The Spring, 2014, issue of quarterly newsletter Preserving Bardstown (PDF here) contains excerpts from an interview with a Mr. J. Robert Crume on February 26, 1967. Mr. Crume said that Crystal Hall was operated by Sisco and Mann from 1912 to 1928, and by Sisco and Arnold after that. In 1938 the theater moved to a new location.
The local newspaper, The Kentucky Standard, was advertising the house as the Crystal Theatre by 1915. Here is a representative listing from December 28, 1916:
“Thursday, A Rough Knight and The Lion and the Girl.
“Friday, The Deserter, featuring Charles Ray.
“Saturday and Monday, 6 reel show, title not yet known.
“Tuesday, Kasey at the Bat, featuring De Wolf Hopper.
Here is an early photo of Ware Auditorium. A guidebook to Downtown Northfield (PDF here) says that the auditorium was designed in the Federal Revival style by Minneapolis architect Henry Carter.
Tauy Theatre was to be the name of this house according to the item in the January 3, 1941, issue of The Film Daily:
“E. Van Hyning is building a new theater in Ottawa, Kan., and will name it the Tauy Theater. He operates other houses at Iola. Parsons and Independence, Kan.”
The Tauy Theatre can be seen in the penultimate picture on this web page featuring scenes of Ottawa during a flood in 1957.
The Royal might have been the new house the Spencer chain was planning to build at Truro in 1941, noted in this item from the January 3 issue of The Film Daily that year:
“Truro, N. S. Is Getting Third Spencer Theater
“St. John, N. B.— The Spencer circuit, with headquarters in the local Strand, mother house of the group, already operating the Strand and Capitol, in Truro, N. S., will start construction on a third Truro theater early this month.
“A lot, 59x130 feet, has been purchased as the site. There will be about 800 seats, all on one floor. This circuit already has 21 houses.
“Truro is the center of unusual activity because of the establishment of new army and air force camps at Debert, about 10 miles away, and with Truro as the nearest town.”
The Strand dated back to at least as early as 1925. In 1916, Truro had a house called the Princess, and in 1907 one called the Electric.
The original Prince Theatre was replaced in 1940. The April 5, 1940, issue of The Film Daily had this item:
“Dobrow to Erect New Theater Building, Refurnish Another
“Pahokee, Fla. — A call for bids is being made by Abe Dobrow of the Everglades and Prince Theaters, for a new structure to replace the present building housing the Prince theater. Bids will be opened April 8. Plans also call for complete refurnishing of the Everglades theater.”
This follow-up item is from the January 3, 1941, issue of The Film Daily:
“Open New Pahokee House
“Pahokee, Fla. — New $40,000 Prince theater, has been opened. The 600-seater is owned and operated by Gold & Dobrow. Don Hiller & Sons, Pahokee, were the contractors.”
Listings of the Prince Theatre in FDY’s from the 1930s consistently give it a capacity of 250, so it was less than half the size of the new house. It seems unlikely that the original Prince Theatre would have been demolished in 1940 if its building was only nine years old, so it’s likely that it was either an older theater that had operated under a different name earlier in its history, or it was in an older commercial building that had been converted into a theater in 1931.
Architect Chester A. Cone was still in practice at least as late as 1985, so it seems likely that it was the 1940 rebuilding of the Prince Theatre that he designed, rather than the original house.
In 1966, the Gold-Dobrow chain leased three of their five theaters, including the Prince, to a Miami-based chain. An article about the transfer in the December 21 issue of The Palm Beach Post said that the Gold-Dobrow chain had been “…organized about 35 years ago….” That would be consistent with the 1931 opening of the original Prince Theatre, whether it was a new operation or an old house renamed by the new owners.
Fabfilmfan: Initial search on Cinema Treasures brings up a page listing only theaters of a given name that are currently open. To see a list that includes all the theaters of that name that have been closed you must go to the lower left of the map and click the link reading “All Theaters.” Here is the full page for the name Adelphi.
That said, there are still issues with the site’s search. Sometimes entire cities are missing from the drop-down menu and I, too, resort to Google to find their pages.
The Kent Theatre was probably the project noted in this item in the January 3, 1941, issue of The Film Daily:
“Le Brun Plans 400-Seater
“South Whitley, Ind.— Don LeBrun will build a new 400-seat theater here. Erwin Fredricks, Chicago, is the architect, and building will begin as soon as the necessary steel is available.”
This video of a news report about the Kent Theatre was uploaded to YouTube on February 20, 2012, two days after the house was destroyed by a fire. One woman interviewed said she had started working at the Kent the day it opened, which she said was July 3, 1947. I don’t know if her memory failed her or if the project actually did have to wait until after wartime building restrictions were relaxed before it could be completed. The report also said that the house had been closed for about two years by the time it burned, and had been in use for church services.
An early item about the house that was to become the Admiral Theatre appeared in the January 3, 1941, issue of The Film Daily:
“Newman Awards Contract For New $300,000 Stand
“Portland, Ore. — Frank Newman, Sr., of the Evergreen Theaters, operating some 39 theaters in Oregon and Washington, announces that contract has been let for a 1,500-seat house, the Rivoli, at Bremerton, Wash., known as the Navy Yard city.
“The new theater to cost an estimated $300,000, will occupy a site 103x135 feet in size at Fifth Ave. and Pacific St. Plans are being prepared by McClelland & Jones, architects, who announce that the new house will be similar to the Academy Theater in Los Angeles.”
An article in the September 19, 2014, issue of The Bremerton Patriot about the 75th anniversary of the house confirms that it was originally to have been called the Rivoli, but in June, 1941, Evergreen Theatres held a “name the theater” contest and Admiral was the winner.
I’ve been unable to find any other sources naming McClelland & Jones as the architects of the Admiral, but neither are there sources naming anyone else. The firm, consisting of principals Robert F. McClelland and Victor N. Jones, was active from around 1933 to around 1946.
A book called Johnny Briscoe, A Great Life, by Samuel C. P. Baldwin, Jr. (PDF here) has information about the theaters in Leonardtown, and photos of the New Theatre. Kenneth Duke opened the New Theatre on December 10, 1941. He had been operating a theater in Leonardtown since early in the silent era, first in the former Town Hall and then in the Duke Building.
The plans for the New Theatre were announced in the January 3, 1941, issue of The Film Daily:
“Ebersons Ready House For Maryland Community
“Leonardtown, Md. — A new film theater is to go up here and plans have already been completed for it, it is announced by Kenneth Duke.
“House will be a community project and is to have Colonial style for its motif, in keeping with local historical traditions.
“The theater will have the most advanced type of equipment.
“Plans have been prepared by John and Drew Eberson, film architects in New York City.”
Judging from the look of the building and from the appearance of the auditorium in Google’s satellite view, the auditorium was a new structure built behind an existing building that was remodeled to accommodate the theater entrance.
I haven’t been able to discover when the New Theatre became the Rex Theatre, but an article dated October 17, 2014, posted at Gazette.Net said that the former theater had recently been converted into a bar and restaurant called The Rex in honor of the old theater. The article also said that the Rex Theatre had closed in 1986.
This vintage photo of the Warner from the University of Miami Libraries Cuban Heritage Collection probably dates from 1949 or 1950. The feature film on the marquee, Los amantes, starring Cornel Wilde and Patricia Knight, was originally released in the United States in 1949 as Shockproof.
Here is a vintage photo of Cine Santa Catalina from the University of Miami Libraries Cuban Heritage Collection. The photo is undated, but the Mexican movie Soy un Prófugo, which starred Cantinflas, was released in Mexico in 1946 and in the United States in 1947.
I haven’t been able to discover the architect of the Dade Theatre, but according to the January 3, 1941, issue of The Film Daily the contractors were the A. G. Witters Company. The Internet says there is still a Witters Construction Company operating in Hialeah, but I can’t find a web site for it. I don’t know if it’s the same company, but even if it is it seems unlikely they’d still have the records of a project built 75 years ago.
As for the style, from the one photo we have it appears to have been the basic Streamline Modern typical of most of the theaters built in 1940.
The Dade was in operation at least as late as 1954, when the October 2 issue of Boxoffice reported that it was getting a new manager, Allen Armstrong, formerly of the San Marco Theatre in Jacksonville. However, the house didn’t last much longer. The May 28, 1955, issue of Boxoffice reported that the Dade Theatre was being razed and would be replaced by a store and office building. The replacement building has apparently been demolished as well, and replaced by an apartment house called Friendship Tower.
750 Chancellor would be part of the vacant lot at the southwest corner or Chancellor and Union Avenue, just east of Michelle’s Caribbean-American Restaurant, which is at 754 Chancellor.
The Carleton Opera House is listed in the 1905-1906 Cahn guide as a ground floor theater with 850 seats. Carleton was apparently the correct spelling, which is how it is spelled in an article about Carleton Brewster, the owner of the house, from the May 28, 2009, issue of the Islip Bulletin (PDF here.) Brewster built the Carleton Opera House in 1900.
A new owner planned to remodel and double the size of the house in 1926, but the Bay Shore Theatre was built nearby instead. The Carleton was razed in 1927 and a commercial building was erected on the site. That building burned in 1957. The site is now occupied by a park with a large gazebo, on the south side of Montauk Highway a few doors west of S. Park Avenue. I would surmise the theater address to have been approximately 82 W. Main Street (surprisingly, Google Street View’s address display is just about dead on at this location.)
Here are fresh links the the April 25, 1942, Boxoffice article about the Coral and Arlington Theatres (illustrations are on the first two pages, with text only on pages three and four):
The May 27, 1926, issue of The Daily Iowan, the University of Iowa’s student newspaper, had an article saying that the contracts had been let for construction of the new Englert Theatre. It said that the new house would have 190 more seats than the old one, and the stage would also be larger. The new building was ten feet winder than the original theater. The furnishings for the theater would be installed by A. H. Blank, the Des Moines company that had the lease on the new house. Blank was the regional Paramount affiliate.
The article also said that the architectural style of the new theater would be Gothic. As the facade is not at all Gothic the style was probably used only on the interior. The extra ten feet of width probably applied only to the auditorium. Most likely the original auditorium had outdoor passages at each side for emergency exit (a fairly common feature for many older theaters, especially those built within a few years after the disaster at the Iroquois Theatre in Chicago in 1903) and that space was probably built over.
The April 19, 1916, issue of The Iowa City Citizen said that the new Strand Theatre on College Street would open the following day. The building, formerly a saloon, had been remodeled for Thomas A. Brown, who had operated the first movie theater in Iowa City.
The advertisement for the Strand Theatre in the May 27, 1926, issue of The Daily Iowan boasted of the theater’s Robert Morton theater organ.
The marquee is about all that can be seen of the Strand in this photo. The movie In Old Arizona, the first talking picture to be filmed outdoors, and the first western with sound, was released in January, 1929.
On page 250 of Rick Altman’s book Silent Film Sound is this line: “In 1912, Fred E. Dever, owner of the new Pastime in Iowa City, added a 1912 Powers No. 6 projector to his 1911 Motiograph.”
Fred Dever, operator of the Pastime Theatre in Iowa City, was mentioned in the March 4, 1911, issue of The New York Clipper as the inventor of a gold screen for moving picture theaters, and he was organizing a stock company to establish a manufacturing plant for it.
The December 11 issue of The New York Dramatic Mirror that same year had this item:
“Archie Hanlon has leased the Pastime Theatre, in Iowa City. Ia., taking possession Jan. 1. At the same time Fred Dever will open a new house for motion Pictures built by Dunkel Brothers at a cost of over $6,000.”
Mr. Hanlon must have operated the old Pastime under a new name, because an article in the January 19, 1912, issue of the Iowa City Press-Citizen indicates that Fred Dever took the theater name with him when he opened his new house"
“Fred E. Dever, the popular and experienced moving picture man, will dedicate his elegant new theatre, the Pastime Picture Palace, nearly opposite the Daily Press office, on College street, on Saturday afternoon, Jan. 20.”
It was probably the 1912 Pastime Theatre that later became the Capitol. An item about the groundbreaking for the new Pastime in October, 1911, had given the location as College Street near the intersection with Dubuque, which is where 205 E. College is. The entire block has been obliterated for redevelopment, so the Capitol can be marked as demolished.
There was apparently a renovation of the theater in the early 1920s, as the ads for it begin calling it the New Pastime Theatre around then. In 1926, the Press-Citizen mentions “…the new Pastime $30,000 All American Concert Grand Organ….”
A “lost and found” ad in the December 30, 1946 issue of the Press-Citizen is the latest mention of the Pastime Theatre I’ve found. The April 17, 1947, issue has the earliest mention of the Capitol I’ve found, so the name must have been changed in early 1947.
stevedenunzio: This page is for the Capitol/Paramount Theatre in Des Moines. The Wikipedia page you cite is about the Englert Theatre in Iowa City, so the Pastime/Capitol Theatre it refers to is also in Iowa City. Its Cinema Treasures page is at this link.
This comment by Ron Salters on the Capitol Theatre page says that the Capitol was to the right and the State to the left as one entered the theatre building. Street view shows that the Capitol’s auditorium is still standing and houses a CVS pharmacy, but the State’s auditorium has been demolished and its site is occupied by a strip mall and a parking lot.
The May 28, 1949, issue of Boxoffice had a photo of the Melody and Arco Theatres from the opening night of the Melody.
The May 28, 1949, issue of Boxoffice had a photo of the Melody and Arco Theatres from the opening night of the Melody.
The Spring, 2014, issue of quarterly newsletter Preserving Bardstown (PDF here) contains excerpts from an interview with a Mr. J. Robert Crume on February 26, 1967. Mr. Crume said that Crystal Hall was operated by Sisco and Mann from 1912 to 1928, and by Sisco and Arnold after that. In 1938 the theater moved to a new location.
The local newspaper, The Kentucky Standard, was advertising the house as the Crystal Theatre by 1915. Here is a representative listing from December 28, 1916:
Bardstown had a Sunday blue law, so the theater operated only six days a week.Here is an early photo of Ware Auditorium. A guidebook to Downtown Northfield (PDF here) says that the auditorium was designed in the Federal Revival style by Minneapolis architect Henry Carter.
Tauy Theatre was to be the name of this house according to the item in the January 3, 1941, issue of The Film Daily:
The Tauy Theatre can be seen in the penultimate picture on this web page featuring scenes of Ottawa during a flood in 1957.The Royal might have been the new house the Spencer chain was planning to build at Truro in 1941, noted in this item from the January 3 issue of The Film Daily that year:
The Strand dated back to at least as early as 1925. In 1916, Truro had a house called the Princess, and in 1907 one called the Electric.The original Prince Theatre was replaced in 1940. The April 5, 1940, issue of The Film Daily had this item:
This follow-up item is from the January 3, 1941, issue of The Film Daily:Listings of the Prince Theatre in FDY’s from the 1930s consistently give it a capacity of 250, so it was less than half the size of the new house. It seems unlikely that the original Prince Theatre would have been demolished in 1940 if its building was only nine years old, so it’s likely that it was either an older theater that had operated under a different name earlier in its history, or it was in an older commercial building that had been converted into a theater in 1931.Architect Chester A. Cone was still in practice at least as late as 1985, so it seems likely that it was the 1940 rebuilding of the Prince Theatre that he designed, rather than the original house.
In 1966, the Gold-Dobrow chain leased three of their five theaters, including the Prince, to a Miami-based chain. An article about the transfer in the December 21 issue of The Palm Beach Post said that the Gold-Dobrow chain had been “…organized about 35 years ago….” That would be consistent with the 1931 opening of the original Prince Theatre, whether it was a new operation or an old house renamed by the new owners.
Fabfilmfan: Initial search on Cinema Treasures brings up a page listing only theaters of a given name that are currently open. To see a list that includes all the theaters of that name that have been closed you must go to the lower left of the map and click the link reading “All Theaters.” Here is the full page for the name Adelphi.
That said, there are still issues with the site’s search. Sometimes entire cities are missing from the drop-down menu and I, too, resort to Google to find their pages.
The Kent Theatre was probably the project noted in this item in the January 3, 1941, issue of The Film Daily:
This video of a news report about the Kent Theatre was uploaded to YouTube on February 20, 2012, two days after the house was destroyed by a fire. One woman interviewed said she had started working at the Kent the day it opened, which she said was July 3, 1947. I don’t know if her memory failed her or if the project actually did have to wait until after wartime building restrictions were relaxed before it could be completed. The report also said that the house had been closed for about two years by the time it burned, and had been in use for church services.An early item about the house that was to become the Admiral Theatre appeared in the January 3, 1941, issue of The Film Daily:
An article in the September 19, 2014, issue of The Bremerton Patriot about the 75th anniversary of the house confirms that it was originally to have been called the Rivoli, but in June, 1941, Evergreen Theatres held a “name the theater” contest and Admiral was the winner.I’ve been unable to find any other sources naming McClelland & Jones as the architects of the Admiral, but neither are there sources naming anyone else. The firm, consisting of principals Robert F. McClelland and Victor N. Jones, was active from around 1933 to around 1946.
A book called Johnny Briscoe, A Great Life, by Samuel C. P. Baldwin, Jr. (PDF here) has information about the theaters in Leonardtown, and photos of the New Theatre. Kenneth Duke opened the New Theatre on December 10, 1941. He had been operating a theater in Leonardtown since early in the silent era, first in the former Town Hall and then in the Duke Building.
The plans for the New Theatre were announced in the January 3, 1941, issue of The Film Daily:
Judging from the look of the building and from the appearance of the auditorium in Google’s satellite view, the auditorium was a new structure built behind an existing building that was remodeled to accommodate the theater entrance.I haven’t been able to discover when the New Theatre became the Rex Theatre, but an article dated October 17, 2014, posted at Gazette.Net said that the former theater had recently been converted into a bar and restaurant called The Rex in honor of the old theater. The article also said that the Rex Theatre had closed in 1986.
This vintage photo of the Warner from the University of Miami Libraries Cuban Heritage Collection probably dates from 1949 or 1950. The feature film on the marquee, Los amantes, starring Cornel Wilde and Patricia Knight, was originally released in the United States in 1949 as Shockproof.
Here is a vintage photo of Cine Santa Catalina from the University of Miami Libraries Cuban Heritage Collection. The photo is undated, but the Mexican movie Soy un Prófugo, which starred Cantinflas, was released in Mexico in 1946 and in the United States in 1947.
Cine Candido probably opened in late 1940. The following item appeared in The Film Daily of January 3, 1941:
I haven’t been able to discover the architect of the Dade Theatre, but according to the January 3, 1941, issue of The Film Daily the contractors were the A. G. Witters Company. The Internet says there is still a Witters Construction Company operating in Hialeah, but I can’t find a web site for it. I don’t know if it’s the same company, but even if it is it seems unlikely they’d still have the records of a project built 75 years ago.
As for the style, from the one photo we have it appears to have been the basic Streamline Modern typical of most of the theaters built in 1940.
The Dade was in operation at least as late as 1954, when the October 2 issue of Boxoffice reported that it was getting a new manager, Allen Armstrong, formerly of the San Marco Theatre in Jacksonville. However, the house didn’t last much longer. The May 28, 1955, issue of Boxoffice reported that the Dade Theatre was being razed and would be replaced by a store and office building. The replacement building has apparently been demolished as well, and replaced by an apartment house called Friendship Tower.
750 Chancellor would be part of the vacant lot at the southwest corner or Chancellor and Union Avenue, just east of Michelle’s Caribbean-American Restaurant, which is at 754 Chancellor.
The Carleton Opera House is listed in the 1905-1906 Cahn guide as a ground floor theater with 850 seats. Carleton was apparently the correct spelling, which is how it is spelled in an article about Carleton Brewster, the owner of the house, from the May 28, 2009, issue of the Islip Bulletin (PDF here.) Brewster built the Carleton Opera House in 1900.
A new owner planned to remodel and double the size of the house in 1926, but the Bay Shore Theatre was built nearby instead. The Carleton was razed in 1927 and a commercial building was erected on the site. That building burned in 1957. The site is now occupied by a park with a large gazebo, on the south side of Montauk Highway a few doors west of S. Park Avenue. I would surmise the theater address to have been approximately 82 W. Main Street (surprisingly, Google Street View’s address display is just about dead on at this location.)
Here are fresh links the the April 25, 1942, Boxoffice article about the Coral and Arlington Theatres (illustrations are on the first two pages, with text only on pages three and four):
Page one
Page two
Page three
Page four
Here are fresh links to the February 16, 1970, Boxoffice article about the new Esquire Theatre:
First page
Second page
The May 27, 1926, issue of The Daily Iowan, the University of Iowa’s student newspaper, had an article saying that the contracts had been let for construction of the new Englert Theatre. It said that the new house would have 190 more seats than the old one, and the stage would also be larger. The new building was ten feet winder than the original theater. The furnishings for the theater would be installed by A. H. Blank, the Des Moines company that had the lease on the new house. Blank was the regional Paramount affiliate.
The article also said that the architectural style of the new theater would be Gothic. As the facade is not at all Gothic the style was probably used only on the interior. The extra ten feet of width probably applied only to the auditorium. Most likely the original auditorium had outdoor passages at each side for emergency exit (a fairly common feature for many older theaters, especially those built within a few years after the disaster at the Iroquois Theatre in Chicago in 1903) and that space was probably built over.
The April 19, 1916, issue of The Iowa City Citizen said that the new Strand Theatre on College Street would open the following day. The building, formerly a saloon, had been remodeled for Thomas A. Brown, who had operated the first movie theater in Iowa City.
The advertisement for the Strand Theatre in the May 27, 1926, issue of The Daily Iowan boasted of the theater’s Robert Morton theater organ.
The marquee is about all that can be seen of the Strand in this photo. The movie In Old Arizona, the first talking picture to be filmed outdoors, and the first western with sound, was released in January, 1929.
On page 250 of Rick Altman’s book Silent Film Sound is this line: “In 1912, Fred E. Dever, owner of the new Pastime in Iowa City, added a 1912 Powers No. 6 projector to his 1911 Motiograph.”
Fred Dever, operator of the Pastime Theatre in Iowa City, was mentioned in the March 4, 1911, issue of The New York Clipper as the inventor of a gold screen for moving picture theaters, and he was organizing a stock company to establish a manufacturing plant for it.
The December 11 issue of The New York Dramatic Mirror that same year had this item:
Mr. Hanlon must have operated the old Pastime under a new name, because an article in the January 19, 1912, issue of the Iowa City Press-Citizen indicates that Fred Dever took the theater name with him when he opened his new house"It was probably the 1912 Pastime Theatre that later became the Capitol. An item about the groundbreaking for the new Pastime in October, 1911, had given the location as College Street near the intersection with Dubuque, which is where 205 E. College is. The entire block has been obliterated for redevelopment, so the Capitol can be marked as demolished.There was apparently a renovation of the theater in the early 1920s, as the ads for it begin calling it the New Pastime Theatre around then. In 1926, the Press-Citizen mentions “…the new Pastime $30,000 All American Concert Grand Organ….”
A “lost and found” ad in the December 30, 1946 issue of the Press-Citizen is the latest mention of the Pastime Theatre I’ve found. The April 17, 1947, issue has the earliest mention of the Capitol I’ve found, so the name must have been changed in early 1947.
stevedenunzio: This page is for the Capitol/Paramount Theatre in Des Moines. The Wikipedia page you cite is about the Englert Theatre in Iowa City, so the Pastime/Capitol Theatre it refers to is also in Iowa City. Its Cinema Treasures page is at this link.
Thanks, Ron. We don’t have the Colonial listed, nor any theater at 1629 Curtis, so that must be the correct address for this second Colorado Theatre.
This comment by Ron Salters on the Capitol Theatre page says that the Capitol was to the right and the State to the left as one entered the theatre building. Street view shows that the Capitol’s auditorium is still standing and houses a CVS pharmacy, but the State’s auditorium has been demolished and its site is occupied by a strip mall and a parking lot.