In October, 1916 the Hippodrome…or Hip…was showing the influential Italian-made spectacular Cabiria by Giovanni Pastrone. It had opened in New York in 1914. It may have already played elsewhere in Providence too. Anyway, the ad proclaimed: 2200 seats at 10 cents.
Here is a newspaper ad and ticket order form for the Elmwood’s roadshow engagement of Around the World in 80 Days, which began October 10, 1956. Marvel at the “advanced” prices.
Here is a newspaper ad for opening day at the Avon Cinema, February 15, 1938. The film Life and Loves of Beethoven was the French film by Abel Gance, Un grand amour de Beethoven, made in 1936. The Avon was opened in the old Toy Theatre building, not previously used as a theatre since 1916…as far as we now know. Note the admission prices from 25 cents to 65 cents.
After having been known as the Victory for about sixteen years, the theatre re-opened on August 2, 1936 as the Empire. Some extensive renovations, in and out, had been done to the place and cost, according to a newspaper ad, over $35,000. The theatre saw a new marquee, new booth equipment, refurbished plumbing, new upholstery and drapery, rugs, linoleum, attendants' uniforms. The first program in the theatre’s incarnation as the Empire was Let’s Sing Again and The Ex-Mrs. Bradford. Admission prices ranged from 15 cents to 30 cents. The ad boasted of Alaskan Air air-conditioning system and a new sound system. The theatre was under new local management and was part of the local chain, Associated Theatres, Inc. of R.I. Doors opened daily at 10 A.M. The theatre, opposite the Shepard Company department store, would shut down thirteen years later and be razed to create another downtown department store, W. T . Grant’s.
Article in The Providence Journal, exactly one year later on November 2, 1916 when the theatre was being sold:
TOY THEATRE MAY CHANGE HANDS IN NEXT FEW WEEKS
Members of The Players and Others Interested
An amateur theatre and gymnasiums will probably be established in this city within a few months. An option has already been taken on the Toy Theatre property on Thayer Street by a committee which is considering the matter.
Members of The Players, of the gymnasium class, which formerly met in the Talma Theatre* and representatives of Brown University are all interested in the project. Several plans have been broached, but the matter has finally narrowed down to two, one the purchase of the Toy Theatre, and the other the erection of a building on the Brown Campus.
It is the consensus of opinion of the committee that, with the close of the Talma Theatre, the last place where amateur theatricals can be given on a regular stage was gone, the only houses left being the down-town professional structures which would allow productions only for a week at a time.
Moreover the East Side is without gymnasium facilities of any kind. It is believed that the project can be put through, so that the Toy Theatre can be utilized for a theatre and for a gymnasium, including the installation of a swimming pool.
[Poster’s notes: It remains unclear what exactly happened to the Toy Theatre building between the years 1916 until the place opened as the Avon Cinema in February, 1938. Many say it was an automotive garage. The current management is doubtful of that. Further research may bring more information to light.
*The Talma Theatre referred to in the newspaper piece was located on South Main Street at the corner of Power Street, across Power from what is today the Cable Car Cinema. It was later demolished. and The Players moved in 1932 into what is now known as Barker Playhouse on lower Benefit Street.]
Toy Theatre, 1915-1916. The Avon, in its first incarnation
Article in The Providence Journal, November 2, 1915:
TOY THEATRE OF EAST SIDE OPENS ITS DOORS
Large Audience Attend First Public Performances
The Toy Theatre, at the corner of Thayer and Meeting Streets, opened its doors to the public yesterday [November 1, 1915] with two performances. Both were largely attended, and several features of decoration, lighting and seating arrangement caused considerable favorable comment. A private exhibition of “The Battle Cry of the Republic” was given in the theatre Sunday evening.
The principal picture shown at the initial public performance was “In the Palace of the King,” a dramatization of the novel of the same name by F. Marion Crawford. “Broncho Billy Begins Life Anew,” “The Animated Grouch Chaser,” a series of humorous motion cartoons, and the Pathe current events were the other pictures shown.
The front of the floor of the theatre is composed of reserved seats, and the rear part is divided into 10 loges, containing eight seats each, and separated from each other by brass rails. Seats are reserved for the evening performances until 8:15, when the show starts. The ventilation system, worked by large suction pumps and motors, kept the air in the hall remarkably fresh and temperate throughout the performances.
A number of American flags, draped effectively in semi-circles beneath the mural decorative painting and pictures of dramatic stars in the rear wall of the theatre, are both artistic and in good taste. The theatre is lighted by inverted clusters of bulbs in huge brass holders underneath which smaller frosted lights are attached. The color scheme of the body of the theatre and the lobby is an effective combination of yellow and purple.
The following comments were sent to me by Fred Deusch, who in the 1940s was a young usher and doorman and bus-and-trolley barker for the Metropolitan:
“I went through the book Temples of Illusion yesterday. Quite interesting. I liked the story about Jake Conn. In it Brett lists the Met as being owned by Associated Theatres. He also lists a manager I didn’t know. I started there in 1947 and it was run by Ralph E. Snyder (not sure of Snyder spelling) and the house manager was James E. Randall, when the Met closed Randall went to the Palace and then to the Elmwood when Todd-AO came in. The manager at the Park was Charles Nelson. The Pawtucket Fairlawn was owned by Dorothy Fisher and run by her son Harry Fisher. The Avon, Castle, Hope/Cinerama and Liberty/Art were owned by Lockwood & Gordon but these were later sold to someone else.
It’s interesting to see how Roger Brett saw the Met from the backstage side and I saw it from the front side. I only remember two regular stagehands there. On Tuesday nights they both worked in order to later the marquee. Outside of that we never saw the stage hands in the front end of the theatre. I assume when the big musicals and shows came in additional stage hands were also brought in to work. Again, they would use the stage entrance instead of the front entrance. There were also two firemen at the Met one was named Tony and the other was Art. Together they handled the nighttime cleaning of the theatre. Special art work for stage show signs and the marquee ends came from a sign shop on Richmond Street in the Loew’s Theatre building. Two gentlemen ran the shop one being Ernie the Frenchman. Funny, last names never entered the picture. I don’t ever remember a parking garage being a part of the Met. In fact I don’t remember any parking garage. There were a couple of stores to the left of the Chestnut entrance, one being a music store. There was also a radio station on the top floor of the building. I think it might have been WHIM.
“Being the only theatre without air conditioning it was mighty hot in the summer. Our uniforms were made of quite heavy material. Trying to beat the heat I bought some cardboard shirtfronts. These were worse than regular shirts. In true teenager fashion I took a couple of regular shirts and cut away everything but the collar and front. This helped somewhat but sent the man at the Chinese laundry on Broad Street tearing his hair out. He thought I was totally crazy. In the winter I had the barking duties at the Broad Street entrance. I would be out there from 1:00 PM until about 8:00 PM. Frozen feet were the order of the day.”
I was told by someone who worked here occasionally as a projectionist that the projection booth was actually a room that jutted out from the rear of the building as though it were an attachment. I thought this might be a way of “containing” any fire that might have started with highly flammable nitrate film, because the booth was apart from the rest of the theatre. The Capitol Theatre in Worcester (later called the Paris) was like this. In fact a photo I took of the protruding booth at the Capitol can be seen on that page in a posting of mine.
I visited this theatre on April 21, 1992 for two films in separate auditoriums. One was Europa, elsewhere named Zentropa. The other was the Academy Award winning Italian movie Mediterraneo.
When the Cinerama Theatre was twinned, two pleasant and not too tiny auditoriums resulted, since the original theatre was fairly wide, and the screens were substantially sized too. One oddity, though, was that they did not change the positioning on the seats. The result was that in the left auditorium the arc of the rows of seats curved forward toward the left, while in the right auditorium they curved forward to the right, as though the place were still one big auditorium with a wall down the center from front to rear.
It was not the best location for an art house, despite the excellent programs when it was one. Sex did what “art” couldn’t. Not that they couldn’t overlap. Agnes Varda’s Le Bonheur had a six-month or more run in the Studio Cinema upstairs.
I was here only once, on August 21, 1992, to see Brian De Palma’s Raising Cain. Here is an “obituary” by Clark Humphrey that appeared in a column in the paper The Stranger in 2002:
“The United Artists Cinemas 70/150 at Sixth and Blanchard was finally demolished on November 15, four years after the United Artists (UA) chain abandoned its only Seattle branch. The twin-cinema (Seattle’s first) was built in 1962 to exploit two of the postwar film business' big-screen fads, 70 mm and Dimension 150. The 70/150 had its most famous moment as the local first-run home for the original Star Wars in 1977 (at the height of the film’s popularity, the movie ran there 24 hours a day). In the mid-‘80s, the UA chain leased the house to local operators, who briefly renamed it the Seattle Cinedome (no relation to the national Iwerks CineDome chain). UA retook operation of the 70/150 in 1992, operating it for six years as a discount house with midnight cult-film screenings. For its final demise, workers put up one final title on its long-empty marquee: DEMOLITION MAN.”
Newspaper ad for Esquire Theatres in Rhode Island on December 7, 1971.
Newspaper ad for Esquire Theatres in Rhode Island on December 7, 1971.
Newspaper ad for Esquire Theatres in Rhode Island on December 7, 1971.
Newspaper ad for Esquire Theatres in Rhode Island on December 7, 1971.
Newspaper ad for Esquire Theatres in Rhode Island on December 7, 1971.
Newspaper ad for Esquire Theatres in Rhode Island on December 7, 1971.
Here’s the opening day ad for the Art Cinema, Januray 8, 1958.
In October, 1916 the Hippodrome…or Hip…was showing the influential Italian-made spectacular Cabiria by Giovanni Pastrone. It had opened in New York in 1914. It may have already played elsewhere in Providence too. Anyway, the ad proclaimed: 2200 seats at 10 cents.
Here is a newspaper ad and ticket order form for the Elmwood’s roadshow engagement of Around the World in 80 Days, which began October 10, 1956. Marvel at the “advanced” prices.
Here is a newspaper ad for opening day at the Avon Cinema, February 15, 1938. The film Life and Loves of Beethoven was the French film by Abel Gance, Un grand amour de Beethoven, made in 1936. The Avon was opened in the old Toy Theatre building, not previously used as a theatre since 1916…as far as we now know. Note the admission prices from 25 cents to 65 cents.
After having been known as the Victory for about sixteen years, the theatre re-opened on August 2, 1936 as the Empire. Some extensive renovations, in and out, had been done to the place and cost, according to a newspaper ad, over $35,000. The theatre saw a new marquee, new booth equipment, refurbished plumbing, new upholstery and drapery, rugs, linoleum, attendants' uniforms. The first program in the theatre’s incarnation as the Empire was Let’s Sing Again and The Ex-Mrs. Bradford. Admission prices ranged from 15 cents to 30 cents. The ad boasted of Alaskan Air air-conditioning system and a new sound system. The theatre was under new local management and was part of the local chain, Associated Theatres, Inc. of R.I. Doors opened daily at 10 A.M. The theatre, opposite the Shepard Company department store, would shut down thirteen years later and be razed to create another downtown department store, W. T . Grant’s.
Newspaper ad for the Toy Theatre, from December, 1915.
Article in The Providence Journal, exactly one year later on November 2, 1916 when the theatre was being sold:
TOY THEATRE MAY CHANGE HANDS IN NEXT FEW WEEKS
Members of The Players and Others Interested
An amateur theatre and gymnasiums will probably be established in this city within a few months. An option has already been taken on the Toy Theatre property on Thayer Street by a committee which is considering the matter.
Members of The Players, of the gymnasium class, which formerly met in the Talma Theatre* and representatives of Brown University are all interested in the project. Several plans have been broached, but the matter has finally narrowed down to two, one the purchase of the Toy Theatre, and the other the erection of a building on the Brown Campus.
It is the consensus of opinion of the committee that, with the close of the Talma Theatre, the last place where amateur theatricals can be given on a regular stage was gone, the only houses left being the down-town professional structures which would allow productions only for a week at a time.
Moreover the East Side is without gymnasium facilities of any kind. It is believed that the project can be put through, so that the Toy Theatre can be utilized for a theatre and for a gymnasium, including the installation of a swimming pool.
[Poster’s notes: It remains unclear what exactly happened to the Toy Theatre building between the years 1916 until the place opened as the Avon Cinema in February, 1938. Many say it was an automotive garage. The current management is doubtful of that. Further research may bring more information to light.
*The Talma Theatre referred to in the newspaper piece was located on South Main Street at the corner of Power Street, across Power from what is today the Cable Car Cinema. It was later demolished. and The Players moved in 1932 into what is now known as Barker Playhouse on lower Benefit Street.]
Toy Theatre, 1915-1916. The Avon, in its first incarnation
Article in The Providence Journal, November 2, 1915:
TOY THEATRE OF EAST SIDE OPENS ITS DOORS
Large Audience Attend First Public Performances
The Toy Theatre, at the corner of Thayer and Meeting Streets, opened its doors to the public yesterday [November 1, 1915] with two performances. Both were largely attended, and several features of decoration, lighting and seating arrangement caused considerable favorable comment. A private exhibition of “The Battle Cry of the Republic” was given in the theatre Sunday evening.
The principal picture shown at the initial public performance was “In the Palace of the King,” a dramatization of the novel of the same name by F. Marion Crawford. “Broncho Billy Begins Life Anew,” “The Animated Grouch Chaser,” a series of humorous motion cartoons, and the Pathe current events were the other pictures shown.
The front of the floor of the theatre is composed of reserved seats, and the rear part is divided into 10 loges, containing eight seats each, and separated from each other by brass rails. Seats are reserved for the evening performances until 8:15, when the show starts. The ventilation system, worked by large suction pumps and motors, kept the air in the hall remarkably fresh and temperate throughout the performances.
A number of American flags, draped effectively in semi-circles beneath the mural decorative painting and pictures of dramatic stars in the rear wall of the theatre, are both artistic and in good taste. The theatre is lighted by inverted clusters of bulbs in huge brass holders underneath which smaller frosted lights are attached. The color scheme of the body of the theatre and the lobby is an effective combination of yellow and purple.
James E. Randall was the manager at the Elmwood when Todd-AO came in in 1956. He had previously worked at the Metropolitan and the Palace.
The manager at the Park in the 1950s was Charles Nelson.
In the 1940s, I am told, the Pawtucket Fairlawn was owned by Dorothy Fisher and run by her son Harry Fisher.
The following comments were sent to me by Fred Deusch, who in the 1940s was a young usher and doorman and bus-and-trolley barker for the Metropolitan:
“I went through the book Temples of Illusion yesterday. Quite interesting. I liked the story about Jake Conn. In it Brett lists the Met as being owned by Associated Theatres. He also lists a manager I didn’t know. I started there in 1947 and it was run by Ralph E. Snyder (not sure of Snyder spelling) and the house manager was James E. Randall, when the Met closed Randall went to the Palace and then to the Elmwood when Todd-AO came in. The manager at the Park was Charles Nelson. The Pawtucket Fairlawn was owned by Dorothy Fisher and run by her son Harry Fisher. The Avon, Castle, Hope/Cinerama and Liberty/Art were owned by Lockwood & Gordon but these were later sold to someone else.
It’s interesting to see how Roger Brett saw the Met from the backstage side and I saw it from the front side. I only remember two regular stagehands there. On Tuesday nights they both worked in order to later the marquee. Outside of that we never saw the stage hands in the front end of the theatre. I assume when the big musicals and shows came in additional stage hands were also brought in to work. Again, they would use the stage entrance instead of the front entrance. There were also two firemen at the Met one was named Tony and the other was Art. Together they handled the nighttime cleaning of the theatre. Special art work for stage show signs and the marquee ends came from a sign shop on Richmond Street in the Loew’s Theatre building. Two gentlemen ran the shop one being Ernie the Frenchman. Funny, last names never entered the picture. I don’t ever remember a parking garage being a part of the Met. In fact I don’t remember any parking garage. There were a couple of stores to the left of the Chestnut entrance, one being a music store. There was also a radio station on the top floor of the building. I think it might have been WHIM.
“Being the only theatre without air conditioning it was mighty hot in the summer. Our uniforms were made of quite heavy material. Trying to beat the heat I bought some cardboard shirtfronts. These were worse than regular shirts. In true teenager fashion I took a couple of regular shirts and cut away everything but the collar and front. This helped somewhat but sent the man at the Chinese laundry on Broad Street tearing his hair out. He thought I was totally crazy. In the winter I had the barking duties at the Broad Street entrance. I would be out there from 1:00 PM until about 8:00 PM. Frozen feet were the order of the day.”
I was told by someone who worked here occasionally as a projectionist that the projection booth was actually a room that jutted out from the rear of the building as though it were an attachment. I thought this might be a way of “containing” any fire that might have started with highly flammable nitrate film, because the booth was apart from the rest of the theatre. The Capitol Theatre in Worcester (later called the Paris) was like this. In fact a photo I took of the protruding booth at the Capitol can be seen on that page in a posting of mine.
I visited this theatre on April 21, 1992 for two films in separate auditoriums. One was Europa, elsewhere named Zentropa. The other was the Academy Award winning Italian movie Mediterraneo.
When the Cinerama Theatre was twinned, two pleasant and not too tiny auditoriums resulted, since the original theatre was fairly wide, and the screens were substantially sized too. One oddity, though, was that they did not change the positioning on the seats. The result was that in the left auditorium the arc of the rows of seats curved forward toward the left, while in the right auditorium they curved forward to the right, as though the place were still one big auditorium with a wall down the center from front to rear.
It was not the best location for an art house, despite the excellent programs when it was one. Sex did what “art” couldn’t. Not that they couldn’t overlap. Agnes Varda’s Le Bonheur had a six-month or more run in the Studio Cinema upstairs.
The Strand was still open in 1962. An October program was I Thank a Fool with Fear No More.
I was here only once, on August 21, 1992, to see Brian De Palma’s Raising Cain. Here is an “obituary” by Clark Humphrey that appeared in a column in the paper The Stranger in 2002:
“The United Artists Cinemas 70/150 at Sixth and Blanchard was finally demolished on November 15, four years after the United Artists (UA) chain abandoned its only Seattle branch. The twin-cinema (Seattle’s first) was built in 1962 to exploit two of the postwar film business' big-screen fads, 70 mm and Dimension 150. The 70/150 had its most famous moment as the local first-run home for the original Star Wars in 1977 (at the height of the film’s popularity, the movie ran there 24 hours a day). In the mid-‘80s, the UA chain leased the house to local operators, who briefly renamed it the Seattle Cinedome (no relation to the national Iwerks CineDome chain). UA retook operation of the 70/150 in 1992, operating it for six years as a discount house with midnight cult-film screenings. For its final demise, workers put up one final title on its long-empty marquee: DEMOLITION MAN.”
Nice recollection! Almost as good as being inside, which you’ve done and I haven’t.