The movie palace era that launched theater row in downtown Dallas started on Thanksgiving Day, 1912 with the opening of the Washington Theater. But the Washington was soon overshadowed by the far superior 800-seat Queen Theater by architect I.A. Walker. The $47,000 project was on the books in 1911 with Earl H. (“E.H.”) Hulsey converting an existing retail building at Elm and Akard with a five-year lease beginning in August of 1912.
The Queen opened to the public on January 24, 1913 at Elm and Akard with an over-capacity crowd which had its high expectations more than delivered. Commenters of the pre-Yelp era were astonished by the improved definition of the Queen’s projection described as “flickerless” machines projecting bright, sharp pictures on the wall. Reviews said of the Queen that it was the “most completely equipped and elegantly finished photo playhouses in the country.” Life-sized sculptures of Queen of Carthage, Queen Dido of Carthage and Queen Isabel of Spain along with Cleopatra were nice touches. Assigned seating with ushers was another. And a cigar parlor for those watching in the boxes showed class and spotlighted the theater’s fireproof construction. A $20,000 pipe organ with many special effects, grand piano and a six-person orchestra of “first-class musicians” accompanied the program which was upped to 12-person orchestra. William T. Street was brought in from London to play the pipe organ. And the management pledged to assure the “moral protection” of all children. The Queen was a hit.
The Queen was also in touch with its Dallas populace. The Queen produced some local moving pictures shot by manager E.V. Richards Jr. on the streets of Dallas and his first film’s storyline conveniently ended at the Queen Theater. That film was shown for four days in 1913 which was considered a success back in that era. Richards soon left and would run 200 theaters as general manager of Saenger Amusement. Just three months into the Queen’s operation, Louis Bissinger (known as Uncle Lou) took over managing the theater and the showmanship continued with little drop-off. The theater would become home to first-run silent Paramount and Realart Pictures before more stringent on booking procedures. The Theater’s tagline was “crowned with public favor.” The name of Queen Theaters was so popular in Dallas and around the country that an Oak Cliff Queen theater was opened called the Cliff Queen in 1915. Hulsey renewed for another five-year lease in August 1917 but a major fire on Sept. 27, 1917 caused $22,000 in damages and led to renovations to the theater including new fixtures, paintings, roof, and ticket booth, as well as a lawsuit about the actual damages to the building resolved seven years later.
In its tenth year, Uncle Lou and Joe Bissinger subleased the theater from Hulsey and it finally adopted a general admission seating policy instead of assigned seating as the theater began to slip in stature. Larger, more modern theaters had surpassed the Queen as Dallas' theater row matured along Elm Street. By October of 1926, the theater became a second run house with discount ticket pricing. The theater finally received sound equipment in 1930 and played “The Cock-Eyed World” as its first talkie using the Western Electric sound on film technology. Uncle Lou acquired the lease from operator Earl Hulsey’s estate in 1931 after Hulsey’s death. Lou Bissinger was recognized by The Variety Club of Texas which celebrated his 30th year of operating the Queen.
In post-War Dallas, the Queen was becoming decrepit and programmatically had lost distinctiveness. As freshly-built suburban theaters were being opened that would siphon audiences away from second-run and badly-aging facilities like the Queen, something had to be done. Uncle Lou was gone and the Queen Theater marquee came down in September of 1948 when after 35 years, the theater was renamed the Leo Theater under the Joy Houck circuit that also operated the Strand in Dallas. The Cliff-Queen carried the Queen’s moniker a year and a half beyond the original Queen for the city of Dallas. The former Queen now Leo was completely remodeled, renovated and playing to desegregated audiences. Though trying to find its footing as a family second-run house at the outset, the Leo soon found the freedom to experiment under its new name, even playing exploitation and “adult” fare as the former Queen was no longer concerned about quality audiences / “public favor.” They just needed people to come through the turnstile.
The rebranding didn’t work. Much as the film industry was in retreat, the Leo was swept under as other theaters would convert to Cinemascope or VistaVision, the Leo was simply old school. In 1953, the Leo was flailing and turned to live 10-act vaudeville under the direction of Richard Crane perhaps to change its fading fortunes. Crane promised no burlesque at the Leo, just vaudeville for 60 cents. When that didn’t work, the Leo tried the combination of films and burlesque for two months thereafter. But nothing worked and the theater was shuttered on April 15th, 1953 after 40-plus years of total service though less than five as the post-regal Leo.
The Dallas Federal Savings and Loan Association (Dallas Fed) secured the site planning to bulldoze the Queen Theater in 1953. But that project was delayed at the last minute apparently left the city with what locals called an unfortunate eyesore for two years: a shocking turnaround for the former palace. Only the cigar store associated with the theater soldiered on until the bitter end of the building’s life. The Queen was finally abdicated on November 4, 1955 when the wrecking ball struck. Because all references to the Leo were removed from the building in 1953, the theater’s demolition coverage only referred to to it as the former Queen Theater. In some respect, that was a nice final touch recalling the theater’s glory days which had left such a lasting memory to Dallas' moviegoers and provided classy showmanship in silent film exhibition in the 1910s and 1920s. And onward to progress, the Fed’s modern 17-story skyrise was scheduled to be completed in 1957 in the Queen’s former spot.
By the way, the Garrick Theater marquee is at the right prior to its 1924 exit from Elm Street’s theater row. Hughes-O'Rourke bulldozed the Garrick beginning on July 5, 1924 to make way for a 7-story building with retail on the ground floor. And beyond the Queen you’ll see the Jefferson Theater visible and if your eyes are good, the Old Mill and Palace marquees further in the background.
The first phase of the Corrigan Center was built in 1948 from 1001 Shaw Ave. to the Capitan Theater’s 1045 Shaw Ave. address in the north section of Pasadena. Architected by Raymond F. Smith, the Capitan would open Nov. 19, 1949 by Phil Isley of the Isley circuit and who would open the very similar Granada Theater in Houston. The first films were “Impact” and “San Antone Ambush,” with star Monte Hale of the latter film in attendance. The murals by Colville Smythe of L.A.’s Nat Smythe & Son had oceanic-themed walls with Neptune on a sea horse and Europa riding a bull among the dolphins while the ceiling had a giant mermaid and compass. Seashell-themed carpeting and a spacious and inviting lobby had to be a pleasant surprise for moviegoers. The 11,529 square foot theater was quite a jewel for Pasadena.
Just across the way in 1956, the second portion of the Corrigan Center opened so that in addition to the Capitan, adding a J.C. Penney’s, a W.T. Grant five & dime variety store, and an A&P supermarket. The Corrigan Center had become the economic center of Pasadena and the 1,600 seat theater was a major focal point despite playing mostly second-run fare. But by the end of the 1960s, the Gulfgate Plaza had become the Gulfgate Mall and the Almeda Mall opened six and twelve miles away, respectively. Times were changing quickly and audiences were driving to the General Cinema Gulgate Cinema I & II and the AMC Almeda 4 to see the latest releases. The Capitan was in trouble along with its neighboring Pasadena single screeners. So in 1970 — during the porno chic era of movie exhibition — the Pasadena would switch to X-rated films and – because the city’s Red Bluff Drive-In was also in that space – the Pasadena would even show XXX fare, as well, and would also try Spanish language films before stopping film exhibition around 1976.
The Capitan became a church for a period in the 1970s and when that ended, new theatrical life came from Hispanic film exhibition in the 1980s. That would be the last film projected in the theater. The three-time loser combined with the economic downturn of the Corrigan Center area left the theater in deep trouble and boarded up. In a last ditch effort to salvage the theater, the City of Pasadena bought the Corrigan and devoted $190,000 to fixing the exterior of the theater which remained beautiful from the outside from 2000 to 2014 awaiting a new owner. But the city’s gamble didn’t pay out as the interior of the theater deteriorated and the city’s economic fortunes weren’t too bright. Given the theater’s dismal track record over the past 45 years, the city sold the Corrigan Center for a loss in July of 2014 to a chemical company based in New Jersey. Just prior to the announcement, the theater’s marquee, theater boxes, doors and many other elements were stripped from the premises. There was little doubt that the theater – though still standing in 2015 – would be a casualty in the near future barring an a miracle by Neptune, Europa, or a contemporary capitalist.
The Palace had three iterations. It was conceived of when Greenwall’s Opera House sustained storm damage. Henry and Phil Greenwall of the Greenwall Circuit teamed with A.T. Byers to build the Byers/Greenwall’s Opera House architected by Marshall R. Sanguinet and Carl G. Staats and built by the Texas Building Company. The Byers Theatre opened in 1908 as the Byers Opera House at 7th and Rusk Street (now Commerce St.). The $150,000 facility launched with a mixture of live sporting events, music events, and live plays with seating for 1,600. It became known as the Byers Theatre when it became exclusively a movie house with some live acts interspersed. The Byers main claim to fame was an Edison light bulb mentioned in earlier comments that wouldn’t burn out. Installed in 1908 by electrician Barry Burke, the bulb outlasted the Byers nameplate.
The theater was purchased by the Hulsey Circuit and given a major makeover of just $25,000 for its renaming and reopening on October 19, 1919 as the Palace Theater (advertised and sometimes referred to as Hulsey’s Palace Theater in the early days). The improvements included a fireproof projection booth with Simplex projectors, a new color palette which was rose and grey with blue panels and medallions and usherettes' uniforms to match, and a wayward Pilscher pipe organ which was lost in transit and installed a month late. The architect of the Palace Theater was Raphael A. Nicolais and his iteration is seen in two photos.
In June of 1936, only one wall of the theater was left intact as Interstate Theaters created a modernistic, streamlined designed theater with air conditioning and luxury seating. George P. O'Rourke Construction did the work for the theater which reopened September 24th of 1936 with “Patsy, the Second” now with 1,000 seats as 300 lower floor seats were added when the stage was eliminated. That theater’s exterior can be seen in yet another picture.
The Palace’s Edison light bulb then became national news as Guinness Book of World Records (incorrectly) listed it as the longest burning light bulb. In 1974, ABC Interstate Theaters sold it to John O'Hara who tried to make it a revival house unsuccessfully. After the Palace’s closure in November of 1974, it became home to a jazz club called, “Daddio’s.” Daddio’s owner moved to the Land Title Block Building when the Palace property was sold and demolished in May of 1977 to make way for a parking garage. Those plans would change when the nearby Aviation Building was demolished in 1978.
At its demolition, the original sign – an artifact from the previous incarnation – the Greenwall’s Opera House Call Board remained in place as you can see in another picture. The entire block would become home to the skyscraper known initially as Continental Plaza, then UPR Plaza, then Carter Burgess Plaza, and as of 2012-forward 777 Main.
The Byers' bulb (aka “Eternal Light") outlasted Burke, the installing electrician (dying in 1964) and the Palace ten years later. So the bulb was acquired by an Irving, TX man and then onto the Stockyard Museum within the Livestock Exchange Building and is considered the second longest burning bulb in the world.
Homart had the 112-acre site for the Arlington Park Mall since the 1970s but didn’t announce its anchors or plans until January of 1983. The long-gestating project finally had a 1986 targeted opening date and prompted Cambridge Co. Development’s announcement in August 1983 to develop its Arlington Park Square on Arabrook across the street from and in support of the Homart’s Arlington Park Mall. General Cinema was signed on for a 31,500 square foot theater and would open the GCC Arlington Park just across the street from the northern most anchor of the new mall. But the Arlington Park Mall and its anchors didn’t sprout up as anticipated.
The General Cinema theater opened December 12, 1986 as the Arlington Park Square 8. But the building of the Arlington Park Mall was slowed by inability to get tenants signed on quickly and wasn’t even approved by the Arlington City Council until 1987. By the time the mall opened in 1988, the project was changed to “The Parks at Arlington” as “mall” was already becoming something of an overused term and sometimes had negative connotations. So unlike the GCC Seminary, GCC Town East, and GCC Valley View – the previous Homart shopping complexes with GCC cinemas carrying the moniker of the centers they adjoined or were in and opening at about the same time as those facilities – GCC’s Arlington Park didn’t jive with the new name of the mall. And GCC had to await the traffic from that new mall for more than a year.
But the theater did well with competition coming exit by exit to the west with the UA Bowen and the AMC Green Oaks. With the Parks opening in 1988, the theater thrived. The theater was not far on foot from the Foley’s (which became Macy’s) northeast exit door though driving was far safer. Even when the megaplex boom hit in 1994/6, dooming General Cinema’s multiplex business model, nobody was building a megaplex in south Arlington. United Artists was going to convert its aging/dying UA Bowen to a multiplex but the circuit ran into financial issues and the project never happened. GCC’s Arlington Square looked safe as it approached honoring its original 15-year lease. That would not happen as in 1999 AMC announced a megaplex to be housed inside of the Parks at Arlington to open in 2002 and General Cinemas ran into severe financial issues.
On October 5th, 2000, General Cinema shut theaters all over the country taking down all of Tarrant Country’s remaining locations including the Arlington Park Square, as well as Fort Worth’s Ridgmar Square and Bedford’s Central Park. Though the Central Park and Ridgmar would re-open under different ownership, the Arlington Park Square’s movie days were over as the theater sat vacant with nobody wanting to take on the AMC Parks using the aged facility with fairly limited parking. Finally the Arlington Independent School District took over the facility making it home to its Arlington Professional Development Center which was still functioning in to the mid-2010s.
Three drive-ins were announced to open in 1941 in the Dallas-Fort Worth market and would become the first drive-ins in North Texas. Two were in Dallas — the Northwest Highway Drive-In and the Chalk Hill Drive-In with this entry for the Bowie Boulevard Drive-In that opened July 18, 1941. All were part of the Underwood Ezell circuit which included the the Drive-In Theatre opening in 1940 in San Antonio and Houston’s South Main Drive-In. The screen tower was 60' high and made of steel utilizing a 35'x50' screen with RCA equipment. Cones in the ground provided the sound and ushers guided cars to spots which were tilted upward on ramps. The project was said to have cost $50,000. Ezell would partner with Interstate Theaters Circuit to improve those theaters' operations that same decade.
To comply with the Paramount consent decree, Ezell and Associates and Interstate Theaters divvied up their 12 theaters and the Bowie headed to Interstate along with the South Main and the Shepherd in Houston, Buckner Blvd. in Dallas, Mansfield in Fort Worth and Cactus in Pharr. Ezell kept the Belknap in Fort Worth, the Northwest Highway in Dallas, the Circle in Waco, the Irvington, Hempstead and Winkler all in Houston. On December 1, 1955, the Bowie was ordered out of the Interstate portfolio and became part of the Cinemart Theaters circuit. Cinemart ran the theater as a sublease with Interstate holding on to the property. The Bowie lasted right at 20 years with its last day on October 23, 1961. Interstate Theaters sold the theater which was razed for a retail venture.
Andrew Zucarro operated the Venice Theater two blocks away and decided to build a new fireproof theater. The Queen Theater launched on May 20th, 1913 showing “The Stars and Stripes Forever.” Zucarro was jailed at least three times while operating the theater. Once for opening on Sunday which wasn’t allowed by the city of Fort Worth and twice for showing films that were banned by the film censor board. Andrew Zucarro operated it for five years possibly on a five-year lease before changing hands in 1918. William Capps took on the theater for four years.
The theater appears to close for a period of time and is acquired by the Ideal Theater group which was founded in 1922. They would change the name to the Ideal Theater whose name appeared on the marquee until the theater’s closure on March 30, 1960 and demolition thereafter. It boasted a mirror screen, the only one south of St. Louis installed for a cost of $10,000.
The General Cinema Corp.’s Seminary South Cinema I & II officially opened on Thursday, Christmas Day 1969 with searchlights, a ribbon cutting and the Kennedale High School Band playing tunes. Opening features were “The Sterile Cuckoo” rated M and “Viva Max” rated G. Manager Bill Ellis explained that the theater would always have one family feature and one film for older audiences. The GCC Seminary was the city’s first twin screen indoor theater. It was named for the shopping center announced in June of 1960 when Sears not only decided to build its first retail store within Fort Worth, it created an entire subsidiary called Homart Development to construct shopping centers. The first of which was Seminary South Shopping Center on an 88-acre tract that opened in 1962.
In 1969, General Cinemas Corp. decided the time was right to construct two theaters simultaneously adjoining shopping centers. They were the Seminary South Center I & II in the Homart plaza and the Six Flags Cinema I & II in nearby Arlington, TX, a project that had delays opening in August of 1970. GCC also opened in Homart’s other properties in DFW: inside of Valley View Mall in Dallas, outside of what would eventually be called the Parks Mall in Arlington, outside of the Town East Mall in Mesquite.
The GCC Seminary had 1,600 seats with Cinema I holding 1,031 customers and the smaller Cinema II holding 617 people. The theater had an art gallery, smoking areas, pushback reclining seats and picture window screens. The GCC would expand in the 1970s to three screens as auditorium two was twinned becoming the GCC Seminary South Cinema I, II & III. The Seminary South shopping center struggled due to competition from new enclosed malls in Fort Worth, Arlington, and North Richland Hills. Locals disparagingly referred to the area as “Cemetery South” as the center shed stores and hurt General Cinema’s revenues. But there was hope for General Cinema.
In 1985, Homart finally sold the underachieving shopping center to the Texas Centers Association which spent $25 million to purchase the property and another $25 million to convert the open air shopping center to an enclosed mall designed by Altoon and Porter, architects from California. The architects had a spot for GCC on the second floor right by one of the mall’s main entry points on the East side just up the escalator. The mall project finally opened on September 4th, 1987 as the Town Center Fort Worth with great optimism. Not long thereafter, General Cinema completed work on its new GCC Town Center 8 which opened and the chain closed its exterior Seminary South I, II, III. The location became home to a Bingo parlor and also housed some church functions. It had long stretches of emptiness but was still standing as of 2014.
In 1967, Loews’s announced the first downtown Dallas theater built in 30 years since the Tower Theater at 1005 Elm adjoining Griffin and Pacific. The A. Warren Morey and Associates architected project in Elm Place would have 70mm Cinerama, D-150 capability, and Century projection with 6-track stereo. Decorator Joseph Schuler bathed the 980-seat theater in colorful purple, Kelly green aqua and black. Distinctive Griggs pushback purple seats with 702 downstairs and 278 in the loge balcony. A Patrick Casey mural with movie stars, a smoker loge, and attached not free parking lot were features. Construction took place in 1968 and 1969 to the invitational screening of “Those Daring Young Men in Their Jaunty Jalopies” on June 5, 1969 and public grand opening on June 6th. The director and a lot of jalopies were present for the opening. And a second theater was added to the Loews portfolio within months in Dallas when the Adelman Circuit was purchased which included Dallas’ Delman Theater.
In 1975, the theater shut down to become a three screen theater renamed the Loews Studio 1-2-3 (then the Loews Studio Triplex in June of 1977 just prior to the opening of the Quad / Park Central) opening March 29th with “Lenny,” “The Yakuza” and “The Reincarnation of Peter Proud.” But the Loews found its audience when it played Emmanuelle on one of its screens which played for more than 10 months followed by Emmanuelle 2. The first film was so popular that the sequel opened on another of the Studio’s three screens while the original was still playing. “The Erotic Adventures of Candy”, another porno chic film, played for 25 weeks. From that point on, the Loews would generally have an adult film, a Blaxploitation film and a mainstream film unless the mainstream films were dropped for martial arts films or another adult feature.
In April of 1978, Loews dropped the Studio Triplex. At first, the screenings under independent operation were identical to the Loews offerings. However – and this is said endearingly – the Triplex devolved into one of Dallas’ most memorable grindhouses playing continuous double features of Blaxploitation, Adult and Martial Arts that allowed sneaky customers to pay one price and stay all day and night to see if they could work in five or even all six exploitation shows for their $2. The Studio Triplex closed at the end of April 1981 with Guy From Harlem/Kama Sutra; Hammerfist/Lord of the Dragon and Adios Amigos/Joshua. (BTW: If you did the films in precisely that order, you could get to all six shows for $2 by sneaking from studio 1 to 3 to 2.) Exploitation film fans and transients were delighted but the majority of film-goers were not.
After a brief period of closure, the theater reopened in 1981 and ended its life as Cine Central Three run by Herb Hartstein of Texas National Theaters. He had also run the Jefferson Drive-in during its Spanish language period. The Cine Central 3 lasted until closing in February 1985. The space was retrofitted to be incorporated into the existing hotel. Downtown would not get another movie theater until the short-lived West End Cinema in November of 1993.
On December 18, 1981, it was the grand opening of the Loew’s at Plano theater. Settling on the Loew’s Chisholm Place as its name within the 75-acre area at North Central Expressway and Park Blvd., the theater had two 575-seat auditoriums, one 550-seater, and two 375 seat houses. The lobby had a round island refreshment stands with multiple lines around it. A mural in that lobby 10' by 75' featured Chaplin, Monroe, Bogart, Gable, Wayne, Garbo, Harlow, and Bing Crosby. Its neon lighting effect ensured that theatergoers would have a different look as they came repeatedly to the facility.
Competition for the best bookings came in the form of competition less than a half mile to the north when AMC opened its seven-screen Central Center (renamed the Central Park). But by the 1990s, the multiplex era was replaced by the megaplexes and both AMC and Loews aging multiplexes were waiting for the bad news. It would be from Cinemark in June of 1999 when it opened its 24-screen Legacy just north of the two multiplexes. Business turned quickly as audiences gravitated to the far-superior CInemark theater and within four months, AMC should close the Central Park.
Somehow, the Chisholm soldiered onward despite Loews going into severe financial difficulties and Cinemark decimating the Chisholm audiences. But like the Loews Preston Park, the Chisholm got the dreaded “vote of confidence” in late October of 2000 as Loews said neither theater was going to be closing anytime soon. Patrons walking into the Nov. 9, 2000 screenings found the candy removed from the concession stand within two weeks of Loews vote of confidence, both Loews Plano theaters closed quietly and would be converted for non-theatrical purposes. The Chisholm ostensibly stayed open for a 20-year leasing cycle and became a house of worship.
Announced in February of 1985, AMC signed a lease to build a seven-screen theater in Plano at the northwest corner of North Central Expressway and Park Boulevard. The Central Center Shopping Center would house the AMC Central Center 7 which had been scheduled to open by Christmas 1985 as part of a 32-acre development. The project was delayed as portions of the development were sold but Talmadge Tinsley Co. finished the 32,260-square-foot AMC Central Center in late May of 1986 and the theater opened on June 6, 1986.
It had a mirrored lobby with neon and high ceilings to give the appearance of older theaters along with graphics on the walls and a circular box office to give that impression. It opened within a half mile of the 1981-launched Loews Chisholm and the two chains would have booking wars within the territory. The theater would change its name just months into its existence settling on the Central Park nameplate. It hosted many fundraisers, honored local athletes, and was a part of the Plano community even mores than its Loews neighbor. But when the multiplex era gave way to the Megaplex boom in the mid-1990s, it was only a matter of time until someone took out the AMC Central Park and Loews Chisholm.
That competition came in 1999 when Cinemark opened its 24-screen Legacy just north of the two multiplexes which opened at the end of June that year. Business turned quickly as audiences gravitated to the far-superior CInemark theater and within four months, AMC quietly shuttered the Central Park. The Chisholm by Loews would somehow soldier on for more than a year outliving the AMC Central Park. The theater was repurposed in 2006 as a church.
The Loews Preston Park was part of Lincoln Property’s $33.5 million Lincoln Preston Park , a development of Lincoln Property Co. at the southeast corner of Preston Road and West Park Boulevard in Plano, Texas. The project included a grocery store, two restaurants and a men’s clothing store as well as the Loews six-screen theater. Those businesses were easy to find but one had to seek out the Loews which had visibility issues from the road. The theater opened on the eve of Thanksgiving in 1985. One house featured THX certification and 70mm projection used day one and would later include 5.1/7.1 SDDS sound. A second auditorium also had THX certification.
The multiplex had competition just down the road from the eight-screen UA Berkeley Square opening four months later in March of 1986. And technically, Loews Preston Park outlasted the UA which closed in July of 1999 as both multiplexes were being destroyed by megaplexes including Cinemark’s Legacy in Plano. And for the Preston Park, competition would come in the massively renovated Studio Movie Grill opening in March of 2000. The theater may have had a 15-year lease and with Loews going into severe financial difficulties in 2000, the Preston Park and Chisholm locations – both in Plano – got the dreaded “vote of confidence” in late October of 2000 as the chain said neither theater was going to be closing anytime soon. Two weeks later, both Loews Plano theaters closed quietly and would be converted for non-theatrical purposes.
When the $100 million Prestonwood Town Center Mall opened, the drawings showed a theater external to the mall which would become the AMC Prestonwood 5 which opened on May 21, 1980. It was confused with the General Cinemas Prestonwood Village which had opened in 1979 and would be confused even more with the United Artists Prestonwood Creek V opening months after the AMC Prestonwood. All three theaters were in the same general area of North Dallas. The three theaters would become the second highest box office territory within the city trailing only the Central Zone. The AMC theater had one 70mm equipped screen but used automated projection systems including leading to non-union projection. Early in its operation, the Prestonwood’s screens were cuts, the ticket booth was wrecked, and damage to the auditoriums was caused likely due to the non-union situation though the Moving Picture Machine Operators Union denied the claim. The theater was home to the cult hit The Rocky Horror Picture Show and did brisk business.
The Prestonwood 5 would make national news becoming the first theater in the country to accept credit cards with the installation of a computerized ticketing system. The theater would also accept credit cards at the concession stand beginning in March and April of 1984. Obviously, that concept caught on quickly. But by the mid-1990s, with the theater nearing the end of its 20-year lease, Prestonwood Center was experiencing upheaval as malls were under pressure and the multiplex era was in full force leaving multiplexes like AMC’s Prestonwood vulnerable. To salvage the mall and AMC’s presence, mall operators Hahn and Co. proposed a $125 million facelift to include a 24-screen interior AMC Prestonwood on the east side of the center court. Anchors Lord & Taylor, Mervyn’s and Penny’s decided to exit the mall to make room for the entertainment/fashion concept. Then Dillards and Wards left leaving just Neiman Marcus as a functional anchor. Stores within the mall bailed.
The exodus was so quick that the proposed 24-screen AMC Prestonwood and associated retail facelift never started. Neiman Marcus was the very last retailer in the center as of 1999 as a fashion mall would be established in Plano miles North on the tollway and Cinemark would build just north of that project. Neiman would move there. So AMC fleed Prestonwood shortly after announcing in 1999 that it would build a 20-screen theater in the nearby Valley View Mall. That project would become the 16-screen AMC Valley View opening in 2004. And AMC would also build its Village on the Parkway 9 just about a football field’s distance away from the former GCC Prestonwood Village opening late in 2014. As for Prestonwood mall, it was partially demolished to become a dot.com high tech destination and when the dot.com bust occurred, that project foundered and the the entire complex was gone by 2004/5. That demolition took the former AMC theater with it though it had become a nightclub for a period of time called Times Square.
When the Sakowitz department store chain moved to Dallas, it was big news. The Sakowitz Village was created at Belt Line Road and the Dallas Parkway and in 1979, General Cinema wanted to be near the action. The chain leased a 15,000 square foot space adjoining Montfort Rd. in creating the GCC Prestonwood Cinema IV. The theater was architected by Ralph Kelman opening December 14, 1979 and had four very narrow and exceedingly long auditoriums that were likely to be originally designed – though never built – as a twin-screen facility. So unsatisfactory the experience that in 1981, the theater company announced plans to add a single “Northpark III & IV” styled-auditorium as its “A” screen. That never occurred as the chain decided to turn its attention to its Galleria space acquired in 1981 and opened in 1982.
When Sakowitz filed for bankruptcy in 1985, it took less than a year for the Sakowitz Village concept to fail as the department store left Dallas. The building in the renamed Village on the Parkway stayed empty for many years casting a pall on the shopping center and General Cinemas would relegate its Prestonwood (and for a very brief period the theater was advertised as the GCC Montfort and the GCC Prestonwood Village) to discount status. With competition from the nearby AMC Prestonwood 5 and even closer United Artists Prestonwood 5, the move was a last ditch effort to keep the lights on. There’s not much doubt that GCC was trying to eke out as much money as it could from what appears to be a 20-year lease on the Prestonwood IV. Mixing in some special interest films and foreign language films (including a regular Hong Kong series) with second-run Hollywood fare, the theater limped toward its ending August 20, 1998. The decision was made because the theater was no longer “as profitable or as competitive as they had been when they first opened,” said Brian Callaghan, a spokesperson for GCC at that time.
After being vacant for over three years, the theater’s floor was leveled as part of a $1 million makeover to be used for retail and restaurant space. “We realized that the movie theater business was in a shake-up and we wouldn’t be able to lease it to another theater,” Dunhill Partner’s William Hutchinson said of his firm’s property. But sixteen years after the closing the Montfort theater, the AMC Village on the Parkway 9 would open just about 100 yards from the former GCC Prestonwood IV bringing films back to the former Sakowitz Village… only with much better sound and picture.
The Cliff-Queen opened in 1914 at 616 E. Jefferson by W.J. Shivers with nearly 700 seats. E.H. Hulse was the next operator in 1915 followed soon thereafter by George M. Blackburn. The theater was the site of political speeches and bond rallies during World War I. W.W. Ard purchased and remodeled the theater in 1922 which probably explains the reduced number of seats.
L.L. Dunbar was the next and longest operator of the theater. Community-minded, during the Depression, the theater offered free shows to the poor and unemployed, gave 40,000 tickets over many years to servicemen (Dunbar said it was the only theater with such a policy in Texas), and always allowed firemen and police in free. But the theater ran into a couple of problems. Dunbar lost a court battle with ASCAP over music rights. On Oct. 14, 1944, the theater was padlocked for failure to correct fire hazards. Dunbar re-opened the theater in time for Christmas that year.
Gene Autry Enterprises took over the Cliff Queen, Kessler and opened the Hill in 1946 and operated the Beckley. The final operator was the Robb & Rowley Circuit which took over the Gene Autry Enterprises circuit and was operating the Heights, Beverly, Kessler, Midway, Rosewin, Stevens, Texas and Vogue in addition to the Cliff Queen.
The last show appears to be a double-feature of “Chicago Deadline” and “Arthur Takes Over” on March 12, 1950. The building is said to be vacant from that date forward. In March of 1958, the Cliff-Queen was identified as one of 20 buildings to be knocked over including the Oak Cliff City Hall and the 1888 constructed Hamilton Pharmacy Building. At the time of its closing, it was the second oldest theater in the city and the longest running suburban house.
The Odeon (Healy) Theater was built by J.S. Phillips at 1004 Main Street and operated by R.A. Healy. It opened as The Healy on June 14, 1910, a very modest $20,000 house. Complete with a $3,500 Wurlitzer Orchestrian and a smoker gallery to add excitement to the nitrate film projection. But Healy decided to sell the theater just months later. When it was purchased on Nov. 12, 1910 by Elmore Callaway, he held a contest to rename The Healy and child Priscilla Sedgwick won with her suggestion of the Odeon. (A file in the pictures section shows this.) Healy built a larger house at 911 Houston Street which was dubbed The New Healy Show House and then shortened later to The Healy Theater. The Odeon was a survivor as it was surpassed in terms of architecture and technology in the silent era but managed to transition into the sound era within a very competitive downtown Fort Worth theatrical district before closing in the 1930s.
The original Palace Theater in Dallas was a Nickelodeon just two blocks away on Elm Street. It closed in the early 1900s. The second Palace Theater was also on Elm Street and was renamed the Harlem Theater. But this entry is about the third Palace Theater to appear on Elm Street, that of Southern Enterprises’ Palace Theater, a $1,000,000 showplace designed by Thomas W. Lamb of Chicago and built by C.D. Hill of Dallas.
Many concepts within the design are attributed to S.L. “Roxy” Rothafel who patterned his ideas from the Rialto and Rivoli in New York including a small inner proscenium for the screen and an outer frame for a symphony orchestra. And to make sure people knew the theater cost a million bucks, the theater painted the phrase on top of the theater and placed it in early ads for Palace shows. Movie star Bebe Daniels was on hand March 2, 1921 for the laying of the building’s cornerstone. Its seating capacity of 3,000 would house the entire capacity of the Queen, Hippodrome, and Old Mill Theater combined. Its architecture was said to be of the Adam Design with its Roman Pantheon inspired columns and frieze around its dome. Tennessee gray marble and Gray McMullen marble were liberally utilized along with white and yellow terrazzo flooring as nice touches. Bathed in cream, browns, blues and golds, the theater had an opulent feel. An art gallery was just up the stairways which, themselves were marble with bronze bannisters. Historical periods were carried out in the Pantheon frieze work in the mezzanine while rest rooms were in the marble balcony with marble, fumed oak, and open fireplaces and mantels. Medallion lighting fixtures from the ceiling producing lighting effects. All seats were upholstered with air cushion spring bottoms, nineteen inches wide. And the views were unobstructed by posts as the theater was post-free.
The promised 40-piece Palace Orchestra was reduced to a 30-member group the outset but led by D.W. Griffith staff conductor Don Albert. The $50,000 Hope-Jones pipe organ was huge and featured a quartet of reed, stringed and brass instruments including seven violins, violas, oboes, bassoons, clarinets, cornets, trombones, harp, piano, and kettle drums. Coming just two months after The Majestic’s much-heralded opening, the theater had to deliver the goods. Along with the theater amenities was a staff of 66. Point made Southern Enterprises. As for projection, the projection was from a crow’s nest in the back wall of the balcony, a 136 foot throw from projection window to screen: one of the longest in the South. It would be home to Paramount and Realart films.
The theater opened Jun 11, 1921 with “Sentimental Tommy” with Carl Weisemann showing of the organ. WFAA broadcast from the theater. The fireproof construction turned out to be a saving grace as the neighboring Carreaud Bakery threatened to destroy the Palace in 1922. However, the building held up with $20,000 damage mostly due to water used to extinguish the bakery fire. Another fire in a neighboring business in 1923 caused an evacuation but no damage. A special booth was constructed called the “non-synch” room which was a double turntable for recordings to non-synchronized silent films. It was said to be outside the jurisdiction of the musicians union and thus could be operated with violating the musicians contract.
On March 13, 1926, Publix Theaters left the Melba and took control of Southern Enterprises and the Palace. Its first moves was to lower the orchestra into the pit and bring “New York produced shows” to the Palace. The Palace received a $200,000 makeover beginning in July of 1928 designed by George C. Perkins under Publix for its stage shows. The theater decided to put a lot more into the stage show presences while others were putting their capitol into sound systems. New dressing rooms, a counterweight rigging system for faster set set-up and striking, and glow system of illumination for lighting effects inside the auditorium along with a vastly expanded lobby and much larger outdoor sign – the largest in the South reportedly – among the changes. An improved organ with additional pipes and reeds for fuller presentations was added. The theater would be wired for Movietone sound for its ninth year of operation and Vitaphone, as well. The theater was renamed the Greater Palace, its official name at its grand re-opening that was four months behind schedule on January 11, 1929. In the talking picture era, Norma Shearer’s “Smilin’ Through’ played to 10,500 patrons in a single day which was impressive for 1932.
In 1934, the Interstate Theater Circuit took on the Palace and operated until its closure in 1970. In its thirtieth anniversary, changes which came in time for its 31st birthday included moving rest rooms to the main floor, a new color scheme in the recarpeting of the theater, Eugene Gilboe decorative murals, and wider seating reduced the overall count to 2,300. Between the 30th and 31st birthday, however, projectionist and former president of the projectionist’s union Julius J. Schaeffer – who worked at the Palace since 1921 – died at work. Schaeffer would miss the installation of wider angle screens put in in the form of Cinemascope in June of 1953 for demonstrations along with The Robe – Dallas’ first Cinemascope picture opening Sept. 24th of that year, the stage space was greatly reduced leading to fewer wide scale live events. However, the impressive 54'x22’ Cinemascope screen was the first in Dallas. 30,000 people saw The Robe that first week and it set a record for attendance that stood for years. That film was followed by the successful How to Marry a Millionaire.
The Palace fell victim to the growth of the Central Zone in Dallas which got a lot of the major films. Attendance dwindled and when the Palace’s lease expired in December of 1970, Interstate made no efforts to re-up. The theater closed December 3d and was sold and demolished. The final film, “Flap” was a forgettable choice and the decision to bulldoze the building a regrettable error despite eventually being replaced by the venerable Thanksgiving Tower. Sadly, the Palace was no more.
For Dallas-based Rave Motion Pictures, the December 2000 opening of the Rave Hickory Creek 16 was exciting. It was the company’s first theater and located in their corporate backyard. The $12 million, 60,000 square foot property was well-positioned against the nearby UA/Regal Lakepoint Lewisville to the South and the Golden Triangle locations just to the North in Denton with the chain entering bankruptcy and years ahead of Cinemark’s refurbishing of its nearby Vista Ridge Mall to the South or the Denton ‘plex which would be built to the North almost five years later. The Cal Young architected theater was visually stunning upon its opening. Young’s modernistic architecture design was one of six winners of the 2001 National Concrete Masonry Association (NCMA) Design Awards of Excellence program. Its auditoriums ranged from 100 to 300 seats.
Launching on December 21, 2000 with free admission to any movie Thursday in exchange for a donation of two cans of nonperishable food, the theater’s regular first-run policy began the next day. The theater chain would be aggressive in moving away from celluloid film and to digital projection well ahead of the competition. In 2005, Rave was the first to enter into the Real-D 3D era with exclusive North Texas screenings at its then three area theaters for 3D films including “Chicken Little” making it a focal point for 3D fans.
The Rave had its technology and architectural advantages going for it. People would drive past older, aged properties from all directions to get to the Rave. Regal would shutter its UA Golden Triangle theaters in Denton just to the North on October 13, 2003 making the Rave a destination point for then theater-less Denton. It would outlast Regal’s UA Lakepoint which would shutter just to the South. But the competition wasn’t rolling over. Cinemark would revitalize its aged Vista Ridge property and retain its nearby discount house to the South while building a megaplex in Denton just a few exits to the North. Studio Movie Grill would take on the Lakepoint as a dine and movie locale. And seven miles away to the West and South, AMC would enter the outer periphery of the Rave’s footprint with its Highland Village theater.
Rave’s aggressive move in 2009 to take on Showcase Cinemas to boost it to the fifth largest operator in the U.S. was short-lived as Cinemark would purchase 32 of the chain’s 35 theaters including the Hickory Creek on November 30, 2012. Obviously with four properties within exits of each other (the Vista Ridge Mall 15 Lewisville, the Lewisville 8 discount house, Cinemark 14 in Denton and the Rave Hickory Creek 16), something had to give. On July 18, 2013, Carmike would acquire the Hickory Creek property along with two other theaters in Louisville, KY and Voorhees, NJ. The Carmike Hickory Creek 16 continued operations with its new Carmike signage as pictured into the 2010s.
Claude V. Caver doesn’t get much credit for inventing the concept of the Drive-In in 1921 but that’s what he did in Comanche, TX getting a permit to build a screen on the town’s courthouse lawn while he remodeled his indoor theater. Residents enjoyed the novelty of watching films from their cars. But Caver moved to Dallas in 1928 to launch the Trinity Theater in the Trinity Heights annex within Dallas’ Oak Cliff. The MGM lion, Leo, visited the theater on December 13, 1929 as the first of three Dallas’ theaters in that year’s tour. In October of 1934, H.C. Houston purchased the theater from Caver and brought in cushioned seats, acoustical treatment, and new sound equipment among the improvements. As a not so welcome to the neighborhood, Houston was a defendant in a $5,300 lawsuit brought by a patron who tripped over a rug in the redecorated theater.
In 1940, Houston put in a new façade, new marquee, and ticket box. The white stucco front with red centerstrip and ornamental blue diamond shaped tiles was retained for over a decade. The King Scenic Company did the remodeling. William Fumm took over management of the theater in 1944. In post-war Dallas, the independent struggled mightily against chains which were operating superior theaters in Oak Cliff including R&R Theaters. The downturn led Fumm to drop the theater and it was closed for a short period.
In 1953, George P. Hamrah and Charles Hothoot reopened the theater renovating the property very slightly and opening February 12, 1953 with Bill Boyd and the Cowboy Ramblers making a personal appearance. The theater had a weekly Friday amateur stage show for months until Hothoot and Hamrah dropped the theater just seven months into their unsuccessful run. Mrs. Victor Jones bought the theater and installed Mrs. Lottie Burt Strong as its manager. Strong brought showmanship to the “new” Trinity regularly featuring Bobby “Uncle Ukie” Henshaw coming from the Malco Theater in Memphis after a long career in vaudeville and motion pictures. The theater also starred renowned organist Paul Jordan and singer/actress Deane Janis. Jones and Strong equipped the theater with new sound and Fox AstroLight CinemaScope-like capable screen. But widescreen and showmanship weren’t the ticket either for the new Trinity. So the theater closed again in early 1954.
At the unrelated White Theater, A.J. Vineyard had a four-day celebration and would also celebrate the 20th anniversary of the theater in the summer of 1954. But multiple armed robberies at the neighboring liquor store took their toll on Vineyard as the theater owner, himself, was a victim of one of the liquor store robberies. The theater, itself, also was robbed at the box office. So Vineyard left the White Theater’s high crime rate area and he bought the Trinity in August of 1954 rebranding it as the Ewing Theater opening November 4, 1954. The Ewing was short-lived as few tickets were sold during Vineyard’s very brief run and the lobby was quickly retrofitted as a retail television store in 1955. Following its theatrical life and short retail period, the Trinity became home to multiple places of worship including the Abundant Life Center (which suffered a major fire in 1962), the Temple Community Church and, more recently, the Lighthouse Gospel Center Church into the 2010s. As a result, the suburban Trinity had surpassed 85 years of service as of 2013.
The police blotter on the Trinity during its movie era was somewhat active. The safe was burgled many times at the Trinity. There was the $10 heist in 1930. The $319 getaway in 1936. A $15 loss in 1944. A 1951 led to a net gain with $0 taken and a tool set left behind with another 1951 safe robbery leading simply to safe damage. A bicycle locked in the theater for safe keeping was stolen through a hole in the roof in a rather dramatic theft. And a 16-year old beat a 40-year old patron to death at the theater over a comment made by the 16-year old about the man’s daughter which led the man to reprimand the boy about his comments and the boy to beat the man to death. Not good.
When AMC announced a multiplex in what was known as Dallas’ Central Zone of movie exhibition to open in November of 1988, United Artists wouldn’t be caught flat-footed. It purchased four acres of land in the shadow of the AMC NorthPark theater (soon changed to the AMC Glen Lakes) and across the street from the venerable General Cinema NorthPark III & IV in May of 1988. The $14 million, 106,000 square foot United Artists NorthPark was drawn up in 1988 and designed to make a splash. By the time the renamed United Artists Plaza opened on May 24, 1989, it was truly a destination theater despite being tucked away behind strip shopping centers. With eight screens and 3,600 seats all on the second floor and dining and entertainment on the ground floor, the UA was not a neighborhood multiplex but a theater people wanted to travel to and spend the night. To accommodate its projection of 20,000 guests per week, an entire three-level parking structure with spaces for 1,100 cars with large parking lots surrounding the complex.
Resplendent in neon and sporting 4 THX certified auditoriums, three with 70mm projection, United Artists was making a statement in the Central Zone. The second floor lobby was filled with a 13-foot video kiosk with two 9x9 CRT monitor video walls. The neon chandeliers glowed purple, rose, white and green. Long after the theater’s heyday, people remembered the memorable escalator ride to the theaters from the ground floor box office transporting you to the four snack bars on each wall, the video wall, lit glass blocks, chandeliers, and theaters. But the Plaza did allow the nearby AMC Glen Lakes to have one upper hand with some of its auditoriums having stadium seating while the UA had no theaters with stadium seating. But the United Artists was clearly gunning for the gracefully aging General Cinemas NorthPark I & II and III & IV in the battle royale while knowing it could outarchitect the AMC project.
“We are sparing no expense,‘ John Panzeca, vice president of United Artists Realty in charge of the company’s North Dallas project said upon its opening. “For years we built theaters that were little, rectangular boxes….I used to point with pride to how inexpensively I could get those projects to come in,” he said. “Today, it’s gone full circle. We have to compete with 48-inch televisions and cable and stereo sound at home. We have to make our theater a more interesting experience.” And the payout was there as the opening week gross for opening film “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade” was $145,000, a new Dallas record by almost 50% over the previous single-theater mark. Not resting on its laurels, the theater installed a Cinema Digital Sound System for the 70mm presentation of “Edward Scissorhands” in 1990; it was the only theater outside of New York or Los Angeles with the 5.1 disc-based system.
Theaters which took it on the chin in the C-Zone were the Caruth Plaza which shuttered, the Medallion which was downgraded to discount house and the former UA 150 roadshow turned UA Ciné art house. The Skillman theater would also suffer at the hands of the Plaza and, moreso, the UA Galaxy six years later. Theater staffs at the Glen Lakes, NorthParks and UA theaters were all coached well and moved hundreds of people briskly but with attention when they visited any of the zone’s theaters.
The 1994 opening of “The Firm” had the largest box office take in the United States at the Plaza in its opening week and the same was said to be true of “Clear and Present Danger.” In a two year stretch, Dallas would add 175 screens but the UA Plaza just kept going. It played a 31-hour run of Independence Day on July ¾, 1996. The marathon sold $31,000 in tickets at the Plaza in just the first 10 hours. One patron went for five showings including the 4:30 a.m. show.
But the Plaza shuttered restaurants on its first floor as the decade of the 90s continued. Drew Pearson’s 88 restaurant, Vincent’s Seafood were casualties. The General Cinema’s North Park complexes left the area in 1998. Then entertainment places within the Plaza’s first floor boarded up thereafter including the Virtual World gaming center, the Q-Zar arcade, and even United Artists’ own motion theater. The parking complex was so underutilized — generally deserted on weekdays — that the Dallas Area Rapid Transit would use it as remote parking for light rail users. The once vibrant video wall had badly color matched monitors and many monitors had simply flatlined. The two-sided wall became a poorly functioning single sided wall. Three snack bars of the four were permanently closed. Even the iconic first-floor box office was closed on most nights as tickets were sold at the snack bar. And the attraction board on the access road was often out of order. As such, the first part of the 21st Century wasn’t kind to the Plaza with Regal taking on the UA circuit in bankruptcy. Regal was obviously not in a position to spend any money on the property. When the AMC NorthPark 15 was announced, the Plaza was already sensing doom. Theaters lacking stadium seating were in collapse and the Regal shut the UA Plaza theater on Sunday December 5, 2004. The theater’s fall from grace was such that few came to see the last day’s features. The theater complex was converted into a church within a year which continued into the 2010s.
When Trammell Crow leased a space to AMC to build a new eight-screen theater in the lucrative Central Zone of Dallas film exhibition, the battle lines had been crossed. AMC had been a peripheral player in the Dallas market with nondescript multiplexes in outer Dallas neighborhoods. But to build adjoining Crow’s Glen Lakes Tower in a tight two-acre spot within the Central Zone was quite another thing entirely. While it had just landed in the periphery of the Zone when it took over the boutique neighborhood Highland Park Village theater, the AMC NorthPark was going to be the chain’s destination theater. Everyone knew it was movie theater war. Within weeks of the AMC project starting, United Artists was completing terms on a tract of land to build its own multiplex walking distance from the AMC NorthPark. They were both trying to unseat General Cinemas which, itself, had all but done in the Plitt/Interstate theaters which had dominated the Dallas marketplace for decades.
The AMC NorthPark was completed a bit ahead of schedule with a November 10th, 1988, champagne buffet and premiere screening of A Cry in the Dark benefiting Dallas Cares, an AIDS support group. The theater opened to the general public a day later. Two of the eight auditoriums seated 500 patrons and two more seated 400 each. Those four theaters were stadium-style seating which was supposedly one of the first five theaters in the country to have that many stadium seating houses in the same complex. Seating capacity in the sloped seating theaters ranged from 200 to 300 seats. The theaters had Sigma Torus Compound Curved Screens and AMC would brand the theaters as High Impact Theater Systems or HITS. (Obviously unimpressed, it didn’t take long for the neighboring General Cinema NorthPark to move the S to the front of that acronym for its disparaging take on its new competitor to the North.)
The bidding competition would heat up for the top films and AMC would change the name of its theater away from the NorthPark and to the Glen Lakes when a hue and cry was raised. A backroom settlement was reached between GCC an AMC which had the theater renamed as the Glen Lakes less than two months into its run. (Similarly, the planned UA NorthPark would become the Plaza upon its opening in May 1989.) Said an AMC ad upon its name change in January 1989, “So you won’t be confused when searching for the best.” Sell-out signs were common on weekends at the Glen Lakes. Traffic was tough around the theater in its hey day. Veteran AMC Glen Lakes goers had their own traffic routes to get to the theater. Some were patient and got in the line on the theater’s main entrance on the US-75 access road, others took the “secret” back entrance behind the Crow building, some through the Toys ‘r’ Us parking structure and then there was the Walnut Hill “overshoot” method north of the theater which wrapped around between the neighboring apartment complex and Toys ‘r’ Us.
Perhaps most impressive about the AMC Glen Lakes was its wide concession stand that had multiple positions with popcorn popping constantly and a team of workers who had to deal with massive lines of people quickly and graciously. In the Central Zone, employees had to bring their A-game. In the carnage of the new AMC Glen Lakes and the UA Plaza opening six months later were the shuttered Caruth Plaza, the downgrading of the UA Medallion to discount status, the UA Ciné’s move to full time art house and the UA’s Skillman’s large dropoff to the North of the Central Zone.
The Glen Lakes multi-screen environment allowed for special event screenings. It hosted USA Film Festival events for many years and including personal appearances by stars including Jackie Chan, Christopher Walken, Cyd Charisse, and Dennis Hopper and directors including Peter Bogdanovich, Sydney Pollack, and John Frankenheimer. Classic screenings, sneak previews and even a Russian film festival graced the Glen Lakes' screens. A Star Trek convention event midnight screening of “Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country” drew a full house of Trekkies who met Nichelle Nichols (Uhura) on the film’s opening night.
The Glen Lakes out-survived the General Cinema NorthPark which closed In October 1998 and the UA Plaza which closed in December of 2004. AMC had won the larger prize decimating (then buying the carcass of) General Cinema and all but eliminating United Artists in Dallas. The metroplex had become largely an AMC and Cinemark area. For AMC, the Glen Lakes was the catalyst of its aggressive and successful expansion. But over at the Glen Lakes, euphoria over such factoids would be tempered as AMC had already announced a new AMC NorthPark 15 theater to go inside the venerable shopping mall even prior to the Plaza’s departure. The writing was on the wall for the badly-aging Glen Lakes. The challenging AMC NorthPark project would finally open on May 5, 2006 at midnight leaving the AMC Glen Lakes in the dust as of May 4, 2006: the theater’s final screenings shy of its 18th anniversary. The property would become home to Dave and Buster’s which moved from its old location just across the street.
The David Rockwell architected Loews Keystone opened at midnight March 21, 1997 during the height of the megaplex boom with showings of Selena and Liar Liar. The project was announced within weeks of the sister cinema to the south, Sony’s Loews Cityplace. But the Keystone’s stadium seating would keep the property viable well past the Cityplace’s demolition in 2008. The 16-plex boasted 80,000 square feet with 4,000 seats ranging from 100 to 500 seats. The screen size ranged from 17.6' x 31' to 25.6' by 49'.
Sony was all about synergy in the 1990s and incorporated Sony Dynamic Digital Sound 5.1 systems in each auditorium including 7.1 in the largest. The theater’s concession stand sold expanded items like fries, chicken tenders and buffalo wings and had an ice cream area for a period to expand past traditional popcorn, hot dogs and nachos.
But in 2006, AMC acquired Loews Cineplex and with AMC turning its attention to the nearby and higher-end all stadium-seating NorthPark 15 and AMC Valley View properties, the Keystone and other Loews properties were in jeopardy. While AMC prized some of the Sony/Loews locations in other cities the same could not be said for its Dallas-area portfolio. AMC would close the Loews Cityplace, the Loews Cinemas 20 & 287 in Arlington, and the Loews City View in Fort Worth after the merger but the Keystone was the chain’s first casualty as it was forced to sell the Loews Keystone Park before the merger could be finalized. Regal became the operator of the theater.
If AMC was ambivalent toward the Keystone, Regal seemed to have an operational malaise looking to wring anything it could from the property. The chain guided the Keystone to its unceremonious closure after its brief two year effort. Reduced price rush hour shows represented the most innovative part of the Regal Keystone operation. The theater closed following shows on October 17, 2010 with contents quickly removed. Regal’s lasting contribution to the Keystone could be found in door signage from the property owner detailing the operator’s non-payment on the lease and changed key / forced lockout. The theater was boarded up not long after the less than regal operation.
But the theater was given love from its next owner, the Studio Movie Grill which continued operation in the redecorated and reinvigorated Studio Movie Grill Spring Valley which opened October 12, 2012 with special screenings. Some thought it odd that SMG would open so close to its very successful SMG Royal just four exits to the South adjoining its headquarters. But SMG Spring Valley was opened to blunt the announced openings of the nearby Look Cinema and the even closer Alamo Movie Drafthouse in Addison just one exit to the North on Central Expressway. While the line in the sand had been drawn and booking competition returning to the area, it wasn’t clear which theater would have the upper hand as the 2010s continued.
When Rosebud Properties built the 14-screen Loews Cityplace, it was actually constructing the last non-stadium seating theater in Dallas. As noted by a number of commenters, this property was identical to many Sony properties which followed but the chain said this was the prototype for those theaters. Many theaters which were similar to it, including the nearby Loews Keystone Park project announced just a month after the Cityplace opening, would, however, include stadium seating. The 11-acre theater cost almost $10 million and was built in place of the former Neiman-Marcus warehouse facing the Target complex which, itself, had opened the prior year. Opening with fifty cent preview shows from December 15-18, 1995 (Sony’s Forget Paris, First Knight, The Indian in the Cupboard, The Net, and non Sony French Kiss, Batman Forever, Die Hard 3, Apollo 13, Dangerous Minds, Clueless, Mortal Kombat, Free Willy 2 and Species) and with a grand opening Dec. 22, 1995 (including Sony’s Jumanji, and Dracula: Dead and Loving It, as well as Grumpier Old Men, Heat, Cutthroat Island, Sabrina, Tom & Huck, Toy Story, Balto, Sudden Death, Cutthroat Island, Waiting to Exhale Father of the Bride Part II), the Loews Cityplace was underway.
1995 was the start of the megaplex boom and Cityplace was the last of the megaplexes in DFW to open that year preceded by the AMC Grand 24, the Cinemark 17, the Cinemark Grapevine Tinseltown 17 and the UA Grand Prairie 10 among them. Its auditoriums ranged from a low end 184-seater to the larger 525-seat theaters with about 4,000 overall seats. As a Sony property, the theater was all about synergy: it trumpeted its 5.1 Sony Dynamic Digital Sound (SDDS) system, gave away Sony music cassettes at the opening, offered prize packages with Sony home theater gear and Sony TVs, Sony Walkmans, Sony 8mm camcorders, featured virtually all of Sony/Columbia/TriStar films released, and claimed to be the first theater in Dallas to display 7.1 SDDS. The Cityplace was the first theater in inner-city Dallas since the opening of the O’Neill West End Cinema and the Cityplace siphoned what little business the West End was getting until that theater’s closure in August 2001.
But in 2006, AMC acquired Loews Cineplex and with AMC turning its attention to the nearby and higher-end all stadium-seating NorthPark 15 and with competition from the nearby art houses Landmark Magnolia and Angelika Film Center Dallas, the Cityplace and other Loews properties were in jeopardy. A sign of the times for the area occurred when a car rammed through the window of the theater after it closed and the made off with one item: the theater’s ATM banking unit.
AMC loved some of the Sony/Loews locations in other cities but not so much its Dallas-area portfolio. AMC would close the Loews Cityplace, the Loews Cinemas 20 & 287 in Arlington, and the Loews City View in Fort Worth after the merger and was forced to sell the Loews Keystone Park before the merger could be finalized (it was sold to Regal). Officially, the Loews Cityplace closed forever January 6, 2008 and the theater was bulldozed shortly thereafter as was the Loews 20 & 287. Rosebud Properties owned the Cityplace theater property and had sold it to a developer which turned the space into apartments and retail including an L.A. Fitness. The 12 year plus 3 week lifespan seemed too brief to many who lived near the theater which was still in fairly nice condition upon closure.
The $18 million AMC Grand was built by Entertainment Properties Trust (EPT) in a warehouse district of Dallas not far from what was once considered restaurant row. The 24-screen megaplex revolutionized theater business and inspired 24+ screen movie theater in urban markets around the nation. Expecting 1.5 million customers its first year, the Grand doubled its clientele. So successful was the concept that four “Gourmet Cinema” auditoriums playing independent and foreign films and one screen playing interactive Interfilm Technology releases such as “Ride For Your Life” were quickly repurposed as additional screens for blockbuster, multi-screen releases within just three weeks of the complex’s opening. AMC knew it had a blockbuster, itself, in the Grand concept.
The 85,000 square foot theater bucked the DFW trend by General Cinema to simply add a multiplex near the footprint of another successful multiplex as they had at Redbird Mall, Town East Mall, Richardson, Irving Mall, Carollton, and others in the area. The Grand’s stadium seating in all 24 houses, multichannel audio in all houses, and 13-acres of exclusive parking with valet was a destination finding people driving as much as an hour to come to that theater. With showings in the early morning and shows into the late hours, patrons likely showed up without paying close attention to the showtimes for the opening weekend of a smash hit. AMC replicated the success in DFW with the 30-screen Mesquite, 30-screen Grapevine Mills, and 24-screen Stonebriar. Meanwhile, 10-16 screen plexes opened all over the metro area by operators including AMC, United Artists, and Cinemark which along with the 24+ screen theaters would blunt the destination status of the Grand.
The uniqueness of the Grand was gone and the momentum of restaurants hopping across to the area and having success was on the downward slope as the first decade of the 2000s was closing. Restaurants and nightspots near the Grand were closing and restaurant row was in retreat, as well. The Grand’s parking lot was often virtually empty on weekdays and the writing was on the wall for the property. EPT had built 95 other megaplexes built during the ‘plex boom period but suffered its first non-renewal when AMC decided to walk away from the Grand as its 15-year lease lapsed. Almost unthinkable ten years earlier that this significant theater could have fallen so far so fast, but it was true. On Halloween 2010, AMC said “trick” and no treat closing up shop hastily. Its lease officially lapsed at the end of November as it carted its possessions away.
EPT found a new operator in Southern Cinemas who shockingly decided to spend millions of dollars to re-tool a portion of the space as the downsized 14-screen AmStar Grand Theatre 14. And almost equally shocking was that another person thought that a Toby Keith’s I Love This Bar & Grill would thrive in the other section of the complex. Southern Cinemas found Grand Opening festivities ominous as employees in tuxedos and security guards well outnumbered patrons with many of the advertised shows simply not playing on the second day of the Grand grand re-opening celebration. Things didn’t ever improve as the theater – despite high technology and dependable presentation – was a quick casualty limping badly to a two-year ending. A challenging environment for the once-king of the Dallas box office. Further, the theater housed the area’s only motion-controlled seating with its D-Box installation so Dallas/Fort Worth was motion-seat-less, to boot. Toby Keith’s Bar was also a casualty closing at the end of 2013 despite signs indicating that a re-opening was possible.
Surprisingly, Studio Movie Grill decided to take a stab at rekindling the magic quickly retrofitting the EPT Grand property as a dining-experience theater and opening just months later on December 16, 2013. The Studio Movie Grill Northwest Highway was hoping to somehow buck the trend of a faded cinema treasure location.
The movie palace era that launched theater row in downtown Dallas started on Thanksgiving Day, 1912 with the opening of the Washington Theater. But the Washington was soon overshadowed by the far superior 800-seat Queen Theater by architect I.A. Walker. The $47,000 project was on the books in 1911 with Earl H. (“E.H.”) Hulsey converting an existing retail building at Elm and Akard with a five-year lease beginning in August of 1912.
The Queen opened to the public on January 24, 1913 at Elm and Akard with an over-capacity crowd which had its high expectations more than delivered. Commenters of the pre-Yelp era were astonished by the improved definition of the Queen’s projection described as “flickerless” machines projecting bright, sharp pictures on the wall. Reviews said of the Queen that it was the “most completely equipped and elegantly finished photo playhouses in the country.” Life-sized sculptures of Queen of Carthage, Queen Dido of Carthage and Queen Isabel of Spain along with Cleopatra were nice touches. Assigned seating with ushers was another. And a cigar parlor for those watching in the boxes showed class and spotlighted the theater’s fireproof construction. A $20,000 pipe organ with many special effects, grand piano and a six-person orchestra of “first-class musicians” accompanied the program which was upped to 12-person orchestra. William T. Street was brought in from London to play the pipe organ. And the management pledged to assure the “moral protection” of all children. The Queen was a hit.
The Queen was also in touch with its Dallas populace. The Queen produced some local moving pictures shot by manager E.V. Richards Jr. on the streets of Dallas and his first film’s storyline conveniently ended at the Queen Theater. That film was shown for four days in 1913 which was considered a success back in that era. Richards soon left and would run 200 theaters as general manager of Saenger Amusement. Just three months into the Queen’s operation, Louis Bissinger (known as Uncle Lou) took over managing the theater and the showmanship continued with little drop-off. The theater would become home to first-run silent Paramount and Realart Pictures before more stringent on booking procedures. The Theater’s tagline was “crowned with public favor.” The name of Queen Theaters was so popular in Dallas and around the country that an Oak Cliff Queen theater was opened called the Cliff Queen in 1915. Hulsey renewed for another five-year lease in August 1917 but a major fire on Sept. 27, 1917 caused $22,000 in damages and led to renovations to the theater including new fixtures, paintings, roof, and ticket booth, as well as a lawsuit about the actual damages to the building resolved seven years later.
In its tenth year, Uncle Lou and Joe Bissinger subleased the theater from Hulsey and it finally adopted a general admission seating policy instead of assigned seating as the theater began to slip in stature. Larger, more modern theaters had surpassed the Queen as Dallas' theater row matured along Elm Street. By October of 1926, the theater became a second run house with discount ticket pricing. The theater finally received sound equipment in 1930 and played “The Cock-Eyed World” as its first talkie using the Western Electric sound on film technology. Uncle Lou acquired the lease from operator Earl Hulsey’s estate in 1931 after Hulsey’s death. Lou Bissinger was recognized by The Variety Club of Texas which celebrated his 30th year of operating the Queen.
In post-War Dallas, the Queen was becoming decrepit and programmatically had lost distinctiveness. As freshly-built suburban theaters were being opened that would siphon audiences away from second-run and badly-aging facilities like the Queen, something had to be done. Uncle Lou was gone and the Queen Theater marquee came down in September of 1948 when after 35 years, the theater was renamed the Leo Theater under the Joy Houck circuit that also operated the Strand in Dallas. The Cliff-Queen carried the Queen’s moniker a year and a half beyond the original Queen for the city of Dallas. The former Queen now Leo was completely remodeled, renovated and playing to desegregated audiences. Though trying to find its footing as a family second-run house at the outset, the Leo soon found the freedom to experiment under its new name, even playing exploitation and “adult” fare as the former Queen was no longer concerned about quality audiences / “public favor.” They just needed people to come through the turnstile.
The rebranding didn’t work. Much as the film industry was in retreat, the Leo was swept under as other theaters would convert to Cinemascope or VistaVision, the Leo was simply old school. In 1953, the Leo was flailing and turned to live 10-act vaudeville under the direction of Richard Crane perhaps to change its fading fortunes. Crane promised no burlesque at the Leo, just vaudeville for 60 cents. When that didn’t work, the Leo tried the combination of films and burlesque for two months thereafter. But nothing worked and the theater was shuttered on April 15th, 1953 after 40-plus years of total service though less than five as the post-regal Leo.
The Dallas Federal Savings and Loan Association (Dallas Fed) secured the site planning to bulldoze the Queen Theater in 1953. But that project was delayed at the last minute apparently left the city with what locals called an unfortunate eyesore for two years: a shocking turnaround for the former palace. Only the cigar store associated with the theater soldiered on until the bitter end of the building’s life. The Queen was finally abdicated on November 4, 1955 when the wrecking ball struck. Because all references to the Leo were removed from the building in 1953, the theater’s demolition coverage only referred to to it as the former Queen Theater. In some respect, that was a nice final touch recalling the theater’s glory days which had left such a lasting memory to Dallas' moviegoers and provided classy showmanship in silent film exhibition in the 1910s and 1920s. And onward to progress, the Fed’s modern 17-story skyrise was scheduled to be completed in 1957 in the Queen’s former spot.
By the way, the Garrick Theater marquee is at the right prior to its 1924 exit from Elm Street’s theater row. Hughes-O'Rourke bulldozed the Garrick beginning on July 5, 1924 to make way for a 7-story building with retail on the ground floor. And beyond the Queen you’ll see the Jefferson Theater visible and if your eyes are good, the Old Mill and Palace marquees further in the background.
The first phase of the Corrigan Center was built in 1948 from 1001 Shaw Ave. to the Capitan Theater’s 1045 Shaw Ave. address in the north section of Pasadena. Architected by Raymond F. Smith, the Capitan would open Nov. 19, 1949 by Phil Isley of the Isley circuit and who would open the very similar Granada Theater in Houston. The first films were “Impact” and “San Antone Ambush,” with star Monte Hale of the latter film in attendance. The murals by Colville Smythe of L.A.’s Nat Smythe & Son had oceanic-themed walls with Neptune on a sea horse and Europa riding a bull among the dolphins while the ceiling had a giant mermaid and compass. Seashell-themed carpeting and a spacious and inviting lobby had to be a pleasant surprise for moviegoers. The 11,529 square foot theater was quite a jewel for Pasadena.
Just across the way in 1956, the second portion of the Corrigan Center opened so that in addition to the Capitan, adding a J.C. Penney’s, a W.T. Grant five & dime variety store, and an A&P supermarket. The Corrigan Center had become the economic center of Pasadena and the 1,600 seat theater was a major focal point despite playing mostly second-run fare. But by the end of the 1960s, the Gulfgate Plaza had become the Gulfgate Mall and the Almeda Mall opened six and twelve miles away, respectively. Times were changing quickly and audiences were driving to the General Cinema Gulgate Cinema I & II and the AMC Almeda 4 to see the latest releases. The Capitan was in trouble along with its neighboring Pasadena single screeners. So in 1970 — during the porno chic era of movie exhibition — the Pasadena would switch to X-rated films and – because the city’s Red Bluff Drive-In was also in that space – the Pasadena would even show XXX fare, as well, and would also try Spanish language films before stopping film exhibition around 1976.
The Capitan became a church for a period in the 1970s and when that ended, new theatrical life came from Hispanic film exhibition in the 1980s. That would be the last film projected in the theater. The three-time loser combined with the economic downturn of the Corrigan Center area left the theater in deep trouble and boarded up. In a last ditch effort to salvage the theater, the City of Pasadena bought the Corrigan and devoted $190,000 to fixing the exterior of the theater which remained beautiful from the outside from 2000 to 2014 awaiting a new owner. But the city’s gamble didn’t pay out as the interior of the theater deteriorated and the city’s economic fortunes weren’t too bright. Given the theater’s dismal track record over the past 45 years, the city sold the Corrigan Center for a loss in July of 2014 to a chemical company based in New Jersey. Just prior to the announcement, the theater’s marquee, theater boxes, doors and many other elements were stripped from the premises. There was little doubt that the theater – though still standing in 2015 – would be a casualty in the near future barring an a miracle by Neptune, Europa, or a contemporary capitalist.
The Palace had three iterations. It was conceived of when Greenwall’s Opera House sustained storm damage. Henry and Phil Greenwall of the Greenwall Circuit teamed with A.T. Byers to build the Byers/Greenwall’s Opera House architected by Marshall R. Sanguinet and Carl G. Staats and built by the Texas Building Company. The Byers Theatre opened in 1908 as the Byers Opera House at 7th and Rusk Street (now Commerce St.). The $150,000 facility launched with a mixture of live sporting events, music events, and live plays with seating for 1,600. It became known as the Byers Theatre when it became exclusively a movie house with some live acts interspersed. The Byers main claim to fame was an Edison light bulb mentioned in earlier comments that wouldn’t burn out. Installed in 1908 by electrician Barry Burke, the bulb outlasted the Byers nameplate.
The theater was purchased by the Hulsey Circuit and given a major makeover of just $25,000 for its renaming and reopening on October 19, 1919 as the Palace Theater (advertised and sometimes referred to as Hulsey’s Palace Theater in the early days). The improvements included a fireproof projection booth with Simplex projectors, a new color palette which was rose and grey with blue panels and medallions and usherettes' uniforms to match, and a wayward Pilscher pipe organ which was lost in transit and installed a month late. The architect of the Palace Theater was Raphael A. Nicolais and his iteration is seen in two photos.
In June of 1936, only one wall of the theater was left intact as Interstate Theaters created a modernistic, streamlined designed theater with air conditioning and luxury seating. George P. O'Rourke Construction did the work for the theater which reopened September 24th of 1936 with “Patsy, the Second” now with 1,000 seats as 300 lower floor seats were added when the stage was eliminated. That theater’s exterior can be seen in yet another picture.
The Palace’s Edison light bulb then became national news as Guinness Book of World Records (incorrectly) listed it as the longest burning light bulb. In 1974, ABC Interstate Theaters sold it to John O'Hara who tried to make it a revival house unsuccessfully. After the Palace’s closure in November of 1974, it became home to a jazz club called, “Daddio’s.” Daddio’s owner moved to the Land Title Block Building when the Palace property was sold and demolished in May of 1977 to make way for a parking garage. Those plans would change when the nearby Aviation Building was demolished in 1978.
At its demolition, the original sign – an artifact from the previous incarnation – the Greenwall’s Opera House Call Board remained in place as you can see in another picture. The entire block would become home to the skyscraper known initially as Continental Plaza, then UPR Plaza, then Carter Burgess Plaza, and as of 2012-forward 777 Main.
The Byers' bulb (aka “Eternal Light") outlasted Burke, the installing electrician (dying in 1964) and the Palace ten years later. So the bulb was acquired by an Irving, TX man and then onto the Stockyard Museum within the Livestock Exchange Building and is considered the second longest burning bulb in the world.
Homart had the 112-acre site for the Arlington Park Mall since the 1970s but didn’t announce its anchors or plans until January of 1983. The long-gestating project finally had a 1986 targeted opening date and prompted Cambridge Co. Development’s announcement in August 1983 to develop its Arlington Park Square on Arabrook across the street from and in support of the Homart’s Arlington Park Mall. General Cinema was signed on for a 31,500 square foot theater and would open the GCC Arlington Park just across the street from the northern most anchor of the new mall. But the Arlington Park Mall and its anchors didn’t sprout up as anticipated.
The General Cinema theater opened December 12, 1986 as the Arlington Park Square 8. But the building of the Arlington Park Mall was slowed by inability to get tenants signed on quickly and wasn’t even approved by the Arlington City Council until 1987. By the time the mall opened in 1988, the project was changed to “The Parks at Arlington” as “mall” was already becoming something of an overused term and sometimes had negative connotations. So unlike the GCC Seminary, GCC Town East, and GCC Valley View – the previous Homart shopping complexes with GCC cinemas carrying the moniker of the centers they adjoined or were in and opening at about the same time as those facilities – GCC’s Arlington Park didn’t jive with the new name of the mall. And GCC had to await the traffic from that new mall for more than a year.
But the theater did well with competition coming exit by exit to the west with the UA Bowen and the AMC Green Oaks. With the Parks opening in 1988, the theater thrived. The theater was not far on foot from the Foley’s (which became Macy’s) northeast exit door though driving was far safer. Even when the megaplex boom hit in 1994/6, dooming General Cinema’s multiplex business model, nobody was building a megaplex in south Arlington. United Artists was going to convert its aging/dying UA Bowen to a multiplex but the circuit ran into financial issues and the project never happened. GCC’s Arlington Square looked safe as it approached honoring its original 15-year lease. That would not happen as in 1999 AMC announced a megaplex to be housed inside of the Parks at Arlington to open in 2002 and General Cinemas ran into severe financial issues.
On October 5th, 2000, General Cinema shut theaters all over the country taking down all of Tarrant Country’s remaining locations including the Arlington Park Square, as well as Fort Worth’s Ridgmar Square and Bedford’s Central Park. Though the Central Park and Ridgmar would re-open under different ownership, the Arlington Park Square’s movie days were over as the theater sat vacant with nobody wanting to take on the AMC Parks using the aged facility with fairly limited parking. Finally the Arlington Independent School District took over the facility making it home to its Arlington Professional Development Center which was still functioning in to the mid-2010s.
Three drive-ins were announced to open in 1941 in the Dallas-Fort Worth market and would become the first drive-ins in North Texas. Two were in Dallas — the Northwest Highway Drive-In and the Chalk Hill Drive-In with this entry for the Bowie Boulevard Drive-In that opened July 18, 1941. All were part of the Underwood Ezell circuit which included the the Drive-In Theatre opening in 1940 in San Antonio and Houston’s South Main Drive-In. The screen tower was 60' high and made of steel utilizing a 35'x50' screen with RCA equipment. Cones in the ground provided the sound and ushers guided cars to spots which were tilted upward on ramps. The project was said to have cost $50,000. Ezell would partner with Interstate Theaters Circuit to improve those theaters' operations that same decade.
To comply with the Paramount consent decree, Ezell and Associates and Interstate Theaters divvied up their 12 theaters and the Bowie headed to Interstate along with the South Main and the Shepherd in Houston, Buckner Blvd. in Dallas, Mansfield in Fort Worth and Cactus in Pharr. Ezell kept the Belknap in Fort Worth, the Northwest Highway in Dallas, the Circle in Waco, the Irvington, Hempstead and Winkler all in Houston. On December 1, 1955, the Bowie was ordered out of the Interstate portfolio and became part of the Cinemart Theaters circuit. Cinemart ran the theater as a sublease with Interstate holding on to the property. The Bowie lasted right at 20 years with its last day on October 23, 1961. Interstate Theaters sold the theater which was razed for a retail venture.
Andrew Zucarro operated the Venice Theater two blocks away and decided to build a new fireproof theater. The Queen Theater launched on May 20th, 1913 showing “The Stars and Stripes Forever.” Zucarro was jailed at least three times while operating the theater. Once for opening on Sunday which wasn’t allowed by the city of Fort Worth and twice for showing films that were banned by the film censor board. Andrew Zucarro operated it for five years possibly on a five-year lease before changing hands in 1918. William Capps took on the theater for four years.
The theater appears to close for a period of time and is acquired by the Ideal Theater group which was founded in 1922. They would change the name to the Ideal Theater whose name appeared on the marquee until the theater’s closure on March 30, 1960 and demolition thereafter. It boasted a mirror screen, the only one south of St. Louis installed for a cost of $10,000.
The General Cinema Corp.’s Seminary South Cinema I & II officially opened on Thursday, Christmas Day 1969 with searchlights, a ribbon cutting and the Kennedale High School Band playing tunes. Opening features were “The Sterile Cuckoo” rated M and “Viva Max” rated G. Manager Bill Ellis explained that the theater would always have one family feature and one film for older audiences. The GCC Seminary was the city’s first twin screen indoor theater. It was named for the shopping center announced in June of 1960 when Sears not only decided to build its first retail store within Fort Worth, it created an entire subsidiary called Homart Development to construct shopping centers. The first of which was Seminary South Shopping Center on an 88-acre tract that opened in 1962.
In 1969, General Cinemas Corp. decided the time was right to construct two theaters simultaneously adjoining shopping centers. They were the Seminary South Center I & II in the Homart plaza and the Six Flags Cinema I & II in nearby Arlington, TX, a project that had delays opening in August of 1970. GCC also opened in Homart’s other properties in DFW: inside of Valley View Mall in Dallas, outside of what would eventually be called the Parks Mall in Arlington, outside of the Town East Mall in Mesquite.
The GCC Seminary had 1,600 seats with Cinema I holding 1,031 customers and the smaller Cinema II holding 617 people. The theater had an art gallery, smoking areas, pushback reclining seats and picture window screens. The GCC would expand in the 1970s to three screens as auditorium two was twinned becoming the GCC Seminary South Cinema I, II & III. The Seminary South shopping center struggled due to competition from new enclosed malls in Fort Worth, Arlington, and North Richland Hills. Locals disparagingly referred to the area as “Cemetery South” as the center shed stores and hurt General Cinema’s revenues. But there was hope for General Cinema.
In 1985, Homart finally sold the underachieving shopping center to the Texas Centers Association which spent $25 million to purchase the property and another $25 million to convert the open air shopping center to an enclosed mall designed by Altoon and Porter, architects from California. The architects had a spot for GCC on the second floor right by one of the mall’s main entry points on the East side just up the escalator. The mall project finally opened on September 4th, 1987 as the Town Center Fort Worth with great optimism. Not long thereafter, General Cinema completed work on its new GCC Town Center 8 which opened and the chain closed its exterior Seminary South I, II, III. The location became home to a Bingo parlor and also housed some church functions. It had long stretches of emptiness but was still standing as of 2014.
In 1967, Loews’s announced the first downtown Dallas theater built in 30 years since the Tower Theater at 1005 Elm adjoining Griffin and Pacific. The A. Warren Morey and Associates architected project in Elm Place would have 70mm Cinerama, D-150 capability, and Century projection with 6-track stereo. Decorator Joseph Schuler bathed the 980-seat theater in colorful purple, Kelly green aqua and black. Distinctive Griggs pushback purple seats with 702 downstairs and 278 in the loge balcony. A Patrick Casey mural with movie stars, a smoker loge, and attached not free parking lot were features. Construction took place in 1968 and 1969 to the invitational screening of “Those Daring Young Men in Their Jaunty Jalopies” on June 5, 1969 and public grand opening on June 6th. The director and a lot of jalopies were present for the opening. And a second theater was added to the Loews portfolio within months in Dallas when the Adelman Circuit was purchased which included Dallas’ Delman Theater.
In 1975, the theater shut down to become a three screen theater renamed the Loews Studio 1-2-3 (then the Loews Studio Triplex in June of 1977 just prior to the opening of the Quad / Park Central) opening March 29th with “Lenny,” “The Yakuza” and “The Reincarnation of Peter Proud.” But the Loews found its audience when it played Emmanuelle on one of its screens which played for more than 10 months followed by Emmanuelle 2. The first film was so popular that the sequel opened on another of the Studio’s three screens while the original was still playing. “The Erotic Adventures of Candy”, another porno chic film, played for 25 weeks. From that point on, the Loews would generally have an adult film, a Blaxploitation film and a mainstream film unless the mainstream films were dropped for martial arts films or another adult feature.
In April of 1978, Loews dropped the Studio Triplex. At first, the screenings under independent operation were identical to the Loews offerings. However – and this is said endearingly – the Triplex devolved into one of Dallas’ most memorable grindhouses playing continuous double features of Blaxploitation, Adult and Martial Arts that allowed sneaky customers to pay one price and stay all day and night to see if they could work in five or even all six exploitation shows for their $2. The Studio Triplex closed at the end of April 1981 with Guy From Harlem/Kama Sutra; Hammerfist/Lord of the Dragon and Adios Amigos/Joshua. (BTW: If you did the films in precisely that order, you could get to all six shows for $2 by sneaking from studio 1 to 3 to 2.) Exploitation film fans and transients were delighted but the majority of film-goers were not.
After a brief period of closure, the theater reopened in 1981 and ended its life as Cine Central Three run by Herb Hartstein of Texas National Theaters. He had also run the Jefferson Drive-in during its Spanish language period. The Cine Central 3 lasted until closing in February 1985. The space was retrofitted to be incorporated into the existing hotel. Downtown would not get another movie theater until the short-lived West End Cinema in November of 1993.
On December 18, 1981, it was the grand opening of the Loew’s at Plano theater. Settling on the Loew’s Chisholm Place as its name within the 75-acre area at North Central Expressway and Park Blvd., the theater had two 575-seat auditoriums, one 550-seater, and two 375 seat houses. The lobby had a round island refreshment stands with multiple lines around it. A mural in that lobby 10' by 75' featured Chaplin, Monroe, Bogart, Gable, Wayne, Garbo, Harlow, and Bing Crosby. Its neon lighting effect ensured that theatergoers would have a different look as they came repeatedly to the facility.
Competition for the best bookings came in the form of competition less than a half mile to the north when AMC opened its seven-screen Central Center (renamed the Central Park). But by the 1990s, the multiplex era was replaced by the megaplexes and both AMC and Loews aging multiplexes were waiting for the bad news. It would be from Cinemark in June of 1999 when it opened its 24-screen Legacy just north of the two multiplexes. Business turned quickly as audiences gravitated to the far-superior CInemark theater and within four months, AMC should close the Central Park.
Somehow, the Chisholm soldiered onward despite Loews going into severe financial difficulties and Cinemark decimating the Chisholm audiences. But like the Loews Preston Park, the Chisholm got the dreaded “vote of confidence” in late October of 2000 as Loews said neither theater was going to be closing anytime soon. Patrons walking into the Nov. 9, 2000 screenings found the candy removed from the concession stand within two weeks of Loews vote of confidence, both Loews Plano theaters closed quietly and would be converted for non-theatrical purposes. The Chisholm ostensibly stayed open for a 20-year leasing cycle and became a house of worship.
Announced in February of 1985, AMC signed a lease to build a seven-screen theater in Plano at the northwest corner of North Central Expressway and Park Boulevard. The Central Center Shopping Center would house the AMC Central Center 7 which had been scheduled to open by Christmas 1985 as part of a 32-acre development. The project was delayed as portions of the development were sold but Talmadge Tinsley Co. finished the 32,260-square-foot AMC Central Center in late May of 1986 and the theater opened on June 6, 1986.
It had a mirrored lobby with neon and high ceilings to give the appearance of older theaters along with graphics on the walls and a circular box office to give that impression. It opened within a half mile of the 1981-launched Loews Chisholm and the two chains would have booking wars within the territory. The theater would change its name just months into its existence settling on the Central Park nameplate. It hosted many fundraisers, honored local athletes, and was a part of the Plano community even mores than its Loews neighbor. But when the multiplex era gave way to the Megaplex boom in the mid-1990s, it was only a matter of time until someone took out the AMC Central Park and Loews Chisholm.
That competition came in 1999 when Cinemark opened its 24-screen Legacy just north of the two multiplexes which opened at the end of June that year. Business turned quickly as audiences gravitated to the far-superior CInemark theater and within four months, AMC quietly shuttered the Central Park. The Chisholm by Loews would somehow soldier on for more than a year outliving the AMC Central Park. The theater was repurposed in 2006 as a church.
The Loews Preston Park was part of Lincoln Property’s $33.5 million Lincoln Preston Park , a development of Lincoln Property Co. at the southeast corner of Preston Road and West Park Boulevard in Plano, Texas. The project included a grocery store, two restaurants and a men’s clothing store as well as the Loews six-screen theater. Those businesses were easy to find but one had to seek out the Loews which had visibility issues from the road. The theater opened on the eve of Thanksgiving in 1985. One house featured THX certification and 70mm projection used day one and would later include 5.1/7.1 SDDS sound. A second auditorium also had THX certification.
The multiplex had competition just down the road from the eight-screen UA Berkeley Square opening four months later in March of 1986. And technically, Loews Preston Park outlasted the UA which closed in July of 1999 as both multiplexes were being destroyed by megaplexes including Cinemark’s Legacy in Plano. And for the Preston Park, competition would come in the massively renovated Studio Movie Grill opening in March of 2000. The theater may have had a 15-year lease and with Loews going into severe financial difficulties in 2000, the Preston Park and Chisholm locations – both in Plano – got the dreaded “vote of confidence” in late October of 2000 as the chain said neither theater was going to be closing anytime soon. Two weeks later, both Loews Plano theaters closed quietly and would be converted for non-theatrical purposes.
When the $100 million Prestonwood Town Center Mall opened, the drawings showed a theater external to the mall which would become the AMC Prestonwood 5 which opened on May 21, 1980. It was confused with the General Cinemas Prestonwood Village which had opened in 1979 and would be confused even more with the United Artists Prestonwood Creek V opening months after the AMC Prestonwood. All three theaters were in the same general area of North Dallas. The three theaters would become the second highest box office territory within the city trailing only the Central Zone. The AMC theater had one 70mm equipped screen but used automated projection systems including leading to non-union projection. Early in its operation, the Prestonwood’s screens were cuts, the ticket booth was wrecked, and damage to the auditoriums was caused likely due to the non-union situation though the Moving Picture Machine Operators Union denied the claim. The theater was home to the cult hit The Rocky Horror Picture Show and did brisk business.
The Prestonwood 5 would make national news becoming the first theater in the country to accept credit cards with the installation of a computerized ticketing system. The theater would also accept credit cards at the concession stand beginning in March and April of 1984. Obviously, that concept caught on quickly. But by the mid-1990s, with the theater nearing the end of its 20-year lease, Prestonwood Center was experiencing upheaval as malls were under pressure and the multiplex era was in full force leaving multiplexes like AMC’s Prestonwood vulnerable. To salvage the mall and AMC’s presence, mall operators Hahn and Co. proposed a $125 million facelift to include a 24-screen interior AMC Prestonwood on the east side of the center court. Anchors Lord & Taylor, Mervyn’s and Penny’s decided to exit the mall to make room for the entertainment/fashion concept. Then Dillards and Wards left leaving just Neiman Marcus as a functional anchor. Stores within the mall bailed.
The exodus was so quick that the proposed 24-screen AMC Prestonwood and associated retail facelift never started. Neiman Marcus was the very last retailer in the center as of 1999 as a fashion mall would be established in Plano miles North on the tollway and Cinemark would build just north of that project. Neiman would move there. So AMC fleed Prestonwood shortly after announcing in 1999 that it would build a 20-screen theater in the nearby Valley View Mall. That project would become the 16-screen AMC Valley View opening in 2004. And AMC would also build its Village on the Parkway 9 just about a football field’s distance away from the former GCC Prestonwood Village opening late in 2014. As for Prestonwood mall, it was partially demolished to become a dot.com high tech destination and when the dot.com bust occurred, that project foundered and the the entire complex was gone by 2004/5. That demolition took the former AMC theater with it though it had become a nightclub for a period of time called Times Square.
When the Sakowitz department store chain moved to Dallas, it was big news. The Sakowitz Village was created at Belt Line Road and the Dallas Parkway and in 1979, General Cinema wanted to be near the action. The chain leased a 15,000 square foot space adjoining Montfort Rd. in creating the GCC Prestonwood Cinema IV. The theater was architected by Ralph Kelman opening December 14, 1979 and had four very narrow and exceedingly long auditoriums that were likely to be originally designed – though never built – as a twin-screen facility. So unsatisfactory the experience that in 1981, the theater company announced plans to add a single “Northpark III & IV” styled-auditorium as its “A” screen. That never occurred as the chain decided to turn its attention to its Galleria space acquired in 1981 and opened in 1982.
When Sakowitz filed for bankruptcy in 1985, it took less than a year for the Sakowitz Village concept to fail as the department store left Dallas. The building in the renamed Village on the Parkway stayed empty for many years casting a pall on the shopping center and General Cinemas would relegate its Prestonwood (and for a very brief period the theater was advertised as the GCC Montfort and the GCC Prestonwood Village) to discount status. With competition from the nearby AMC Prestonwood 5 and even closer United Artists Prestonwood 5, the move was a last ditch effort to keep the lights on. There’s not much doubt that GCC was trying to eke out as much money as it could from what appears to be a 20-year lease on the Prestonwood IV. Mixing in some special interest films and foreign language films (including a regular Hong Kong series) with second-run Hollywood fare, the theater limped toward its ending August 20, 1998. The decision was made because the theater was no longer “as profitable or as competitive as they had been when they first opened,” said Brian Callaghan, a spokesperson for GCC at that time.
After being vacant for over three years, the theater’s floor was leveled as part of a $1 million makeover to be used for retail and restaurant space. “We realized that the movie theater business was in a shake-up and we wouldn’t be able to lease it to another theater,” Dunhill Partner’s William Hutchinson said of his firm’s property. But sixteen years after the closing the Montfort theater, the AMC Village on the Parkway 9 would open just about 100 yards from the former GCC Prestonwood IV bringing films back to the former Sakowitz Village… only with much better sound and picture.
The Cliff-Queen opened in 1914 at 616 E. Jefferson by W.J. Shivers with nearly 700 seats. E.H. Hulse was the next operator in 1915 followed soon thereafter by George M. Blackburn. The theater was the site of political speeches and bond rallies during World War I. W.W. Ard purchased and remodeled the theater in 1922 which probably explains the reduced number of seats.
L.L. Dunbar was the next and longest operator of the theater. Community-minded, during the Depression, the theater offered free shows to the poor and unemployed, gave 40,000 tickets over many years to servicemen (Dunbar said it was the only theater with such a policy in Texas), and always allowed firemen and police in free. But the theater ran into a couple of problems. Dunbar lost a court battle with ASCAP over music rights. On Oct. 14, 1944, the theater was padlocked for failure to correct fire hazards. Dunbar re-opened the theater in time for Christmas that year.
Gene Autry Enterprises took over the Cliff Queen, Kessler and opened the Hill in 1946 and operated the Beckley. The final operator was the Robb & Rowley Circuit which took over the Gene Autry Enterprises circuit and was operating the Heights, Beverly, Kessler, Midway, Rosewin, Stevens, Texas and Vogue in addition to the Cliff Queen.
The last show appears to be a double-feature of “Chicago Deadline” and “Arthur Takes Over” on March 12, 1950. The building is said to be vacant from that date forward. In March of 1958, the Cliff-Queen was identified as one of 20 buildings to be knocked over including the Oak Cliff City Hall and the 1888 constructed Hamilton Pharmacy Building. At the time of its closing, it was the second oldest theater in the city and the longest running suburban house.
The Odeon (Healy) Theater was built by J.S. Phillips at 1004 Main Street and operated by R.A. Healy. It opened as The Healy on June 14, 1910, a very modest $20,000 house. Complete with a $3,500 Wurlitzer Orchestrian and a smoker gallery to add excitement to the nitrate film projection. But Healy decided to sell the theater just months later. When it was purchased on Nov. 12, 1910 by Elmore Callaway, he held a contest to rename The Healy and child Priscilla Sedgwick won with her suggestion of the Odeon. (A file in the pictures section shows this.) Healy built a larger house at 911 Houston Street which was dubbed The New Healy Show House and then shortened later to The Healy Theater. The Odeon was a survivor as it was surpassed in terms of architecture and technology in the silent era but managed to transition into the sound era within a very competitive downtown Fort Worth theatrical district before closing in the 1930s.
The original Palace Theater in Dallas was a Nickelodeon just two blocks away on Elm Street. It closed in the early 1900s. The second Palace Theater was also on Elm Street and was renamed the Harlem Theater. But this entry is about the third Palace Theater to appear on Elm Street, that of Southern Enterprises’ Palace Theater, a $1,000,000 showplace designed by Thomas W. Lamb of Chicago and built by C.D. Hill of Dallas.
Many concepts within the design are attributed to S.L. “Roxy” Rothafel who patterned his ideas from the Rialto and Rivoli in New York including a small inner proscenium for the screen and an outer frame for a symphony orchestra. And to make sure people knew the theater cost a million bucks, the theater painted the phrase on top of the theater and placed it in early ads for Palace shows. Movie star Bebe Daniels was on hand March 2, 1921 for the laying of the building’s cornerstone. Its seating capacity of 3,000 would house the entire capacity of the Queen, Hippodrome, and Old Mill Theater combined. Its architecture was said to be of the Adam Design with its Roman Pantheon inspired columns and frieze around its dome. Tennessee gray marble and Gray McMullen marble were liberally utilized along with white and yellow terrazzo flooring as nice touches. Bathed in cream, browns, blues and golds, the theater had an opulent feel. An art gallery was just up the stairways which, themselves were marble with bronze bannisters. Historical periods were carried out in the Pantheon frieze work in the mezzanine while rest rooms were in the marble balcony with marble, fumed oak, and open fireplaces and mantels. Medallion lighting fixtures from the ceiling producing lighting effects. All seats were upholstered with air cushion spring bottoms, nineteen inches wide. And the views were unobstructed by posts as the theater was post-free.
The promised 40-piece Palace Orchestra was reduced to a 30-member group the outset but led by D.W. Griffith staff conductor Don Albert. The $50,000 Hope-Jones pipe organ was huge and featured a quartet of reed, stringed and brass instruments including seven violins, violas, oboes, bassoons, clarinets, cornets, trombones, harp, piano, and kettle drums. Coming just two months after The Majestic’s much-heralded opening, the theater had to deliver the goods. Along with the theater amenities was a staff of 66. Point made Southern Enterprises. As for projection, the projection was from a crow’s nest in the back wall of the balcony, a 136 foot throw from projection window to screen: one of the longest in the South. It would be home to Paramount and Realart films.
The theater opened Jun 11, 1921 with “Sentimental Tommy” with Carl Weisemann showing of the organ. WFAA broadcast from the theater. The fireproof construction turned out to be a saving grace as the neighboring Carreaud Bakery threatened to destroy the Palace in 1922. However, the building held up with $20,000 damage mostly due to water used to extinguish the bakery fire. Another fire in a neighboring business in 1923 caused an evacuation but no damage. A special booth was constructed called the “non-synch” room which was a double turntable for recordings to non-synchronized silent films. It was said to be outside the jurisdiction of the musicians union and thus could be operated with violating the musicians contract.
On March 13, 1926, Publix Theaters left the Melba and took control of Southern Enterprises and the Palace. Its first moves was to lower the orchestra into the pit and bring “New York produced shows” to the Palace. The Palace received a $200,000 makeover beginning in July of 1928 designed by George C. Perkins under Publix for its stage shows. The theater decided to put a lot more into the stage show presences while others were putting their capitol into sound systems. New dressing rooms, a counterweight rigging system for faster set set-up and striking, and glow system of illumination for lighting effects inside the auditorium along with a vastly expanded lobby and much larger outdoor sign – the largest in the South reportedly – among the changes. An improved organ with additional pipes and reeds for fuller presentations was added. The theater would be wired for Movietone sound for its ninth year of operation and Vitaphone, as well. The theater was renamed the Greater Palace, its official name at its grand re-opening that was four months behind schedule on January 11, 1929. In the talking picture era, Norma Shearer’s “Smilin’ Through’ played to 10,500 patrons in a single day which was impressive for 1932.
In 1934, the Interstate Theater Circuit took on the Palace and operated until its closure in 1970. In its thirtieth anniversary, changes which came in time for its 31st birthday included moving rest rooms to the main floor, a new color scheme in the recarpeting of the theater, Eugene Gilboe decorative murals, and wider seating reduced the overall count to 2,300. Between the 30th and 31st birthday, however, projectionist and former president of the projectionist’s union Julius J. Schaeffer – who worked at the Palace since 1921 – died at work. Schaeffer would miss the installation of wider angle screens put in in the form of Cinemascope in June of 1953 for demonstrations along with The Robe – Dallas’ first Cinemascope picture opening Sept. 24th of that year, the stage space was greatly reduced leading to fewer wide scale live events. However, the impressive 54'x22’ Cinemascope screen was the first in Dallas. 30,000 people saw The Robe that first week and it set a record for attendance that stood for years. That film was followed by the successful How to Marry a Millionaire.
The Palace fell victim to the growth of the Central Zone in Dallas which got a lot of the major films. Attendance dwindled and when the Palace’s lease expired in December of 1970, Interstate made no efforts to re-up. The theater closed December 3d and was sold and demolished. The final film, “Flap” was a forgettable choice and the decision to bulldoze the building a regrettable error despite eventually being replaced by the venerable Thanksgiving Tower. Sadly, the Palace was no more.
Vivian Meier’s shot of the theater can be found at http://www.vivianmaier.com/gallery/street-2/#slide-16
Here
For Dallas-based Rave Motion Pictures, the December 2000 opening of the Rave Hickory Creek 16 was exciting. It was the company’s first theater and located in their corporate backyard. The $12 million, 60,000 square foot property was well-positioned against the nearby UA/Regal Lakepoint Lewisville to the South and the Golden Triangle locations just to the North in Denton with the chain entering bankruptcy and years ahead of Cinemark’s refurbishing of its nearby Vista Ridge Mall to the South or the Denton ‘plex which would be built to the North almost five years later. The Cal Young architected theater was visually stunning upon its opening. Young’s modernistic architecture design was one of six winners of the 2001 National Concrete Masonry Association (NCMA) Design Awards of Excellence program. Its auditoriums ranged from 100 to 300 seats.
Launching on December 21, 2000 with free admission to any movie Thursday in exchange for a donation of two cans of nonperishable food, the theater’s regular first-run policy began the next day. The theater chain would be aggressive in moving away from celluloid film and to digital projection well ahead of the competition. In 2005, Rave was the first to enter into the Real-D 3D era with exclusive North Texas screenings at its then three area theaters for 3D films including “Chicken Little” making it a focal point for 3D fans.
The Rave had its technology and architectural advantages going for it. People would drive past older, aged properties from all directions to get to the Rave. Regal would shutter its UA Golden Triangle theaters in Denton just to the North on October 13, 2003 making the Rave a destination point for then theater-less Denton. It would outlast Regal’s UA Lakepoint which would shutter just to the South. But the competition wasn’t rolling over. Cinemark would revitalize its aged Vista Ridge property and retain its nearby discount house to the South while building a megaplex in Denton just a few exits to the North. Studio Movie Grill would take on the Lakepoint as a dine and movie locale. And seven miles away to the West and South, AMC would enter the outer periphery of the Rave’s footprint with its Highland Village theater.
Rave’s aggressive move in 2009 to take on Showcase Cinemas to boost it to the fifth largest operator in the U.S. was short-lived as Cinemark would purchase 32 of the chain’s 35 theaters including the Hickory Creek on November 30, 2012. Obviously with four properties within exits of each other (the Vista Ridge Mall 15 Lewisville, the Lewisville 8 discount house, Cinemark 14 in Denton and the Rave Hickory Creek 16), something had to give. On July 18, 2013, Carmike would acquire the Hickory Creek property along with two other theaters in Louisville, KY and Voorhees, NJ. The Carmike Hickory Creek 16 continued operations with its new Carmike signage as pictured into the 2010s.
Claude V. Caver doesn’t get much credit for inventing the concept of the Drive-In in 1921 but that’s what he did in Comanche, TX getting a permit to build a screen on the town’s courthouse lawn while he remodeled his indoor theater. Residents enjoyed the novelty of watching films from their cars. But Caver moved to Dallas in 1928 to launch the Trinity Theater in the Trinity Heights annex within Dallas’ Oak Cliff. The MGM lion, Leo, visited the theater on December 13, 1929 as the first of three Dallas’ theaters in that year’s tour. In October of 1934, H.C. Houston purchased the theater from Caver and brought in cushioned seats, acoustical treatment, and new sound equipment among the improvements. As a not so welcome to the neighborhood, Houston was a defendant in a $5,300 lawsuit brought by a patron who tripped over a rug in the redecorated theater.
In 1940, Houston put in a new façade, new marquee, and ticket box. The white stucco front with red centerstrip and ornamental blue diamond shaped tiles was retained for over a decade. The King Scenic Company did the remodeling. William Fumm took over management of the theater in 1944. In post-war Dallas, the independent struggled mightily against chains which were operating superior theaters in Oak Cliff including R&R Theaters. The downturn led Fumm to drop the theater and it was closed for a short period.
In 1953, George P. Hamrah and Charles Hothoot reopened the theater renovating the property very slightly and opening February 12, 1953 with Bill Boyd and the Cowboy Ramblers making a personal appearance. The theater had a weekly Friday amateur stage show for months until Hothoot and Hamrah dropped the theater just seven months into their unsuccessful run. Mrs. Victor Jones bought the theater and installed Mrs. Lottie Burt Strong as its manager. Strong brought showmanship to the “new” Trinity regularly featuring Bobby “Uncle Ukie” Henshaw coming from the Malco Theater in Memphis after a long career in vaudeville and motion pictures. The theater also starred renowned organist Paul Jordan and singer/actress Deane Janis. Jones and Strong equipped the theater with new sound and Fox AstroLight CinemaScope-like capable screen. But widescreen and showmanship weren’t the ticket either for the new Trinity. So the theater closed again in early 1954.
At the unrelated White Theater, A.J. Vineyard had a four-day celebration and would also celebrate the 20th anniversary of the theater in the summer of 1954. But multiple armed robberies at the neighboring liquor store took their toll on Vineyard as the theater owner, himself, was a victim of one of the liquor store robberies. The theater, itself, also was robbed at the box office. So Vineyard left the White Theater’s high crime rate area and he bought the Trinity in August of 1954 rebranding it as the Ewing Theater opening November 4, 1954. The Ewing was short-lived as few tickets were sold during Vineyard’s very brief run and the lobby was quickly retrofitted as a retail television store in 1955. Following its theatrical life and short retail period, the Trinity became home to multiple places of worship including the Abundant Life Center (which suffered a major fire in 1962), the Temple Community Church and, more recently, the Lighthouse Gospel Center Church into the 2010s. As a result, the suburban Trinity had surpassed 85 years of service as of 2013.
The police blotter on the Trinity during its movie era was somewhat active. The safe was burgled many times at the Trinity. There was the $10 heist in 1930. The $319 getaway in 1936. A $15 loss in 1944. A 1951 led to a net gain with $0 taken and a tool set left behind with another 1951 safe robbery leading simply to safe damage. A bicycle locked in the theater for safe keeping was stolen through a hole in the roof in a rather dramatic theft. And a 16-year old beat a 40-year old patron to death at the theater over a comment made by the 16-year old about the man’s daughter which led the man to reprimand the boy about his comments and the boy to beat the man to death. Not good.
When AMC announced a multiplex in what was known as Dallas’ Central Zone of movie exhibition to open in November of 1988, United Artists wouldn’t be caught flat-footed. It purchased four acres of land in the shadow of the AMC NorthPark theater (soon changed to the AMC Glen Lakes) and across the street from the venerable General Cinema NorthPark III & IV in May of 1988. The $14 million, 106,000 square foot United Artists NorthPark was drawn up in 1988 and designed to make a splash. By the time the renamed United Artists Plaza opened on May 24, 1989, it was truly a destination theater despite being tucked away behind strip shopping centers. With eight screens and 3,600 seats all on the second floor and dining and entertainment on the ground floor, the UA was not a neighborhood multiplex but a theater people wanted to travel to and spend the night. To accommodate its projection of 20,000 guests per week, an entire three-level parking structure with spaces for 1,100 cars with large parking lots surrounding the complex.
Resplendent in neon and sporting 4 THX certified auditoriums, three with 70mm projection, United Artists was making a statement in the Central Zone. The second floor lobby was filled with a 13-foot video kiosk with two 9x9 CRT monitor video walls. The neon chandeliers glowed purple, rose, white and green. Long after the theater’s heyday, people remembered the memorable escalator ride to the theaters from the ground floor box office transporting you to the four snack bars on each wall, the video wall, lit glass blocks, chandeliers, and theaters. But the Plaza did allow the nearby AMC Glen Lakes to have one upper hand with some of its auditoriums having stadium seating while the UA had no theaters with stadium seating. But the United Artists was clearly gunning for the gracefully aging General Cinemas NorthPark I & II and III & IV in the battle royale while knowing it could outarchitect the AMC project.
“We are sparing no expense,‘ John Panzeca, vice president of United Artists Realty in charge of the company’s North Dallas project said upon its opening. “For years we built theaters that were little, rectangular boxes….I used to point with pride to how inexpensively I could get those projects to come in,” he said. “Today, it’s gone full circle. We have to compete with 48-inch televisions and cable and stereo sound at home. We have to make our theater a more interesting experience.” And the payout was there as the opening week gross for opening film “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade” was $145,000, a new Dallas record by almost 50% over the previous single-theater mark. Not resting on its laurels, the theater installed a Cinema Digital Sound System for the 70mm presentation of “Edward Scissorhands” in 1990; it was the only theater outside of New York or Los Angeles with the 5.1 disc-based system.
Theaters which took it on the chin in the C-Zone were the Caruth Plaza which shuttered, the Medallion which was downgraded to discount house and the former UA 150 roadshow turned UA Ciné art house. The Skillman theater would also suffer at the hands of the Plaza and, moreso, the UA Galaxy six years later. Theater staffs at the Glen Lakes, NorthParks and UA theaters were all coached well and moved hundreds of people briskly but with attention when they visited any of the zone’s theaters.
The 1994 opening of “The Firm” had the largest box office take in the United States at the Plaza in its opening week and the same was said to be true of “Clear and Present Danger.” In a two year stretch, Dallas would add 175 screens but the UA Plaza just kept going. It played a 31-hour run of Independence Day on July ¾, 1996. The marathon sold $31,000 in tickets at the Plaza in just the first 10 hours. One patron went for five showings including the 4:30 a.m. show.
But the Plaza shuttered restaurants on its first floor as the decade of the 90s continued. Drew Pearson’s 88 restaurant, Vincent’s Seafood were casualties. The General Cinema’s North Park complexes left the area in 1998. Then entertainment places within the Plaza’s first floor boarded up thereafter including the Virtual World gaming center, the Q-Zar arcade, and even United Artists’ own motion theater. The parking complex was so underutilized — generally deserted on weekdays — that the Dallas Area Rapid Transit would use it as remote parking for light rail users. The once vibrant video wall had badly color matched monitors and many monitors had simply flatlined. The two-sided wall became a poorly functioning single sided wall. Three snack bars of the four were permanently closed. Even the iconic first-floor box office was closed on most nights as tickets were sold at the snack bar. And the attraction board on the access road was often out of order. As such, the first part of the 21st Century wasn’t kind to the Plaza with Regal taking on the UA circuit in bankruptcy. Regal was obviously not in a position to spend any money on the property. When the AMC NorthPark 15 was announced, the Plaza was already sensing doom. Theaters lacking stadium seating were in collapse and the Regal shut the UA Plaza theater on Sunday December 5, 2004. The theater’s fall from grace was such that few came to see the last day’s features. The theater complex was converted into a church within a year which continued into the 2010s.
When Trammell Crow leased a space to AMC to build a new eight-screen theater in the lucrative Central Zone of Dallas film exhibition, the battle lines had been crossed. AMC had been a peripheral player in the Dallas market with nondescript multiplexes in outer Dallas neighborhoods. But to build adjoining Crow’s Glen Lakes Tower in a tight two-acre spot within the Central Zone was quite another thing entirely. While it had just landed in the periphery of the Zone when it took over the boutique neighborhood Highland Park Village theater, the AMC NorthPark was going to be the chain’s destination theater. Everyone knew it was movie theater war. Within weeks of the AMC project starting, United Artists was completing terms on a tract of land to build its own multiplex walking distance from the AMC NorthPark. They were both trying to unseat General Cinemas which, itself, had all but done in the Plitt/Interstate theaters which had dominated the Dallas marketplace for decades.
The AMC NorthPark was completed a bit ahead of schedule with a November 10th, 1988, champagne buffet and premiere screening of A Cry in the Dark benefiting Dallas Cares, an AIDS support group. The theater opened to the general public a day later. Two of the eight auditoriums seated 500 patrons and two more seated 400 each. Those four theaters were stadium-style seating which was supposedly one of the first five theaters in the country to have that many stadium seating houses in the same complex. Seating capacity in the sloped seating theaters ranged from 200 to 300 seats. The theaters had Sigma Torus Compound Curved Screens and AMC would brand the theaters as High Impact Theater Systems or HITS. (Obviously unimpressed, it didn’t take long for the neighboring General Cinema NorthPark to move the S to the front of that acronym for its disparaging take on its new competitor to the North.)
The bidding competition would heat up for the top films and AMC would change the name of its theater away from the NorthPark and to the Glen Lakes when a hue and cry was raised. A backroom settlement was reached between GCC an AMC which had the theater renamed as the Glen Lakes less than two months into its run. (Similarly, the planned UA NorthPark would become the Plaza upon its opening in May 1989.) Said an AMC ad upon its name change in January 1989, “So you won’t be confused when searching for the best.” Sell-out signs were common on weekends at the Glen Lakes. Traffic was tough around the theater in its hey day. Veteran AMC Glen Lakes goers had their own traffic routes to get to the theater. Some were patient and got in the line on the theater’s main entrance on the US-75 access road, others took the “secret” back entrance behind the Crow building, some through the Toys ‘r’ Us parking structure and then there was the Walnut Hill “overshoot” method north of the theater which wrapped around between the neighboring apartment complex and Toys ‘r’ Us.
Perhaps most impressive about the AMC Glen Lakes was its wide concession stand that had multiple positions with popcorn popping constantly and a team of workers who had to deal with massive lines of people quickly and graciously. In the Central Zone, employees had to bring their A-game. In the carnage of the new AMC Glen Lakes and the UA Plaza opening six months later were the shuttered Caruth Plaza, the downgrading of the UA Medallion to discount status, the UA Ciné’s move to full time art house and the UA’s Skillman’s large dropoff to the North of the Central Zone.
The Glen Lakes multi-screen environment allowed for special event screenings. It hosted USA Film Festival events for many years and including personal appearances by stars including Jackie Chan, Christopher Walken, Cyd Charisse, and Dennis Hopper and directors including Peter Bogdanovich, Sydney Pollack, and John Frankenheimer. Classic screenings, sneak previews and even a Russian film festival graced the Glen Lakes' screens. A Star Trek convention event midnight screening of “Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country” drew a full house of Trekkies who met Nichelle Nichols (Uhura) on the film’s opening night.
The Glen Lakes out-survived the General Cinema NorthPark which closed In October 1998 and the UA Plaza which closed in December of 2004. AMC had won the larger prize decimating (then buying the carcass of) General Cinema and all but eliminating United Artists in Dallas. The metroplex had become largely an AMC and Cinemark area. For AMC, the Glen Lakes was the catalyst of its aggressive and successful expansion. But over at the Glen Lakes, euphoria over such factoids would be tempered as AMC had already announced a new AMC NorthPark 15 theater to go inside the venerable shopping mall even prior to the Plaza’s departure. The writing was on the wall for the badly-aging Glen Lakes. The challenging AMC NorthPark project would finally open on May 5, 2006 at midnight leaving the AMC Glen Lakes in the dust as of May 4, 2006: the theater’s final screenings shy of its 18th anniversary. The property would become home to Dave and Buster’s which moved from its old location just across the street.
The David Rockwell architected Loews Keystone opened at midnight March 21, 1997 during the height of the megaplex boom with showings of Selena and Liar Liar. The project was announced within weeks of the sister cinema to the south, Sony’s Loews Cityplace. But the Keystone’s stadium seating would keep the property viable well past the Cityplace’s demolition in 2008. The 16-plex boasted 80,000 square feet with 4,000 seats ranging from 100 to 500 seats. The screen size ranged from 17.6' x 31' to 25.6' by 49'.
Sony was all about synergy in the 1990s and incorporated Sony Dynamic Digital Sound 5.1 systems in each auditorium including 7.1 in the largest. The theater’s concession stand sold expanded items like fries, chicken tenders and buffalo wings and had an ice cream area for a period to expand past traditional popcorn, hot dogs and nachos.
But in 2006, AMC acquired Loews Cineplex and with AMC turning its attention to the nearby and higher-end all stadium-seating NorthPark 15 and AMC Valley View properties, the Keystone and other Loews properties were in jeopardy. While AMC prized some of the Sony/Loews locations in other cities the same could not be said for its Dallas-area portfolio. AMC would close the Loews Cityplace, the Loews Cinemas 20 & 287 in Arlington, and the Loews City View in Fort Worth after the merger but the Keystone was the chain’s first casualty as it was forced to sell the Loews Keystone Park before the merger could be finalized. Regal became the operator of the theater.
If AMC was ambivalent toward the Keystone, Regal seemed to have an operational malaise looking to wring anything it could from the property. The chain guided the Keystone to its unceremonious closure after its brief two year effort. Reduced price rush hour shows represented the most innovative part of the Regal Keystone operation. The theater closed following shows on October 17, 2010 with contents quickly removed. Regal’s lasting contribution to the Keystone could be found in door signage from the property owner detailing the operator’s non-payment on the lease and changed key / forced lockout. The theater was boarded up not long after the less than regal operation.
But the theater was given love from its next owner, the Studio Movie Grill which continued operation in the redecorated and reinvigorated Studio Movie Grill Spring Valley which opened October 12, 2012 with special screenings. Some thought it odd that SMG would open so close to its very successful SMG Royal just four exits to the South adjoining its headquarters. But SMG Spring Valley was opened to blunt the announced openings of the nearby Look Cinema and the even closer Alamo Movie Drafthouse in Addison just one exit to the North on Central Expressway. While the line in the sand had been drawn and booking competition returning to the area, it wasn’t clear which theater would have the upper hand as the 2010s continued.
When Rosebud Properties built the 14-screen Loews Cityplace, it was actually constructing the last non-stadium seating theater in Dallas. As noted by a number of commenters, this property was identical to many Sony properties which followed but the chain said this was the prototype for those theaters. Many theaters which were similar to it, including the nearby Loews Keystone Park project announced just a month after the Cityplace opening, would, however, include stadium seating. The 11-acre theater cost almost $10 million and was built in place of the former Neiman-Marcus warehouse facing the Target complex which, itself, had opened the prior year. Opening with fifty cent preview shows from December 15-18, 1995 (Sony’s Forget Paris, First Knight, The Indian in the Cupboard, The Net, and non Sony French Kiss, Batman Forever, Die Hard 3, Apollo 13, Dangerous Minds, Clueless, Mortal Kombat, Free Willy 2 and Species) and with a grand opening Dec. 22, 1995 (including Sony’s Jumanji, and Dracula: Dead and Loving It, as well as Grumpier Old Men, Heat, Cutthroat Island, Sabrina, Tom & Huck, Toy Story, Balto, Sudden Death, Cutthroat Island, Waiting to Exhale Father of the Bride Part II), the Loews Cityplace was underway.
1995 was the start of the megaplex boom and Cityplace was the last of the megaplexes in DFW to open that year preceded by the AMC Grand 24, the Cinemark 17, the Cinemark Grapevine Tinseltown 17 and the UA Grand Prairie 10 among them. Its auditoriums ranged from a low end 184-seater to the larger 525-seat theaters with about 4,000 overall seats. As a Sony property, the theater was all about synergy: it trumpeted its 5.1 Sony Dynamic Digital Sound (SDDS) system, gave away Sony music cassettes at the opening, offered prize packages with Sony home theater gear and Sony TVs, Sony Walkmans, Sony 8mm camcorders, featured virtually all of Sony/Columbia/TriStar films released, and claimed to be the first theater in Dallas to display 7.1 SDDS. The Cityplace was the first theater in inner-city Dallas since the opening of the O’Neill West End Cinema and the Cityplace siphoned what little business the West End was getting until that theater’s closure in August 2001.
But in 2006, AMC acquired Loews Cineplex and with AMC turning its attention to the nearby and higher-end all stadium-seating NorthPark 15 and with competition from the nearby art houses Landmark Magnolia and Angelika Film Center Dallas, the Cityplace and other Loews properties were in jeopardy. A sign of the times for the area occurred when a car rammed through the window of the theater after it closed and the made off with one item: the theater’s ATM banking unit.
AMC loved some of the Sony/Loews locations in other cities but not so much its Dallas-area portfolio. AMC would close the Loews Cityplace, the Loews Cinemas 20 & 287 in Arlington, and the Loews City View in Fort Worth after the merger and was forced to sell the Loews Keystone Park before the merger could be finalized (it was sold to Regal). Officially, the Loews Cityplace closed forever January 6, 2008 and the theater was bulldozed shortly thereafter as was the Loews 20 & 287. Rosebud Properties owned the Cityplace theater property and had sold it to a developer which turned the space into apartments and retail including an L.A. Fitness. The 12 year plus 3 week lifespan seemed too brief to many who lived near the theater which was still in fairly nice condition upon closure.
The $18 million AMC Grand was built by Entertainment Properties Trust (EPT) in a warehouse district of Dallas not far from what was once considered restaurant row. The 24-screen megaplex revolutionized theater business and inspired 24+ screen movie theater in urban markets around the nation. Expecting 1.5 million customers its first year, the Grand doubled its clientele. So successful was the concept that four “Gourmet Cinema” auditoriums playing independent and foreign films and one screen playing interactive Interfilm Technology releases such as “Ride For Your Life” were quickly repurposed as additional screens for blockbuster, multi-screen releases within just three weeks of the complex’s opening. AMC knew it had a blockbuster, itself, in the Grand concept.
The 85,000 square foot theater bucked the DFW trend by General Cinema to simply add a multiplex near the footprint of another successful multiplex as they had at Redbird Mall, Town East Mall, Richardson, Irving Mall, Carollton, and others in the area. The Grand’s stadium seating in all 24 houses, multichannel audio in all houses, and 13-acres of exclusive parking with valet was a destination finding people driving as much as an hour to come to that theater. With showings in the early morning and shows into the late hours, patrons likely showed up without paying close attention to the showtimes for the opening weekend of a smash hit. AMC replicated the success in DFW with the 30-screen Mesquite, 30-screen Grapevine Mills, and 24-screen Stonebriar. Meanwhile, 10-16 screen plexes opened all over the metro area by operators including AMC, United Artists, and Cinemark which along with the 24+ screen theaters would blunt the destination status of the Grand.
The uniqueness of the Grand was gone and the momentum of restaurants hopping across to the area and having success was on the downward slope as the first decade of the 2000s was closing. Restaurants and nightspots near the Grand were closing and restaurant row was in retreat, as well. The Grand’s parking lot was often virtually empty on weekdays and the writing was on the wall for the property. EPT had built 95 other megaplexes built during the ‘plex boom period but suffered its first non-renewal when AMC decided to walk away from the Grand as its 15-year lease lapsed. Almost unthinkable ten years earlier that this significant theater could have fallen so far so fast, but it was true. On Halloween 2010, AMC said “trick” and no treat closing up shop hastily. Its lease officially lapsed at the end of November as it carted its possessions away.
EPT found a new operator in Southern Cinemas who shockingly decided to spend millions of dollars to re-tool a portion of the space as the downsized 14-screen AmStar Grand Theatre 14. And almost equally shocking was that another person thought that a Toby Keith’s I Love This Bar & Grill would thrive in the other section of the complex. Southern Cinemas found Grand Opening festivities ominous as employees in tuxedos and security guards well outnumbered patrons with many of the advertised shows simply not playing on the second day of the Grand grand re-opening celebration. Things didn’t ever improve as the theater – despite high technology and dependable presentation – was a quick casualty limping badly to a two-year ending. A challenging environment for the once-king of the Dallas box office. Further, the theater housed the area’s only motion-controlled seating with its D-Box installation so Dallas/Fort Worth was motion-seat-less, to boot. Toby Keith’s Bar was also a casualty closing at the end of 2013 despite signs indicating that a re-opening was possible.
Surprisingly, Studio Movie Grill decided to take a stab at rekindling the magic quickly retrofitting the EPT Grand property as a dining-experience theater and opening just months later on December 16, 2013. The Studio Movie Grill Northwest Highway was hoping to somehow buck the trend of a faded cinema treasure location.