The 755-seat Plaza Theatre at 3806 McKinney at Haskell and McKinney was built in 1948 and appears to have first opened on January 22, 1949. It was operated by M.S. White, veteran of Dallas movie theater operation including such theaters as the White Theater and Dal-Sec Theater. Playing suburban fare to small audiences and unprofitability, White closed the theater following the August 31, 1953 double feature of “Desert Rats” and “Beast from 20,000 Fathoms.” Television was cited as one of the main culprits identified for the lack of business at the location.
The Plaza got second life when it was reopened Sept. 23, 1954 under the operation of the Lagow Theater’s Ruth Wafford and J.T. Orr. The opening attraction was “Knock on Wood.” Every Saturday children got free popcorn and every Thursday was gift night. In 1956, the theater would try to mix in more art films beginning with Orson Wells' “Othello” in May of 1956. The concept was 47 years too soon as Landmark’s Magnolia Theater would emulate the concept more successfully just blocks away from where The Plaza once stood. Advertisements ceased in May of 1959 as the theater limped to a close after just about ten years of operation.
Called a nonproductive property, tired, and abandoned, the Plaza got a $150,000 upgrade designed by Architect Joe Gordon in 1964 after being empty for years and became Haskell Plaza ending its future as a cinema treasure. It was bulldozed and as of the 2010s, it was a mixed use retail and loft building in the Uptown business district.
The Wheatley Theater was located in the Wheatley Shopping Center and opened for business on February 8, 1950. E.J. Jobe was the owner and had an all African American staff. The $85,000 theater was billed as the first deluxe theater in Dallas for the African American community. The 550-seat theater sported blue and gold drapes, modern projection, five changes of bill per week with a weekly Saturday midnight ramble among its features.
The New Maple Theatre was a $125,000 theater plus retail project architected by Raymond F. Smith at 5206 Maple which broke ground in August of 1945. Operated by legendary booker Forrest White of In-Dex Booking Services and M.K. McDaniel, the 850-seat stadium theater’s manager was J.D. Hillhouse who had previously been with the Interstate Circuit. The New Maple launched with private screening of “Two Sisters from Boston on April 4, 1946 just one day after the original Maple Theater also under White and McDaniel had ended its run a block away at 5319 Maple. A public opening was held April 5, 1946 at 5206 Maple with Errol Flynn’s “San Antonio.” But it was the theater’s successful rebranding at the end of its life in the late 1950s and closure in June 1960 for which it is much better known.
The theater operated as a suburban house with double features sometimes advertised with “new” for most of its movie exhibition run into the late 1950s. As the industry was changing toward event films, the Maple soldiered on with double features until the feasibility was no longer possible. Much as the Lawn Theatre in Dallas had done earlier in the decade, the Maple decided to make an arrangement to host live stage plays which was a more lucrative trend in that era. And they hit a winner getting Margo Jones productions and the Maple Theatre Company, as well. The Margo Jones productions turned the sleepy suburban into a lively space.
The New Maple Theatre was becoming so established that the “new” was finally dropped from ads and would be part of a marketplace concept known briefly as Fleetwood Square. The Maple Theater would be incorporated at the central point of the Fleetwood Square’s ambitious expansion. The live theater groups were so emboldened by Edmund G. Peterson’s plan to build a $3 million market center encompassing the Maple at its center that they spent a great deal of time and effort truly converting the movie house to a live stage facility in 1959. But when a competing and similar plan by Trammell Crow was announced for a market center, Peterson and Crow merged their ideas into the Dallas Market Center which was built nearby. But the Maple was bulldozed in favor of an ambitious apartment complex with retail space. The actual position of the theatre was taken by a successful Japanese restaurant. The last production in the new Maple Theater was “Mr. Wonderful” that ended its run June of 1960. The live theater groups would have to find new homes but the Maple Theater’s short life had provided a needed spark to live theater in Dallas that continued onward.
The Maple Theater was located at 5319 Maple. It was run by R.H. Clemmons who ran the Sunset Theater. He sold the theater in favor of the Arcadia in April of 1938. It sold to legendary booker Forrest White of In-Dex Booking Services and M.K. McDaniel. It suffered a minor fire in July of 1940 that didn’t effect operations. However, White and McDaniel would build a new theater just after the War to replace the aging complex.
The Maple ended its run on April 3, 1946 with “Lady on a Train” and the New Maple Theater was launched the next night with a special invitation screening at 5206 Maple. The original Maple was up for sale in the classifieds for $18,500 by year’s end. It was purchased an converted into retail space that was still present as of the 2010s.
The Oak Lawn Theater got off to a tough start when the permit to allow the theater to be built was put in turnaround by the Municipal Court of Appeals in 1922. About 100 residents were concerned about the theater being a nuisance and the appeals board agreed. However, the process was eventually turned around and Oak Lawn Amusement Company behind Irving S. Melcher got its permit to build the house at Oak Lawn and Dickason.
The Oak Lawn Theater opened with the feature film, “The Flirt” on August 7, 1923 at 2916 Oak Lawn Avenue to a capacity audience filling its 511 seats despite the lack of a street car line running to it according to reports. Manager Jack Joyce gave out cigars to the men, flowers to the women and balloons to the children. The same amusement company decided to build a second Oak Lawn theater – this one for the sound era – at Oak Lawn and Wycliff avenues. This theater would be a deluxe 1,000 seat suburban house with cryrooms, upholstered chairs and sound devices for the hearing impaired, the first cinema in the South to have the devices.
Melcher would drop the Oak Lawn when the Melrose opened May 15, 1931. The Oak Lawn would become the first exhibitrix run house in Dallas as Mrs. Blanche L. Cutler became Dallas’ first female film exhibitor. It was Cutler’s third theater with two others in Oklahoma City and Bartlesville. It had a new sound system, the first self-rising seats in Texas that allowed the seat to spring upward, a new screen, and Lew White at the organ. The first feature was “The Lawyer’s Secret” on Sept. 1, 1931.
The Oak Lawn Theater was closed and taken over by R.Z. Glass who also was running the Fair Theater and the Knox St. Theater. Glass rebranded it the Lawn Theater on May 3, 1935 opening with “Hi Nellie” with yet another sound system, drapes, projection and screen. The air conditioning system was billed as repaired and would be operational. Glass ran into labor troubles at the Lawn and Knox properties as people hurled stink bombs to protest some labor-related issues.
In 1937, the Interstate Circuit acquired the theater from Glass. The theater installed a Mirrophonic Sound System to be played with “The Great Ziegfield.” But innovation wasn’t enough as reports said that the theater had “ailed economically” in the shadow of the Melrose Theater. Interstate closed the Lawn on January 14, 1939 for an “indefinite” period. Interstate likely was trying to find a new operator for the theater and would reopen later in the year operating just on weekends. With Paul Scott as manager, the theater tried to become a low budget suburban. It installed yet another screen, improved projection, new front, and tried double feature bills at just 15 cents per ticket at all times expanding to seven days a week. Its first bill on April 10, 1940 was “The Flying Deuces” and “The Desperate Trials.”
Interstate decided to reposition the Lawn as an art facility showing art films and repertory films in the late 1940s. In 1949, the Lawn was a shared space allowing legit theater and becoming home to the Edward Rubin Workshop doing live plays. The last films by Interstate didn’t do much business so Interstate closed perhaps with “Topper” just prior to Christmas and leased the Lawn full time Rubin provided that the plays staged were of a “civic and education character.” In 1952, the theater was renamed “The New Playhouse” and revamped for live theater now seating just 272 patrons. That arrangement ended a little more than five years later as the property was chopped into retail establishment by the end of the decade. The name “Oak Lawn Theater” would come back in the 1970s with a theatre space at Pearl Express Way and McKinney.
Deep Ellum became home to African Americans and immigrants at the end of the 19th Century and into the 20th Century. Black-owned business activity occurred along Central Avenue beside the railroad tracks. One of those businesses was started by John “Fat Jack” Harris who opened the Grand Central Theatre at 405 Central Avenue adjoining Swiss Avenue in 1908. Harris booked local and touring acts and mixed in film. By the 1920s, film consumed more of the Grand Central’s week with live acts on the weekends. KSD radio had a regular program of live events in the mid 1920s from the Grand Central. Though the Grand Central catered to African American audiences, Hollywood fare occasionally allowed the theater to be listed in the Dallas Morning News in the 1910s and 1920s. The businesses, railroad tracks, and that portion of Central Avenue were reworked as the city modernized its highways through downtown.
The Peak Theater opened at 1315 N. Peak near Bryan St. in Dallas in 1915 owned by A.D. Bethard with a seating capacity of 600 at opening. During the Depression, the Peak offered free midnight shows for the poor and unemployed. The former owner of the Melrose Theater, P.G. Cameron, purchased the theater Feb. 16, 1935. This would time out to a 20 year lease for the original owner. Cameron updated the theater in 1945 which likely accounts for the additional seat count of 695 cited above. At that time, Cameron’s portfolio also included the Urban and Grove.
The final operator of the theater, Kenneth Ward Crabtree, bought the theater in 1953 at age 26. His last film appears to be the December 16, 1955 showing of “The Kentuckian” and “New Orleans Uncensored.” There are no more bookings or ads for the Peak thereafter. And, unfortunately for the Peak and Crabtree, he was indicted, charged with arson for burning the theater down on Feb. 6, 1956. Investigators found that the theater had been doused in petroleum that — once lit — wrecked the theater which was later demolished as a result. The space was taken by J&J Manufacturing which ironically suffered a catastrophic fire that obliterated the building and left a black smoke path miles long across East Dallas.
The Grove Theater opened in 1937 and got its name from its subdivision of Dallas known as Pleasant Grove. The Roy Starling property was one of three he owned along with the Urban Theater and Mesquite’s Texan Theater. On May 9, 1942, the Grove was purchased by P.G. Cameron who had the Airway and the Peak Theater at that time while selling his Gateway Theater in Fort Worth. But about a year later, on June 21, 1943, the theater was demolished by a fire.
In November, the Grove was started again in a new building. It was refurbished slightly a year later. Charles Wise bought the theater in 1953. Though he was a vice-president of the Phil Isley theater circuit, he ran the Grove as an independent. A safe burglary in 1956 robbing the theater of $987 occurs toward the end of the theater’s life. In 1958, Wise’s independent is enveloped within the Isley Theater Circuit. The theater was closed on October 23, 1958 with the showings of “Wild Heritage” and “Last of the Fast Guns.” That times out to what was likely a 15-year lease. The property was demolished in 1959 and it replaced that same year by a Wrigley’s Grocery Store.
Technically, you could make the case that there were two Haskell Theatres. The first was built in 1921 by J.F. Woerner & Co. The original was in the hands of Paul Scott who also managed the Varsity Theater in University Park. A 1939 fire left the theater in shambles. The New Haskell was a Pettigrew and Worley architected house that was billed as semi-fireproof. Unfortunately, “semi” wasn’t good enough as the “New” Haskell was ravaged by fire in 1951 ending the theater’s namesake after 30 years of use. The theater was repurposed for two businesses. And, of course, it — too — burned not long after its remodeling. And a seven-unit apartment building was built on the property. It, too, suffered a major fire.
After Haskell owner Paul Scott’s establishment of the Varsity, Donald “D.A.” Dickson took over the Haskell not long after in 1932 and ran the theater until its final fire. In 1934, Dickson gave the theater a new marquee, neon theater sign, complete redecoration with new flooring and carpets, and an enlarged balcony. The reopening was July 25, 1934 with “Jimmy The Gent.” In 1938, the Haskell was renovated again with new upholstered seats, RCA high fidelity sound, new projection, and lots of green paint everywhere. “Test Pilot” was the first film for the reappointed theater on August 10, 1938. Just seven months later, a five-alarm fire attributed to a cigarette decimated the theater.
Dickson and his rebuilt Haskell rose again. The Pettigrew and Worley design with its gold neon sign, Kaplan projection, and a much higher roof for more seats. It opened May 10, 1939 with “The Hardys Out West.” Showing neighborhood fare, the Haskell was a low priced house at 15 cents a seat.
Just after closing on Dec. 15, 1951, it was all over for the theater when three or four explosions were heard and a four alarm fire followed. The structure was still intact and became two businesses: Teer Auto Supply and the Louis Cafe which burned down in 1954 eliminating the building. And, as noted, a 7-unit apartment building was the next building that encompassed the theater’s spot and it, too, suffered a major fire.
The 900-seat Parkway Theater opened Oct. 2, 1921 with “The Match Breaker” at 3709 Parry next door to the Fair Hotel and directly across from the main entrance to the Fair Park fairgrounds. It was Eddie Foy’s sixth theater in his circuit that then was comprised additionally of the Bluebird, Ideal, Colonial, Columbia and Rialto. The theater was billed as the largest neighborhood in the Southwest. Its grand opening festivities took place a week after its first film ran with Carl Weisemann brought in to play what was billed as Dallas' largest theatrical organ, a $15,000 instrument. Weisemann accompanied the film, “The Inner Chamber.”
Knox St. Theater owner Robert Z. Gless took over the theater In March of 1933 and reequipped and redecorated the theater and renamed it The Fair Theater due to its proximity to the fairgrounds. Within days of re-opening, the theater suffered major hail damage, shattering the glass doors and windows. Five feet of water flooded the newly remodeled theater. Gless re-reopened the theater and experimented both with suburban fare and African American bookings at midnight. Gless opened the Lawn Theater in May of 1935 and would sell the Fair to the Interstate Circuit. Interstate’s operation of the Fair was similar to Gless' with a mixture of African American fare, suburban fare though regular kiddie matinees monthly.
By the late 1940s, the Fair’s audience was evaporating and Interstate positioned the theater as a low-price theater with continuous shows ranging from 25 to 35 cents and children 9 cents at any time. Interstate dropped the theater and it closed for a short period. H.L. Fagan and A.Z. Choice who ran an African American theater called the Star Theater on Moore Street took on the theater Feb. 1, 1950. They received ominous phone calls telling them to “give the theater back to the whites.” Within weeks of opening the theater, what has been described as a fire bombing took place and the theater’s roof collapsed and destroyed the theater and damaged four rooms of the adjoining Fair Park Hotel. The building was a total loss and demolished.
Regarding a question posed in an earlier comment: Because Choice and Fagan were subleasing the theater, there’s little chance that they would have set fire to the property. Further, the owners of the building — Midway Realty — told inspectors that they, too, had heard from multiple persons in the neighborhood that the theater should not be African American owned and operated.
The property began as the Gay Theater on March 6, 1942 at North Fitzhugh and Capitol. The 500 seat theater was named after its manager I. Gay who operated a Mesquite theater. Included were love seats built for two staggered throughout the auditorium. The first showing was “Lady, Be Good.” The low-price theater and its manager, John Stewart, attempted to show retro films with old-school live presentation and that may have tipped the theater to its next iteration. The theater’s old school art deco look in the lobby and exterior added to the presentation.
Veteran Dallas feature film producer and distributor Alfred Sack took on the Gay Theater and made it a revival house, art film, and foreign film house on November 20, 1948. Sack changed the rebranded Gay Theater as the Coronet Theater on Monday, December 7 1948 with new sound system, cushioned opera seats and murals painted by Rene Mazza.. With members of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra on hand, “The Barber of Seville” was the Coronet’s first feature. It was billed as the first foreign language art house in the south or southwest. In its first six months of operation, the Coronet played 39 films. “Lucrezia Borgia” sold out the 500 seat house twice and another 500 people were turned away.
The Coronet faced art house pressures, especially from the Fine Arts Theater in University Park and in the early 1960s became one of Dallas’ first houses to regularly book “girlie” films. “Have Figure, Will Travel” set in a nudist colony was the first such booking in 1962 along with “Nature’s Paradise.” The bookings continued with films including Russ Meyer’s “Europe in the Raw” which was only the second theater in the U.S. to book the title. The adult films continued throughout the decade and into the 1970s at the Coronet. The adult theater business flourished in Dallas including the Fine Arts switch to porno chic in the early 1970s among many others. The theater decided to switch back to a true art format.
With the Coronet well known for its adult fare for about 15 years, a new operator Movie Inc. out of New Mexico took on the Coronet and decided to rebrand it as the Edison Theater on August 15, 1976. Movie Inc operated the Guild Theater in Alburburque along with theaters in six other cities and offered a subscription service to the foreign and revival fare. With most of the art theaters moving to adult fare, the Edison did excellent business in Dallas. The theatre now had just 309 seats.
In November 1977, the art deco highlights were brought out in a refurbishing of the Edison. Manager Jim Frazee also updated the projection. They also offered live entertainment in the mix. With many sell-outs on cult films including “Pink Flamingos” and changing neighborhood featuring many car break-ins, the Edison moved to the Granada Theater on April 20, 1978 not fare away. The Granada held twice as many people and was more of a night spot for the target audience. The Granada had been a neighborhood house, a repertory house, a $1 house and a XXX house before becoming a concert hall. Vacant for six months after the failed concert hall, the Edison filled in the Granada.
The Edison wasn’t vacant for long as just months later, it became the Mexico Theatre and played Hispanic films with some Asian films at midnight. The operator was showing Spanish language films at the nearby Arcadia on Greenville. In the early 1980s, the theater was closed and rebranded as the Oriental exclusively playing Asian films. When the Oriental closed, it was then home to nightclubs including Club Jakara in the early 90s and then the Latin Active Club. Unfortunately, a well publicized gun fight and at least two other shootouts at the Latin Active Club in 1996 seems to be the beginning of the end for the address as an entertainment site. In 1999, the theater was razed in favor of a Hispanic meat market which then became a restaurant.
It’s hard to imagine a more unsuccessful theater in Dallas' history than the Lucas Theater. Roy Lumpkin opened his first theater with 700 seats with crying room for babies. Its first film was “Leave Her to Heaven” on Monday and Tuesday May 13/4, 1946. (The first showing was private and the second open to the public.) Lumpkin couldn’t find an audience and within a year, the theater was in the hands of Bill McLemore. McLemore then sold it to Arcadia owner P.G. Cameron for $100,000 including three lots adjoining the property. Cameron reportedly expanded the number of seats and brought his son in to manage the theater. That wasn’t the right formula for the theater.
In June of 1948, a new operator, L.R. Robertson, installed an air conditioning system and remodeled the theater with neon lighting and murals painted by Don Vogel. The remodeling didn’t help as the Lucas was sold to Columbia Pictures' veterans L.A. Couch and A.M. Witcher who took on the theater In January 1949. The theater stumbled and was closed briefly that Fall. It was taken over by the Coronet’s Alfred Sack. The Coronet was doing so well with a combination of revival and art films that it decided to rebrand the Lucas as a revival house called the Encore Theater. It opened it on November 24, 1949 with “Rebecca.”
Even with the master showman Sack at the helm and Judy Garland’s mom brought in by Sack to manage the theater, they were unable to turn around the theater. The Encore was sold to G.L. and J.W. Griffin who took on the theater that summer. The Encore was a dud as the theater closed after its double feature of “That Midnight Kiss” and “Dear Brat” on Oct. 10, 1951 with a promise of repairs that would find the theater open soon. However, padlocks on the door and notices of a Constable’s Sale told a markedly different story. It was auctioned off, seats, equipment, and all by auction Feb. 5, 1952. Hammond Coffman was the winner of the Encore and announced it would re-open for business in March of 1952 with cowboy pictures and renamed as The Western. This doesn’t appear to have transpired as by November, Coffman had converted the theater into a sound stage and created the Coffman Film Company. KERA investigated the property as a potential studio in 1960. The property then became MPI Studios, followed by the St. Clair Talent Agency and then a long run as the Spectro Photo Lab.
In just five years, this theater had two names with plans for a third, seven owners, two air handling systems, and never found a consistent audience. One of the Dallas' least treasured and most unsuccessful movie theaters of all time was quickly put out of its suffering as a film exhibition location.
The picture of the Capitan Theater is from March 21, 1953 when the theater went to art films including foreign films and revivals. The large theater was run by Lewis and Susman with a capacity of 1,150 seats. The theater at the corner of Henderson and Capitol opened August 23, 1946 with “Do You Love Me?” Within six months of the theater’s opening, a high profile murder case occurred when a man was murdered when he was seated by his ex-wife by his ex-wife’s current husband.
The Capitan changed managers from Lee Roy Ball to William Lewis in 1948 as it tried to find its footing and relied heavily in matinee bookings on children’s and family fare. With theatrical tastes changing and general box office woes plaguing theaters all over the country, the Capitan rolled the dice and became an art house on March 21, 1953. Another innovation was that the theater banished popcorn from the concession stand and switched to higher end chocolate. The first film was a sell-out but competition for the art house especially the Varsity/Fine Arts in University Park and the Coronet in Dallas dogged the Capitan as the art concept faltered badly.
Less than a year into the art run, William Lewis resigned from the theater on January 6, 1954. The Capitan closed less than two years into the art concept on January 1, 1955. Not quite nine years was all the theatrical life of the property as it was converted for other purposes.
The building was sold to Charles Weisenburg who converted the property into the rather unique Capitan Bowling Center which opened on March 1956. The unique space of the theater allowed for two floors of bowling, each with ten lanes. Neighbors protested the lanes when it went 24 hours in 1958 demanding soundproofing and greatly reduced hours of operation. A bowling alley boom overpopulated the city of Dallas and in December of 1962, Weisenburg shuttered both the Capitan Bowling Center and the Industrial Lanes. The oldest lanes in the city, Hap Morse Lanes and Mickey Mantle’s Lanes also closed. Weisenburg closed the lanes and sold the building.
The Century Theater was built as a cinema for African American audiences. It’s listed at both 2300 and 2302 Metropolitan as it took up multiple lots. The $45,000 theater’s architect was W. Scott Dunne of the Melba, Texas, and many others, and owned by Palace Realty. Construction began in 1937. A fire July 9, 1941 closed the theater for a period of time. The theater re-opened in 1952 and closed thereafter.
Scheduled to be built in 1941/2, the theatre was delayed in part by WW2. The $100,000 Oak Cliff theater became Robb and Rowley (R&R) Circuit’s first post-war theater. Originally scheduled to be nestled in a triangular tract just off of Stevens Park at Colorado and Hampton, the delayed project moved just to the north to 2007 Fort Worth Avenue. Corgan and Moore as the architects. It opened January 24, 1946 with Shirley Temple’s “Kiss and Tell.” R&R was ambitious positioning the Stevens as the first run house and moving its Texas to second-run status. That move proved to be unsuccessful.
The Stevens was demoted from first run to second run then dropping matinees as the theater struggled to find its audience. R&R closed the theater January 18, 1958 following a double feature of Hunchback of Notre Dame and The Land Unknown just a week shy of its 12th anniversary. Second life for the theater occurred that summer when two teenagers — Gary Gilliand and Don Shaw Jr. — reopened the theater July of 1958 for a short period. Another life came for the theater with a new manager in 1960. The Stevens closed yet again but found its niche when it reopened in 1961 by Manuel Avila who successfully rebranded it as a Hispanic theater with both film and occasional live Latin variety shows.
During the film licensing era, the Stevens ran into some problems in the early 1960s with the Dallas Movie Classification Board for running many films without submitting them for classification. The board got a Spanish speaking member aboard to help move the process along. When the Teatro Panamericano changed its name and tried to go upscale catering to a new audience, the Stevens surged in Dallas with Hispanic audiences. Avila continued to bring Hispanic films to the area for more than two decades including both subtitled American films such as Vaselina (Grease) and a heavy slate of imported films as the theater continued into the 1980s.
Avila was honored with a group of Mexican American business owners in 1985 by the Mexican America Legal Defense and Educational Fund for his contributions to the city of Dallas for then nearly 25 years of operation. And he sponsored a Stevens Theater baseball team. The theater finally closed after more than four decades and has since been demolished.
The White Theater opened to the public for business January 6, 1934 showing “Saturday’s Millions”. Operated by M.S. White, the original owner of the Dal-Sec, the theater opened with seating for 1,000 patrons. The theater was at 2720 Forest Avenue at the corner of Forest Ave. and Oakland (which would be now MLK Blvd. at Malcolm X Blvd.) and served as a neighborhood second-run house. The Dallas Morning News described the White clientele as the “crossroads of Dallas where toughie and gentleman, gentile and Jew, mingle in harmony in sort of community center.” By the end of the theater’s 21-year run, “toughies” had the upper hand and “harmony” was clearly gone as the theater’s descent was rapid and crime-ridden.
White’s operation of the White was not quite two years as on August 31, 1935, Interstate Circuit bought the White, Forest and Dal-Sec. Interstate opened “In Caliente” as its first show with Joseph Luckett moving from the Melrose to manage the White Theater. Luckett inaugurated midnight shows every Saturday beginning in 1938, experimented with an all-Yiddish film and had live stage shows as added attractions on weekends. His connection with the neighborhood and family night offerings led people to call him simply, “Uncle Joe” as he ran the theater into his 80s up to Interstate’s selling of the theater. (“Uncle Joe” would also manage the Forest Theater in 1949 along with continuing his duties at the White and retired at the Forest at age 87.)
On August 27, 1952, Interstate sold the White to A.J. Vineyard who had a four-day celebration and would also celebrate the 20th anniversary of the theater in the summer of 1954. The celebration would be the last festive event for the White. Multiple armed robberies at the neighboring liquor store had to have taken their toll as Vineyard, himself, was a victim of one of the liquor store robberies. The theater, itself, also was robbed at the box office. So it’s not surprising that Vineyard left the White Theater’s high crime rate area almost immediately after the anniversary celebration and he bought the Trinity Theater rebranding it as the Ewing Theater in August of 1954.
W.M. Burns took on the theater and – under the White Theater nameplate – it ended badly with negative publicity when an 8-year old was locked in the theater overnight and was injured trying to escape. Burns attempted to rebrand the theater as the Elite Theater catering to African American audiences starting in July 1955. Almost immediately, labor protests appear to be the death knell for the short-lived Elite Theater as union protestors picketed at its outset. The Elite Theater also held African American church services at the property under Burns leadership through December 1955 which appears to be the end of the theater’s life. In 1956, the property became split up using the marquee for the Elite Restaurant and another section used for a pawn shop. The Elite was renamed the Seashore Restaurant a decade later. The property was offered for sale in 1965, apparently sold, demolished, and appears on the DCAD in the 2010s as 2720 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. — a vacant lot worth less than $20,000.
In sum, the White/Elite Theater staggered to its ending at just 21 years yet — due to the declining neighborhood fortunes — even that was about a year or two longer than it should have been operating.
The Dal-Sec Theater was in the Second Avenue business district at the corner Dallas Street adjoining Fair Park nicknamed Dal-Sec by some locals. Its design was by architect W. Scott Dunne who designed Dallas' Interstate Circuit properties Melba and Arcadia, as well as the Dal-Sec’s nearby neighbor, the Fair Park Amphitheater and the venerable Texas Theater in Oak Cliff. The Dal-Sec was run by M.S. White who also opened The White Theater at Forest and Oakland. The Dal-Sec became part of Karl Hoblitzelle’s circuit on August 31, 1935 when Interstate bought the Dal-Sec, White, and Forest theaters. The Dal-Sec remained an Interstate property until April 1951 and was a second run neighborhood house. It would then be operated by Howard Hiegel who seemingly ran no advertisements but kept the theater going until 1969. The theater’s demolition was part of the Fair Park area expansion in the late 1960s and into 1970 as the city tried to increase parking around Fair Park.
Arguably, the Dal-Sec’s main claim to fame was that it becomes a peripheral party in two legal battles, one of which altered the film industry. A 50-50 merger between Hoblitizelle and Paramount placed the Dal-Sec and many others in the Hoblitzell and R.J. O'Donnell portfolio within the Interstate Theatre Circuit in 1933. Business practices between the exhibition arm half-owned by Paramount and the production/distribution of Paramount films was closely scrutinized.
The U.S. v. Interstate Circuit (1937) challenged Interstate’s practice of controlling admission prices and the exhibition of second-run features in second-run houses including the Dal-Sec. But the more important case came a decade later in Edelman v. Paramount, a legal challenge that was brought in the courts, and a Justice Department investigation U.S. v. Paramount that led to the famous consent decree in which Paramount agreed to to separate itself from domestic theater exhibition selling out joint ventures such as Interstate and Publix. Only the Dal-Sec and Varsity were ultimately targeted within Dallas for dispersal within the reformulated, post-Paramount decision Interstate Circuit. Those properties had to be excised within three years of the 1948 decree.
The Dal-Sec was sold to Howard Hiegel who took over on May 1, 1951 while the Varsity became part of the Trans-Texas Circuit. Hiegel had operated Dallas' Avon Theater but had sold it earlier in the year and took on the theater for almost two decades. He probably could have eked it out for two full decades had it not been for the city’s redevelopment plans. But the theater’s last years were such that Hiegel said that he shed no tears when the city-mandated end came. In 1961, the theater was robbed of thirty cents and the manager was battered while the nearby Dal-Sec Drug Store suffered at least three separate armed robberies as fortunes and property values had turned in the neighborhood.
The theater soldiered on through lean economic times and high crime rates until 1969 when a combination of Fair Park expansion combined with highway development led to the demolition of the property. Hiegel said that the dollars weren’t rolling in and he had expected the city’s ambitious planning. Just five years earlier, the theater was endangered as a cross-town freeway was going to go through the property. The Fair Park expansion, however, was the death knell as the city bought out more than 300 properties in all and much of the Dal-Sec businesses including the theater which were closed and the buildings demolished. The only reference to the opening date was that the theater made it 45 years which would place its opening in 1924 though there’s not much evidence of that actual opening date as the theatre’s regular advertisements were from Sept. 1930 into the 1950s.
The Varsity Theatre was an atmospheric Venetian Garden inspired theater operating in C.W. Snider’s conceptualized Snider Plaza just blocks away from Southern Methodist University within University Park. It opened Oct. 3, 1929 just weeks prior to the stock market crash. Renamed the Fine Arts in 1957, the theater moved from art, retro, and international cinema to adult films in 1974 during the porno chic era. Renamed as The Plaza Theater as a legit, live theater in 1982 and finally as the Park Cities Playhouse in 1993, the theatre was out of business in 1996 and its auditorium demo’d for retail space a year later.
In the summer of 1928, the city of University Park approved of a plan to allow a 1,011 seat Varsity Theater with seven floors to be built in Snider Plaza. The architect was N.E. Bucklin and was based upon the concept of having attached retail stores and parking for 600 cars in an underground parking facility pegged at around $700,000. That ambitious plan did not come to fruition, however. The theatre construction was delayed until 1929 and by the time the project was complete, the Varsity was a modest $200,000 playhouse with 800 seats and had neither the seven stories of multi-use property nor the underground parking garage. It was operated by Paul Scott who also ran the Haskell Theatre and was equipped with RCA’s Photophone sound-on-film standard. SMU students were the employees under Scott as C.W. Snider was a friend of the campus.
The theatre opened with “In Old Arizona” on Oct. 3, 1929. In 1935, the SMU connection brought foreign language film to the Varsity (although the Melba had beaten the Varsity to the foreign language front showing a German and a Russian language film previously). “Sous les Toits de Paris” was the first of those presentations in conjunction with the University’s French Department followed by “Topaze” and “Les Trois Mousequetaires”. The theater found a niche and also began to show a heavy load of British imports and additionally started Spanish language films starting with Juarez and Maximillian and German film in 1936, as well while keeping first-run and second-run Hollywood fare during the weekends and most weekdays.
Though French films continued into 1937, an article about the downturned business of art films and international films stated that Dallas' Little Theater was abandoned as Dallas' moviegoers were bailing on art cinema. The same article noted that the Interstate Theatre Circuit had taken on the Varsity and decided to update the theater. It was hypothesized that there were “more high brows in Snider Plaza than anywhere else in Dallas” and that the Circuit might stick it out a bit longer with art cinema. Interstate did have occasional ties with SMU but leaned the Varsity away from foreign film though would play art films for the rest of the time it operated the film.
in 1938, Interstate added a stage at the front of the theater for monthly stage shows and more live acts including dance shows, minstrel shows and live animal acts. This move proved fortuitous decades later when the theater became a live event only house. And in 1940, a new marquee and tower were added along with new seats, a redesigned lobby and foyer. The nearby student body led to the theater attracting unannounced sneak previews of films beginning in the 1940s.
Late in the 1940s, Interstate’s control over the Varsity was under scrutiny. The cases of Edelman v. Paramount, a legal challenge that was brought in the courts, and a Justice Department investigation, U.S. v. Paramount. As the case began, Interstate announced a regular art cinema policy including foreign language productions every Thursday and Friday. Meanwhile, U.S. v. Paramount led to the famous consent decree in which Paramount agreed to to separate itself from domestic theater exhibition selling out joint ventures such as Interstate and Publix. Only the Varsity and the Dal-Sec were Dallas-area theaters forced into dispersal within the reformulated, post-Paramount decision Interstate Circuit. Those properties had to be excised within three years of the 1948 decree. The Dal-Sec was sold to Howard Hiegel who took over on May 1, 1951 while the Varsity became part of the Trans-Texas Circuit and in 1953 it went full time art and revival at a good time for international cinema exhibition in the United States.
Satisfied with the results, Trans-Texas rebranded the Varsity as the Fine Arts on January 15, 1957 and remodeled the theater including its third different marquee. Its first film was Riffifi with proceeds going to charity. It added a Fall Film Festival in 1959. The rebranded Fine Arts had some amazing successes. For instance, Blow Up played 11 weeks at the theater in 1967. The art cinema craze was waining at the same time that multiplexes were arriving. The U.A. Ciné about a mile away would be the continuing art house while the Fine Arts went a new direction just as the North Park Cinema was opening about 2.5 miles away. In 1974/5, during the porno-chic period, soft-core X-rated films “Flesh Gordon”, “Linda Lovelace for President”, “Around the World with Fanny Hill”, and many others were booked at the Fine Arts as well as Dallas' Granada Theatre, et al. This did not sit well with University Park which passed an ordinance banning X-rated films in 1977 within 500 feet of a residential area, church or school. The City of Dallas went after the Granada with a more successfully written ordinance. Trans-Texas successfully fought the University Park ruling which was found unconstitutional later that year.
The soft core porno exhibition at the Fine Arts continued amazingly for almost eight years until 1982. A business owner lamented that the situation of a family-oriented residential and business area with a porn house in its highest visibility sight “provides probably the greatest contrast in the whole state of Texas.” One picture of a family walking under “Lusty Princess” which was playing with “Garters and Lace” summarizes the situation under Photos. In March of 1982, the Fine Arts was purchased and the porno chic exhibition was over June 30th and the theater became the Plaza Theater on July 1, 1982. Though the Plaza Theatre was a live venue, its first major booking was the USA Film Festival in 1982.
The renovations to the Plaza’s live venue look took over a year and cost one million dollars. It wasn’t the success neighbors had dreamed of as the not-for-profit theater was empty for stretches as people tried to save it as the decade of the 1990s opened. Meanwhile the “New Fine Arts Theater” opened on Mockingbird hoping to lure clientele from the Fine Arts' halcyon days.
The Plaza Theater was given a hasty renovation in time for its November 1993 relaunch when it became the Park Cities Playhouse. With United Artists opening its high tech and successful UA Plaza, the name change wasn’t the worst idea. First-hand account from this writer can tell you that it wasn’t uncommon to bump into the likes of Charlton Heston, the Smothers Brothers or Penn & Teller when they were appearing at the theater. Though that incarnation under Ben Capelle and John Wall was ambitious it was unsuccessful financially and the theater went back to vacant in 1996 after sporadic offerings. The theater was purchased and its owners explored film exhibition but hit a dead end. So in 1997, it was over for the Varsity/Fine Arts/Plaza as the theater’s marquee was removed and the theater completely gutted after both the economic feasibility and historical preservation efforts failed. The auditorium was demolished in 1997 officially ending a 67-year mostly active run.
The 755-seat Plaza Theatre at 3806 McKinney at Haskell and McKinney was built in 1948 and appears to have first opened on January 22, 1949. It was operated by M.S. White, veteran of Dallas movie theater operation including such theaters as the White Theater and Dal-Sec Theater. Playing suburban fare to small audiences and unprofitability, White closed the theater following the August 31, 1953 double feature of “Desert Rats” and “Beast from 20,000 Fathoms.” Television was cited as one of the main culprits identified for the lack of business at the location.
The Plaza got second life when it was reopened Sept. 23, 1954 under the operation of the Lagow Theater’s Ruth Wafford and J.T. Orr. The opening attraction was “Knock on Wood.” Every Saturday children got free popcorn and every Thursday was gift night. In 1956, the theater would try to mix in more art films beginning with Orson Wells' “Othello” in May of 1956. The concept was 47 years too soon as Landmark’s Magnolia Theater would emulate the concept more successfully just blocks away from where The Plaza once stood. Advertisements ceased in May of 1959 as the theater limped to a close after just about ten years of operation.
Called a nonproductive property, tired, and abandoned, the Plaza got a $150,000 upgrade designed by Architect Joe Gordon in 1964 after being empty for years and became Haskell Plaza ending its future as a cinema treasure. It was bulldozed and as of the 2010s, it was a mixed use retail and loft building in the Uptown business district.
The Wheatley Theater was located in the Wheatley Shopping Center and opened for business on February 8, 1950. E.J. Jobe was the owner and had an all African American staff. The $85,000 theater was billed as the first deluxe theater in Dallas for the African American community. The 550-seat theater sported blue and gold drapes, modern projection, five changes of bill per week with a weekly Saturday midnight ramble among its features.
The New Maple Theatre was a $125,000 theater plus retail project architected by Raymond F. Smith at 5206 Maple which broke ground in August of 1945. Operated by legendary booker Forrest White of In-Dex Booking Services and M.K. McDaniel, the 850-seat stadium theater’s manager was J.D. Hillhouse who had previously been with the Interstate Circuit. The New Maple launched with private screening of “Two Sisters from Boston on April 4, 1946 just one day after the original Maple Theater also under White and McDaniel had ended its run a block away at 5319 Maple. A public opening was held April 5, 1946 at 5206 Maple with Errol Flynn’s “San Antonio.” But it was the theater’s successful rebranding at the end of its life in the late 1950s and closure in June 1960 for which it is much better known.
The theater operated as a suburban house with double features sometimes advertised with “new” for most of its movie exhibition run into the late 1950s. As the industry was changing toward event films, the Maple soldiered on with double features until the feasibility was no longer possible. Much as the Lawn Theatre in Dallas had done earlier in the decade, the Maple decided to make an arrangement to host live stage plays which was a more lucrative trend in that era. And they hit a winner getting Margo Jones productions and the Maple Theatre Company, as well. The Margo Jones productions turned the sleepy suburban into a lively space.
The New Maple Theatre was becoming so established that the “new” was finally dropped from ads and would be part of a marketplace concept known briefly as Fleetwood Square. The Maple Theater would be incorporated at the central point of the Fleetwood Square’s ambitious expansion. The live theater groups were so emboldened by Edmund G. Peterson’s plan to build a $3 million market center encompassing the Maple at its center that they spent a great deal of time and effort truly converting the movie house to a live stage facility in 1959. But when a competing and similar plan by Trammell Crow was announced for a market center, Peterson and Crow merged their ideas into the Dallas Market Center which was built nearby. But the Maple was bulldozed in favor of an ambitious apartment complex with retail space. The actual position of the theatre was taken by a successful Japanese restaurant. The last production in the new Maple Theater was “Mr. Wonderful” that ended its run June of 1960. The live theater groups would have to find new homes but the Maple Theater’s short life had provided a needed spark to live theater in Dallas that continued onward.
The Maple Theater was located at 5319 Maple. It was run by R.H. Clemmons who ran the Sunset Theater. He sold the theater in favor of the Arcadia in April of 1938. It sold to legendary booker Forrest White of In-Dex Booking Services and M.K. McDaniel. It suffered a minor fire in July of 1940 that didn’t effect operations. However, White and McDaniel would build a new theater just after the War to replace the aging complex.
The Maple ended its run on April 3, 1946 with “Lady on a Train” and the New Maple Theater was launched the next night with a special invitation screening at 5206 Maple. The original Maple was up for sale in the classifieds for $18,500 by year’s end. It was purchased an converted into retail space that was still present as of the 2010s.
The Oak Lawn Theater got off to a tough start when the permit to allow the theater to be built was put in turnaround by the Municipal Court of Appeals in 1922. About 100 residents were concerned about the theater being a nuisance and the appeals board agreed. However, the process was eventually turned around and Oak Lawn Amusement Company behind Irving S. Melcher got its permit to build the house at Oak Lawn and Dickason.
The Oak Lawn Theater opened with the feature film, “The Flirt” on August 7, 1923 at 2916 Oak Lawn Avenue to a capacity audience filling its 511 seats despite the lack of a street car line running to it according to reports. Manager Jack Joyce gave out cigars to the men, flowers to the women and balloons to the children. The same amusement company decided to build a second Oak Lawn theater – this one for the sound era – at Oak Lawn and Wycliff avenues. This theater would be a deluxe 1,000 seat suburban house with cryrooms, upholstered chairs and sound devices for the hearing impaired, the first cinema in the South to have the devices.
Melcher would drop the Oak Lawn when the Melrose opened May 15, 1931. The Oak Lawn would become the first exhibitrix run house in Dallas as Mrs. Blanche L. Cutler became Dallas’ first female film exhibitor. It was Cutler’s third theater with two others in Oklahoma City and Bartlesville. It had a new sound system, the first self-rising seats in Texas that allowed the seat to spring upward, a new screen, and Lew White at the organ. The first feature was “The Lawyer’s Secret” on Sept. 1, 1931.
The Oak Lawn Theater was closed and taken over by R.Z. Glass who also was running the Fair Theater and the Knox St. Theater. Glass rebranded it the Lawn Theater on May 3, 1935 opening with “Hi Nellie” with yet another sound system, drapes, projection and screen. The air conditioning system was billed as repaired and would be operational. Glass ran into labor troubles at the Lawn and Knox properties as people hurled stink bombs to protest some labor-related issues.
In 1937, the Interstate Circuit acquired the theater from Glass. The theater installed a Mirrophonic Sound System to be played with “The Great Ziegfield.” But innovation wasn’t enough as reports said that the theater had “ailed economically” in the shadow of the Melrose Theater. Interstate closed the Lawn on January 14, 1939 for an “indefinite” period. Interstate likely was trying to find a new operator for the theater and would reopen later in the year operating just on weekends. With Paul Scott as manager, the theater tried to become a low budget suburban. It installed yet another screen, improved projection, new front, and tried double feature bills at just 15 cents per ticket at all times expanding to seven days a week. Its first bill on April 10, 1940 was “The Flying Deuces” and “The Desperate Trials.”
Interstate decided to reposition the Lawn as an art facility showing art films and repertory films in the late 1940s. In 1949, the Lawn was a shared space allowing legit theater and becoming home to the Edward Rubin Workshop doing live plays. The last films by Interstate didn’t do much business so Interstate closed perhaps with “Topper” just prior to Christmas and leased the Lawn full time Rubin provided that the plays staged were of a “civic and education character.” In 1952, the theater was renamed “The New Playhouse” and revamped for live theater now seating just 272 patrons. That arrangement ended a little more than five years later as the property was chopped into retail establishment by the end of the decade. The name “Oak Lawn Theater” would come back in the 1970s with a theatre space at Pearl Express Way and McKinney.
Deep Ellum became home to African Americans and immigrants at the end of the 19th Century and into the 20th Century. Black-owned business activity occurred along Central Avenue beside the railroad tracks. One of those businesses was started by John “Fat Jack” Harris who opened the Grand Central Theatre at 405 Central Avenue adjoining Swiss Avenue in 1908. Harris booked local and touring acts and mixed in film. By the 1920s, film consumed more of the Grand Central’s week with live acts on the weekends. KSD radio had a regular program of live events in the mid 1920s from the Grand Central. Though the Grand Central catered to African American audiences, Hollywood fare occasionally allowed the theater to be listed in the Dallas Morning News in the 1910s and 1920s. The businesses, railroad tracks, and that portion of Central Avenue were reworked as the city modernized its highways through downtown.
The Peak Theater opened at 1315 N. Peak near Bryan St. in Dallas in 1915 owned by A.D. Bethard with a seating capacity of 600 at opening. During the Depression, the Peak offered free midnight shows for the poor and unemployed. The former owner of the Melrose Theater, P.G. Cameron, purchased the theater Feb. 16, 1935. This would time out to a 20 year lease for the original owner. Cameron updated the theater in 1945 which likely accounts for the additional seat count of 695 cited above. At that time, Cameron’s portfolio also included the Urban and Grove.
The final operator of the theater, Kenneth Ward Crabtree, bought the theater in 1953 at age 26. His last film appears to be the December 16, 1955 showing of “The Kentuckian” and “New Orleans Uncensored.” There are no more bookings or ads for the Peak thereafter. And, unfortunately for the Peak and Crabtree, he was indicted, charged with arson for burning the theater down on Feb. 6, 1956. Investigators found that the theater had been doused in petroleum that — once lit — wrecked the theater which was later demolished as a result. The space was taken by J&J Manufacturing which ironically suffered a catastrophic fire that obliterated the building and left a black smoke path miles long across East Dallas.
The Grove Theater opened in 1937 and got its name from its subdivision of Dallas known as Pleasant Grove. The Roy Starling property was one of three he owned along with the Urban Theater and Mesquite’s Texan Theater. On May 9, 1942, the Grove was purchased by P.G. Cameron who had the Airway and the Peak Theater at that time while selling his Gateway Theater in Fort Worth. But about a year later, on June 21, 1943, the theater was demolished by a fire.
In November, the Grove was started again in a new building. It was refurbished slightly a year later. Charles Wise bought the theater in 1953. Though he was a vice-president of the Phil Isley theater circuit, he ran the Grove as an independent. A safe burglary in 1956 robbing the theater of $987 occurs toward the end of the theater’s life. In 1958, Wise’s independent is enveloped within the Isley Theater Circuit. The theater was closed on October 23, 1958 with the showings of “Wild Heritage” and “Last of the Fast Guns.” That times out to what was likely a 15-year lease. The property was demolished in 1959 and it replaced that same year by a Wrigley’s Grocery Store.
Technically, you could make the case that there were two Haskell Theatres. The first was built in 1921 by J.F. Woerner & Co. The original was in the hands of Paul Scott who also managed the Varsity Theater in University Park. A 1939 fire left the theater in shambles. The New Haskell was a Pettigrew and Worley architected house that was billed as semi-fireproof. Unfortunately, “semi” wasn’t good enough as the “New” Haskell was ravaged by fire in 1951 ending the theater’s namesake after 30 years of use. The theater was repurposed for two businesses. And, of course, it — too — burned not long after its remodeling. And a seven-unit apartment building was built on the property. It, too, suffered a major fire.
After Haskell owner Paul Scott’s establishment of the Varsity, Donald “D.A.” Dickson took over the Haskell not long after in 1932 and ran the theater until its final fire. In 1934, Dickson gave the theater a new marquee, neon theater sign, complete redecoration with new flooring and carpets, and an enlarged balcony. The reopening was July 25, 1934 with “Jimmy The Gent.” In 1938, the Haskell was renovated again with new upholstered seats, RCA high fidelity sound, new projection, and lots of green paint everywhere. “Test Pilot” was the first film for the reappointed theater on August 10, 1938. Just seven months later, a five-alarm fire attributed to a cigarette decimated the theater.
Dickson and his rebuilt Haskell rose again. The Pettigrew and Worley design with its gold neon sign, Kaplan projection, and a much higher roof for more seats. It opened May 10, 1939 with “The Hardys Out West.” Showing neighborhood fare, the Haskell was a low priced house at 15 cents a seat.
Just after closing on Dec. 15, 1951, it was all over for the theater when three or four explosions were heard and a four alarm fire followed. The structure was still intact and became two businesses: Teer Auto Supply and the Louis Cafe which burned down in 1954 eliminating the building. And, as noted, a 7-unit apartment building was the next building that encompassed the theater’s spot and it, too, suffered a major fire.
The 900-seat Parkway Theater opened Oct. 2, 1921 with “The Match Breaker” at 3709 Parry next door to the Fair Hotel and directly across from the main entrance to the Fair Park fairgrounds. It was Eddie Foy’s sixth theater in his circuit that then was comprised additionally of the Bluebird, Ideal, Colonial, Columbia and Rialto. The theater was billed as the largest neighborhood in the Southwest. Its grand opening festivities took place a week after its first film ran with Carl Weisemann brought in to play what was billed as Dallas' largest theatrical organ, a $15,000 instrument. Weisemann accompanied the film, “The Inner Chamber.”
Knox St. Theater owner Robert Z. Gless took over the theater In March of 1933 and reequipped and redecorated the theater and renamed it The Fair Theater due to its proximity to the fairgrounds. Within days of re-opening, the theater suffered major hail damage, shattering the glass doors and windows. Five feet of water flooded the newly remodeled theater. Gless re-reopened the theater and experimented both with suburban fare and African American bookings at midnight. Gless opened the Lawn Theater in May of 1935 and would sell the Fair to the Interstate Circuit. Interstate’s operation of the Fair was similar to Gless' with a mixture of African American fare, suburban fare though regular kiddie matinees monthly.
By the late 1940s, the Fair’s audience was evaporating and Interstate positioned the theater as a low-price theater with continuous shows ranging from 25 to 35 cents and children 9 cents at any time. Interstate dropped the theater and it closed for a short period. H.L. Fagan and A.Z. Choice who ran an African American theater called the Star Theater on Moore Street took on the theater Feb. 1, 1950. They received ominous phone calls telling them to “give the theater back to the whites.” Within weeks of opening the theater, what has been described as a fire bombing took place and the theater’s roof collapsed and destroyed the theater and damaged four rooms of the adjoining Fair Park Hotel. The building was a total loss and demolished.
Regarding a question posed in an earlier comment: Because Choice and Fagan were subleasing the theater, there’s little chance that they would have set fire to the property. Further, the owners of the building — Midway Realty — told inspectors that they, too, had heard from multiple persons in the neighborhood that the theater should not be African American owned and operated.
The property began as the Gay Theater on March 6, 1942 at North Fitzhugh and Capitol. The 500 seat theater was named after its manager I. Gay who operated a Mesquite theater. Included were love seats built for two staggered throughout the auditorium. The first showing was “Lady, Be Good.” The low-price theater and its manager, John Stewart, attempted to show retro films with old-school live presentation and that may have tipped the theater to its next iteration. The theater’s old school art deco look in the lobby and exterior added to the presentation.
Veteran Dallas feature film producer and distributor Alfred Sack took on the Gay Theater and made it a revival house, art film, and foreign film house on November 20, 1948. Sack changed the rebranded Gay Theater as the Coronet Theater on Monday, December 7 1948 with new sound system, cushioned opera seats and murals painted by Rene Mazza.. With members of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra on hand, “The Barber of Seville” was the Coronet’s first feature. It was billed as the first foreign language art house in the south or southwest. In its first six months of operation, the Coronet played 39 films. “Lucrezia Borgia” sold out the 500 seat house twice and another 500 people were turned away.
The Coronet faced art house pressures, especially from the Fine Arts Theater in University Park and in the early 1960s became one of Dallas’ first houses to regularly book “girlie” films. “Have Figure, Will Travel” set in a nudist colony was the first such booking in 1962 along with “Nature’s Paradise.” The bookings continued with films including Russ Meyer’s “Europe in the Raw” which was only the second theater in the U.S. to book the title. The adult films continued throughout the decade and into the 1970s at the Coronet. The adult theater business flourished in Dallas including the Fine Arts switch to porno chic in the early 1970s among many others. The theater decided to switch back to a true art format.
With the Coronet well known for its adult fare for about 15 years, a new operator Movie Inc. out of New Mexico took on the Coronet and decided to rebrand it as the Edison Theater on August 15, 1976. Movie Inc operated the Guild Theater in Alburburque along with theaters in six other cities and offered a subscription service to the foreign and revival fare. With most of the art theaters moving to adult fare, the Edison did excellent business in Dallas. The theatre now had just 309 seats.
In November 1977, the art deco highlights were brought out in a refurbishing of the Edison. Manager Jim Frazee also updated the projection. They also offered live entertainment in the mix. With many sell-outs on cult films including “Pink Flamingos” and changing neighborhood featuring many car break-ins, the Edison moved to the Granada Theater on April 20, 1978 not fare away. The Granada held twice as many people and was more of a night spot for the target audience. The Granada had been a neighborhood house, a repertory house, a $1 house and a XXX house before becoming a concert hall. Vacant for six months after the failed concert hall, the Edison filled in the Granada.
The Edison wasn’t vacant for long as just months later, it became the Mexico Theatre and played Hispanic films with some Asian films at midnight. The operator was showing Spanish language films at the nearby Arcadia on Greenville. In the early 1980s, the theater was closed and rebranded as the Oriental exclusively playing Asian films. When the Oriental closed, it was then home to nightclubs including Club Jakara in the early 90s and then the Latin Active Club. Unfortunately, a well publicized gun fight and at least two other shootouts at the Latin Active Club in 1996 seems to be the beginning of the end for the address as an entertainment site. In 1999, the theater was razed in favor of a Hispanic meat market which then became a restaurant.
It’s hard to imagine a more unsuccessful theater in Dallas' history than the Lucas Theater. Roy Lumpkin opened his first theater with 700 seats with crying room for babies. Its first film was “Leave Her to Heaven” on Monday and Tuesday May 13/4, 1946. (The first showing was private and the second open to the public.) Lumpkin couldn’t find an audience and within a year, the theater was in the hands of Bill McLemore. McLemore then sold it to Arcadia owner P.G. Cameron for $100,000 including three lots adjoining the property. Cameron reportedly expanded the number of seats and brought his son in to manage the theater. That wasn’t the right formula for the theater.
In June of 1948, a new operator, L.R. Robertson, installed an air conditioning system and remodeled the theater with neon lighting and murals painted by Don Vogel. The remodeling didn’t help as the Lucas was sold to Columbia Pictures' veterans L.A. Couch and A.M. Witcher who took on the theater In January 1949. The theater stumbled and was closed briefly that Fall. It was taken over by the Coronet’s Alfred Sack. The Coronet was doing so well with a combination of revival and art films that it decided to rebrand the Lucas as a revival house called the Encore Theater. It opened it on November 24, 1949 with “Rebecca.”
Even with the master showman Sack at the helm and Judy Garland’s mom brought in by Sack to manage the theater, they were unable to turn around the theater. The Encore was sold to G.L. and J.W. Griffin who took on the theater that summer. The Encore was a dud as the theater closed after its double feature of “That Midnight Kiss” and “Dear Brat” on Oct. 10, 1951 with a promise of repairs that would find the theater open soon. However, padlocks on the door and notices of a Constable’s Sale told a markedly different story. It was auctioned off, seats, equipment, and all by auction Feb. 5, 1952. Hammond Coffman was the winner of the Encore and announced it would re-open for business in March of 1952 with cowboy pictures and renamed as The Western. This doesn’t appear to have transpired as by November, Coffman had converted the theater into a sound stage and created the Coffman Film Company. KERA investigated the property as a potential studio in 1960. The property then became MPI Studios, followed by the St. Clair Talent Agency and then a long run as the Spectro Photo Lab.
In just five years, this theater had two names with plans for a third, seven owners, two air handling systems, and never found a consistent audience. One of the Dallas' least treasured and most unsuccessful movie theaters of all time was quickly put out of its suffering as a film exhibition location.
The picture of the Capitan Theater is from March 21, 1953 when the theater went to art films including foreign films and revivals. The large theater was run by Lewis and Susman with a capacity of 1,150 seats. The theater at the corner of Henderson and Capitol opened August 23, 1946 with “Do You Love Me?” Within six months of the theater’s opening, a high profile murder case occurred when a man was murdered when he was seated by his ex-wife by his ex-wife’s current husband.
The Capitan changed managers from Lee Roy Ball to William Lewis in 1948 as it tried to find its footing and relied heavily in matinee bookings on children’s and family fare. With theatrical tastes changing and general box office woes plaguing theaters all over the country, the Capitan rolled the dice and became an art house on March 21, 1953. Another innovation was that the theater banished popcorn from the concession stand and switched to higher end chocolate. The first film was a sell-out but competition for the art house especially the Varsity/Fine Arts in University Park and the Coronet in Dallas dogged the Capitan as the art concept faltered badly.
Less than a year into the art run, William Lewis resigned from the theater on January 6, 1954. The Capitan closed less than two years into the art concept on January 1, 1955. Not quite nine years was all the theatrical life of the property as it was converted for other purposes.
The building was sold to Charles Weisenburg who converted the property into the rather unique Capitan Bowling Center which opened on March 1956. The unique space of the theater allowed for two floors of bowling, each with ten lanes. Neighbors protested the lanes when it went 24 hours in 1958 demanding soundproofing and greatly reduced hours of operation. A bowling alley boom overpopulated the city of Dallas and in December of 1962, Weisenburg shuttered both the Capitan Bowling Center and the Industrial Lanes. The oldest lanes in the city, Hap Morse Lanes and Mickey Mantle’s Lanes also closed. Weisenburg closed the lanes and sold the building.
The Century Theater was built as a cinema for African American audiences. It’s listed at both 2300 and 2302 Metropolitan as it took up multiple lots. The $45,000 theater’s architect was W. Scott Dunne of the Melba, Texas, and many others, and owned by Palace Realty. Construction began in 1937. A fire July 9, 1941 closed the theater for a period of time. The theater re-opened in 1952 and closed thereafter.
Scheduled to be built in 1941/2, the theatre was delayed in part by WW2. The $100,000 Oak Cliff theater became Robb and Rowley (R&R) Circuit’s first post-war theater. Originally scheduled to be nestled in a triangular tract just off of Stevens Park at Colorado and Hampton, the delayed project moved just to the north to 2007 Fort Worth Avenue. Corgan and Moore as the architects. It opened January 24, 1946 with Shirley Temple’s “Kiss and Tell.” R&R was ambitious positioning the Stevens as the first run house and moving its Texas to second-run status. That move proved to be unsuccessful.
The Stevens was demoted from first run to second run then dropping matinees as the theater struggled to find its audience. R&R closed the theater January 18, 1958 following a double feature of Hunchback of Notre Dame and The Land Unknown just a week shy of its 12th anniversary. Second life for the theater occurred that summer when two teenagers — Gary Gilliand and Don Shaw Jr. — reopened the theater July of 1958 for a short period. Another life came for the theater with a new manager in 1960. The Stevens closed yet again but found its niche when it reopened in 1961 by Manuel Avila who successfully rebranded it as a Hispanic theater with both film and occasional live Latin variety shows.
During the film licensing era, the Stevens ran into some problems in the early 1960s with the Dallas Movie Classification Board for running many films without submitting them for classification. The board got a Spanish speaking member aboard to help move the process along. When the Teatro Panamericano changed its name and tried to go upscale catering to a new audience, the Stevens surged in Dallas with Hispanic audiences. Avila continued to bring Hispanic films to the area for more than two decades including both subtitled American films such as Vaselina (Grease) and a heavy slate of imported films as the theater continued into the 1980s.
Avila was honored with a group of Mexican American business owners in 1985 by the Mexican America Legal Defense and Educational Fund for his contributions to the city of Dallas for then nearly 25 years of operation. And he sponsored a Stevens Theater baseball team. The theater finally closed after more than four decades and has since been demolished.
The White Theater opened to the public for business January 6, 1934 showing “Saturday’s Millions”. Operated by M.S. White, the original owner of the Dal-Sec, the theater opened with seating for 1,000 patrons. The theater was at 2720 Forest Avenue at the corner of Forest Ave. and Oakland (which would be now MLK Blvd. at Malcolm X Blvd.) and served as a neighborhood second-run house. The Dallas Morning News described the White clientele as the “crossroads of Dallas where toughie and gentleman, gentile and Jew, mingle in harmony in sort of community center.” By the end of the theater’s 21-year run, “toughies” had the upper hand and “harmony” was clearly gone as the theater’s descent was rapid and crime-ridden.
White’s operation of the White was not quite two years as on August 31, 1935, Interstate Circuit bought the White, Forest and Dal-Sec. Interstate opened “In Caliente” as its first show with Joseph Luckett moving from the Melrose to manage the White Theater. Luckett inaugurated midnight shows every Saturday beginning in 1938, experimented with an all-Yiddish film and had live stage shows as added attractions on weekends. His connection with the neighborhood and family night offerings led people to call him simply, “Uncle Joe” as he ran the theater into his 80s up to Interstate’s selling of the theater. (“Uncle Joe” would also manage the Forest Theater in 1949 along with continuing his duties at the White and retired at the Forest at age 87.)
On August 27, 1952, Interstate sold the White to A.J. Vineyard who had a four-day celebration and would also celebrate the 20th anniversary of the theater in the summer of 1954. The celebration would be the last festive event for the White. Multiple armed robberies at the neighboring liquor store had to have taken their toll as Vineyard, himself, was a victim of one of the liquor store robberies. The theater, itself, also was robbed at the box office. So it’s not surprising that Vineyard left the White Theater’s high crime rate area almost immediately after the anniversary celebration and he bought the Trinity Theater rebranding it as the Ewing Theater in August of 1954.
W.M. Burns took on the theater and – under the White Theater nameplate – it ended badly with negative publicity when an 8-year old was locked in the theater overnight and was injured trying to escape. Burns attempted to rebrand the theater as the Elite Theater catering to African American audiences starting in July 1955. Almost immediately, labor protests appear to be the death knell for the short-lived Elite Theater as union protestors picketed at its outset. The Elite Theater also held African American church services at the property under Burns leadership through December 1955 which appears to be the end of the theater’s life. In 1956, the property became split up using the marquee for the Elite Restaurant and another section used for a pawn shop. The Elite was renamed the Seashore Restaurant a decade later. The property was offered for sale in 1965, apparently sold, demolished, and appears on the DCAD in the 2010s as 2720 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. — a vacant lot worth less than $20,000.
In sum, the White/Elite Theater staggered to its ending at just 21 years yet — due to the declining neighborhood fortunes — even that was about a year or two longer than it should have been operating.
The Dal-Sec Theater was in the Second Avenue business district at the corner Dallas Street adjoining Fair Park nicknamed Dal-Sec by some locals. Its design was by architect W. Scott Dunne who designed Dallas' Interstate Circuit properties Melba and Arcadia, as well as the Dal-Sec’s nearby neighbor, the Fair Park Amphitheater and the venerable Texas Theater in Oak Cliff. The Dal-Sec was run by M.S. White who also opened The White Theater at Forest and Oakland. The Dal-Sec became part of Karl Hoblitzelle’s circuit on August 31, 1935 when Interstate bought the Dal-Sec, White, and Forest theaters. The Dal-Sec remained an Interstate property until April 1951 and was a second run neighborhood house. It would then be operated by Howard Hiegel who seemingly ran no advertisements but kept the theater going until 1969. The theater’s demolition was part of the Fair Park area expansion in the late 1960s and into 1970 as the city tried to increase parking around Fair Park.
Arguably, the Dal-Sec’s main claim to fame was that it becomes a peripheral party in two legal battles, one of which altered the film industry. A 50-50 merger between Hoblitizelle and Paramount placed the Dal-Sec and many others in the Hoblitzell and R.J. O'Donnell portfolio within the Interstate Theatre Circuit in 1933. Business practices between the exhibition arm half-owned by Paramount and the production/distribution of Paramount films was closely scrutinized.
The U.S. v. Interstate Circuit (1937) challenged Interstate’s practice of controlling admission prices and the exhibition of second-run features in second-run houses including the Dal-Sec. But the more important case came a decade later in Edelman v. Paramount, a legal challenge that was brought in the courts, and a Justice Department investigation U.S. v. Paramount that led to the famous consent decree in which Paramount agreed to to separate itself from domestic theater exhibition selling out joint ventures such as Interstate and Publix. Only the Dal-Sec and Varsity were ultimately targeted within Dallas for dispersal within the reformulated, post-Paramount decision Interstate Circuit. Those properties had to be excised within three years of the 1948 decree.
The Dal-Sec was sold to Howard Hiegel who took over on May 1, 1951 while the Varsity became part of the Trans-Texas Circuit. Hiegel had operated Dallas' Avon Theater but had sold it earlier in the year and took on the theater for almost two decades. He probably could have eked it out for two full decades had it not been for the city’s redevelopment plans. But the theater’s last years were such that Hiegel said that he shed no tears when the city-mandated end came. In 1961, the theater was robbed of thirty cents and the manager was battered while the nearby Dal-Sec Drug Store suffered at least three separate armed robberies as fortunes and property values had turned in the neighborhood.
The theater soldiered on through lean economic times and high crime rates until 1969 when a combination of Fair Park expansion combined with highway development led to the demolition of the property. Hiegel said that the dollars weren’t rolling in and he had expected the city’s ambitious planning. Just five years earlier, the theater was endangered as a cross-town freeway was going to go through the property. The Fair Park expansion, however, was the death knell as the city bought out more than 300 properties in all and much of the Dal-Sec businesses including the theater which were closed and the buildings demolished. The only reference to the opening date was that the theater made it 45 years which would place its opening in 1924 though there’s not much evidence of that actual opening date as the theatre’s regular advertisements were from Sept. 1930 into the 1950s.
The Varsity Theatre was an atmospheric Venetian Garden inspired theater operating in C.W. Snider’s conceptualized Snider Plaza just blocks away from Southern Methodist University within University Park. It opened Oct. 3, 1929 just weeks prior to the stock market crash. Renamed the Fine Arts in 1957, the theater moved from art, retro, and international cinema to adult films in 1974 during the porno chic era. Renamed as The Plaza Theater as a legit, live theater in 1982 and finally as the Park Cities Playhouse in 1993, the theatre was out of business in 1996 and its auditorium demo’d for retail space a year later.
In the summer of 1928, the city of University Park approved of a plan to allow a 1,011 seat Varsity Theater with seven floors to be built in Snider Plaza. The architect was N.E. Bucklin and was based upon the concept of having attached retail stores and parking for 600 cars in an underground parking facility pegged at around $700,000. That ambitious plan did not come to fruition, however. The theatre construction was delayed until 1929 and by the time the project was complete, the Varsity was a modest $200,000 playhouse with 800 seats and had neither the seven stories of multi-use property nor the underground parking garage. It was operated by Paul Scott who also ran the Haskell Theatre and was equipped with RCA’s Photophone sound-on-film standard. SMU students were the employees under Scott as C.W. Snider was a friend of the campus.
The theatre opened with “In Old Arizona” on Oct. 3, 1929. In 1935, the SMU connection brought foreign language film to the Varsity (although the Melba had beaten the Varsity to the foreign language front showing a German and a Russian language film previously). “Sous les Toits de Paris” was the first of those presentations in conjunction with the University’s French Department followed by “Topaze” and “Les Trois Mousequetaires”. The theater found a niche and also began to show a heavy load of British imports and additionally started Spanish language films starting with Juarez and Maximillian and German film in 1936, as well while keeping first-run and second-run Hollywood fare during the weekends and most weekdays.
Though French films continued into 1937, an article about the downturned business of art films and international films stated that Dallas' Little Theater was abandoned as Dallas' moviegoers were bailing on art cinema. The same article noted that the Interstate Theatre Circuit had taken on the Varsity and decided to update the theater. It was hypothesized that there were “more high brows in Snider Plaza than anywhere else in Dallas” and that the Circuit might stick it out a bit longer with art cinema. Interstate did have occasional ties with SMU but leaned the Varsity away from foreign film though would play art films for the rest of the time it operated the film.
in 1938, Interstate added a stage at the front of the theater for monthly stage shows and more live acts including dance shows, minstrel shows and live animal acts. This move proved fortuitous decades later when the theater became a live event only house. And in 1940, a new marquee and tower were added along with new seats, a redesigned lobby and foyer. The nearby student body led to the theater attracting unannounced sneak previews of films beginning in the 1940s.
Late in the 1940s, Interstate’s control over the Varsity was under scrutiny. The cases of Edelman v. Paramount, a legal challenge that was brought in the courts, and a Justice Department investigation, U.S. v. Paramount. As the case began, Interstate announced a regular art cinema policy including foreign language productions every Thursday and Friday. Meanwhile, U.S. v. Paramount led to the famous consent decree in which Paramount agreed to to separate itself from domestic theater exhibition selling out joint ventures such as Interstate and Publix. Only the Varsity and the Dal-Sec were Dallas-area theaters forced into dispersal within the reformulated, post-Paramount decision Interstate Circuit. Those properties had to be excised within three years of the 1948 decree. The Dal-Sec was sold to Howard Hiegel who took over on May 1, 1951 while the Varsity became part of the Trans-Texas Circuit and in 1953 it went full time art and revival at a good time for international cinema exhibition in the United States.
Satisfied with the results, Trans-Texas rebranded the Varsity as the Fine Arts on January 15, 1957 and remodeled the theater including its third different marquee. Its first film was Riffifi with proceeds going to charity. It added a Fall Film Festival in 1959. The rebranded Fine Arts had some amazing successes. For instance, Blow Up played 11 weeks at the theater in 1967. The art cinema craze was waining at the same time that multiplexes were arriving. The U.A. Ciné about a mile away would be the continuing art house while the Fine Arts went a new direction just as the North Park Cinema was opening about 2.5 miles away. In 1974/5, during the porno-chic period, soft-core X-rated films “Flesh Gordon”, “Linda Lovelace for President”, “Around the World with Fanny Hill”, and many others were booked at the Fine Arts as well as Dallas' Granada Theatre, et al. This did not sit well with University Park which passed an ordinance banning X-rated films in 1977 within 500 feet of a residential area, church or school. The City of Dallas went after the Granada with a more successfully written ordinance. Trans-Texas successfully fought the University Park ruling which was found unconstitutional later that year.
The soft core porno exhibition at the Fine Arts continued amazingly for almost eight years until 1982. A business owner lamented that the situation of a family-oriented residential and business area with a porn house in its highest visibility sight “provides probably the greatest contrast in the whole state of Texas.” One picture of a family walking under “Lusty Princess” which was playing with “Garters and Lace” summarizes the situation under Photos. In March of 1982, the Fine Arts was purchased and the porno chic exhibition was over June 30th and the theater became the Plaza Theater on July 1, 1982. Though the Plaza Theatre was a live venue, its first major booking was the USA Film Festival in 1982.
The renovations to the Plaza’s live venue look took over a year and cost one million dollars. It wasn’t the success neighbors had dreamed of as the not-for-profit theater was empty for stretches as people tried to save it as the decade of the 1990s opened. Meanwhile the “New Fine Arts Theater” opened on Mockingbird hoping to lure clientele from the Fine Arts' halcyon days.
The Plaza Theater was given a hasty renovation in time for its November 1993 relaunch when it became the Park Cities Playhouse. With United Artists opening its high tech and successful UA Plaza, the name change wasn’t the worst idea. First-hand account from this writer can tell you that it wasn’t uncommon to bump into the likes of Charlton Heston, the Smothers Brothers or Penn & Teller when they were appearing at the theater. Though that incarnation under Ben Capelle and John Wall was ambitious it was unsuccessful financially and the theater went back to vacant in 1996 after sporadic offerings. The theater was purchased and its owners explored film exhibition but hit a dead end. So in 1997, it was over for the Varsity/Fine Arts/Plaza as the theater’s marquee was removed and the theater completely gutted after both the economic feasibility and historical preservation efforts failed. The auditorium was demolished in 1997 officially ending a 67-year mostly active run.