Valley Theater
7617 Reading Road,
Cincinnati,
OH
45237
7617 Reading Road,
Cincinnati,
OH
45237
1 person
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The Valley Theater was built by F&Y Building Services out of Columbus,Ohio in 1949. Weithe’s other cinemas were the Westwood Th.,in Cincinnati,the Bond in Bond Hill,the Roselawn in Cincinnati,the Jackson Th. in Cincy,the Andulas in St. Bernard,Ohio. In Kentucky the Ludlow Th. in Ludlow,the Derby Th. in Latonia,after his Latonia Th. burned in 1939 he rebuilt it as the Kentucky Th. In 1941 he erected the Bard Th. in Louisville , a very busy fellow this Weithe.
Mr Weithe was the owner of the Mt. Healthy Drive-In and also the Kentucky Theater in Latonia, Kentucky.
In 1962 ,Cincinnati Theaters ,a holding company subleased the Valley Theater from Weithe and continued to run reserved seat road shows. Later Louis Weithe became President of the Fort Lauderdale Symphony in Florida. Cincinnati Theaters Company had a 13 house movie chain in 1962 which included the Keith’s Theater on Walnut Street in downtown Cincinnati. The Keiths never became an RKO house much to my amazement.It must have always been an independatly owned theater,surprisingly since all the downtown first run houses in the 30,40,50,60’s were RKO controlled. Perhaps someone can explain this oddity?
This was one of eight houses controlled by Louis Wiethe and certainly his biggest achievement. Lou Weithe died at age 92 in Florida in 2002. The Valley Theater featured road shows in its earliest days, I can remember seeing,“My Fair Lady”‘there with a packed house not long after it was released. The Valley had a stage for small variety acts and accomidations were included for early TV transmittion if it was going to be ulitized. The stage had two curtains in front of the movie screen, one rose vertically and the other horizontally. Weithe sold the Valley Th. in 1962 to Harold Poe, but Lou retained a lease on the Theater to continue running movies.