around 1940 when MALCO got the RKO Orpheum. As an old theatre manager friend said of that time: “the employees in the downtown theatres didn’t know who they were working for from day to day.”
The 1930 Film Daily year book list this as the Loew’s Milan. Loew’s was in Milan Tennessee?!?! There’s got to be a story in that.
The Bijou opened under the management of Jake Wells and was (at least briefly) known as Wells' Bijou. Refer to the link listed just above from the East Tennessee Paranormal Society. Wells also operated the Bijou Theatre in Memphis Tennessee.
Recent acquisition is a playbill from Wells' Bijou, Memphis, Tennessee for the week beginning Monday October 8 1906. It lists the following performance:
A. H. Woods presents
America’s Foremost Comedians
Bickle, Watson and Wrothe
in the musical concoction
TOM DICK and HARRY
The cast list is as follows:
George Bickel, Harry Watson, Ed Lee Wrothe, Harrison Steadman, Walter Pearson, James Williams, Cyrus Gould, Harry Hewitt, R.C. Mudge, Roy Waddles, Jenne LaBeau, Fanny Thatcher, Louise Auber.
The following are listed as “Our Kittens"
Mayme Harrison, Marie Melville, Ethel Dunbar, Kitty Nelson, Velda Russel, Florrie Allen, Dority Phelps, Mable Zeere, Garr Sideman, Nettie Coleman.
The “Show Girls” are
Maude Stanley, Evelyn Leroy, Florence Bernard, Josephine Carter, Ethely Curtis, Josie COlman, Bertina Wells, Mattie Williams.
The “West Point Cadets” are
Willaim Blair, Clay Price, Harry Hewitt, John Costello, Walter Webber, Geroge Flamer, Frank Perry.
The show was in two acts with a total of 14 songs in various combinations of solos, duets and choruses.
Following TOM DICK and HARRY was a musical programme with Paul Schneider listed as “leader.” (This is apparently an after piece.) There were six songs by different popular composers of the day including “The Governor’s Son Medley Selection” by G.M. Cohan.
Also listed in the program is this note: Evening performances at the Bijou Theater begin promptly at 8:15. The Matinees, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays begin at 2:15. The box office is open daily from 9:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m.
The next show was to be Sidney Toler in the charming musical drama HOW BAXTER BUTTED IN.
The program is 16 pages long, every page – including front and back covers – is covered in advertising. The implication from the quality of the playbill and the size of the cast is that this is a busy legitimate theatre. Jake Wells had Bijou Theatres in several other cities, including Knoxville (q.v.)
My old friends and long-time theatre history fans know nothing of this hall. Again, the implication is that it must have be taken down a long long time ago.
Jack et al, I think the Fifth Avenue theatre building is gone. A quick look at Google Earth and the map link above show 218 North Fifth at the north east corner of Fifth and Church. This would put it directly across the street from the famous Eqyptian Revival Downtown Presbyterian Church (formerly 1st Presbyterian) and that corner is now occupied by a large skyscraper with a deep fore-court built in the mid 1980’s.
Here’s a link to a Nashville Tennessean newspaper article about the Park Theatre in McMinnville. The description sounds interesting, though using the title “movie palace” for this hall seems a little overly generous.
View link
jazzland, thanks!
PC, I was never in the Loew’s State, but know it was very similar in style (Thomas Lamb’s “Loew’s Anywhere Adam”)to the Loew’s Palace around the corner on Union. The LP had a faux fireplace in the women’s smoker. There was a steam radiator behind a grill, then grill fit inside what normally would be the firebox, a traditional mantle finished out the effect. The mantle found its way into a friend’s dining room shortly after the LP was torn down.
It’s nice to know that the State was similarly equipped.
I want to hear more about the body in the lower lounge. Sounds like great screen play material.
LM, thanks for the photo links. Any ideas about the brick facade on the Prytania? I don’t remember it looking like that at all, but the last time I was there was in 1989. Has this little operation been so successful that they could afford a whole new (and rather nice looking) exterior? Or is my memory lost too?
In re-reading the notes above, I come across something of an in-consistancy. In Jim’s opening description he mentions stadium seating and the possibility of moving between orchestra and balcony without going back to the lobby.
In TimR’s link
View link
the side view of the auditorium looks very much like a standard orchestra/balcony arrangement.
Jim’s research is always meticulous. If he says stadium, I believe stadium. But it also leads me to wonder if there was a more complex plan than is visible in the somewhat cropped side view.
Also, what happened to the auditorium and balcony during the years as a furniture store?
Last question: what is behind the windows visible above – and to the sides of – the marquee? Did they open into the main lobby? Mezzanine space? Offices?
The Venetian may not be long for this world: your memories of this building, recorded on this site, may soon be the only record of this once lovely facility.
Thoughts?
The Fox was a single screen box built as the downtown theatres ended their careers: late 1960’s or early 1970’s. It still stands, as a retail space, the exterior covered in E.I.F.S. and wedding dresses of questionable taste hanging in what once was the lobby.
Jack thanks for the photo (and for the one of the Princess in Lebanon). Notice the storefront immediately to the left of the marquee. The theatre’s steel facade decor and part of the marquee once covered the upper story of the storefront (see my note above 4/9/2004). Above the retail shop was a suite of offices for the theatre: a dead-end hallway ran from the balcony corridor back toward the street with office doors opening off the left (west) side. It was quite a surprise to open the doors, because not only had offices never been used, there was no floor in them!!! Opening one of those doors – I think there were three of them – let you see down to the ceiling of the Western Auto store below. How did they EVER got that past the codes even back in 1956???
Jack, thanks for the photo. I notice the dates 1945-1955 on the image. Are these the operating dates of the Princess? Grandma might have been wrong about which theatre she saw films in. Or maybe this building replaced an earlier one. Grandma has been gone for many years now, too late to ask for additional details.
Joe, thanks for the post. The Tivoli is a jewel and Chattanooga is lucky to still have it and have it in such good condition.
I am a little surprised by the comment about air conditioning, not that the Tivoli was retro-fitted in 1931, that sounds about right, but the comment, “and one of the first in the nation.” Many southern “public” buildings had air conditioning. Two of Tennessee’s four surviving movie palaces, (Memphis’s Orpheum and Knoxville’s Tennessee both) opened in October 1928 with mechanical air conditioning. (The Orpheum’s old machinery is still in the basement, too big to remove). I could cite many others.
Forgive me for sounding like an obsessive, that’s not my intention at all. But as they say, the devil is in the details, or is it god is in the details, either way, the utterly unimportant detail is that it might have been Chattanooga’s first airconditioned public building, but certainly not the country’s.
Hope you can come to Knoxville and visit the lovely Tennessee some day. It’d be worth the trip.
Forgive the general nature of this question, but does anyone know the current name and or status of the theatre which was once known as the Civic in New Orleans? It was closed and had had its floor leveled when I last saw it in 1989, but it was undisputably a movie or vaudeville palace.
Thanks
Somebody please take a camera!
Great exerpt from “A Confederacy of Dunces!” Thanks. I was in the Prytannia only once, many years ago and don’t remember the film I saw. The building was certainly – uh, how to say it, simple. I remember a smallish, low ceilinged, flat-floored room with a tiny lobby and no decor at all. It is an interesting location, the only commercial property on a residential street. Clever management and shear force of will must have kept this business going. Best wishes to the management for a job well done!
If I’m not mistaken, the Quartet was the first purpose built multi-plex in Memphis. It is an interesting design, occupying the middle of a large square 2-story shopping center. There is no marquee and hardly any indication that a theatre exists in the building. The box office doesn’t even face the street. Inside the Quartet is very plain (a Malco trademark) draped walls with a waterfall curtain over the screen.
The Quartet was built across the street from – and to compete with -the very handsome “Mamie-Eisenhower-Modern” Plaza theatre (q.v.).
The Booth is still standing, currently a university-neighborhood bar. The space has been divided vertically: a 2nd floor has been inserted into the auditorium space. Reports are that the ornate proscenium is intact and visible in an upper level store-room. The marquee is gone, the original facade is covered with E.I.F.S. The exterior side and back walls are visible and unremarkable. The architectural firm that designed the Booth was Bowman and Bowman. The architect’s son is an active local historian and philanthropist.
The Peabody building was still standing when I left Memphis in 1993 and a quick look at GoogleEarth shows what appears to be the building still standing (whenever that photo was taken anyway). When I saw it, the building had been converted into a stained glass studio. The floor had been leveled for the most part, except at the very back of the building. The stage and part of the original sloping floor were still exposed. The foot prints from the seats and the outlines of the carpet runners were plainly visible. The stage was just deep enough to hang the screen, a main curtain and put in a speaker: maybe 10 feet. There was no decoration surviving that I remember. There were no organ chambers or a pit, as some of the small neighborhood theaters in Memphis had. I infer from this that the Peabody was built after 1927.
I saw Natalie Wood’s last film “Brain Storm” at the Park. It was still clean and well kept. I remember the hall being very long and narrow – something like a bowling lane. The sight lines were good with a decent slope to the floor. The most notable exterior feature was it’s late ‘Deco name sign on the triangle marquee. When the recording studio took it over, they kept the name “Park” and did a nice job with their adaptive re-use. Sorry to hear that it’s gone now.
Since there is a certain interest here in “the first atmospheric theatre” it might be useful to have a look at the (still standing) Teatro Olimpico in Vicenza, Italy. It was built in the 1580’s to the designs of Andrea Palladio. It’s a fully enclosed stage theatre built to look like a classical Roman, outdoor, amphitheatre with statues, sky, clouds and decorative proscenium. There is a permanent stage set with amazingly realistic forced-perspectives seen through the portals.
Here’s a link:
View link
This is one of the most famous historic theatres in Europe and John Eberson must have seen it, or at least photos and drawings of it. I’ve never heard anyone make the connection between the Teatro Olimpico and Eberson’s atmospherics, but it does seem logical.
Cheers to all
your amateur architecture historian