An item in the October 7, 1927, issue of Motion Picture News said that I. Brotman was the owner of the Clybourn Theatre. Brotman’s son, Oscar, went on to have a long career in exhibition, operating several notable Chicago theaters.
There were two houses called the Bay Theatre in the Panama City area. The first was a small house that was being operated by J. E. Church at the time Martin Theatres bought out Church in the early 1930s. The original Bay Theatre was subsequently closed.
Martin later built the second Bay Theatre, which was located at Highway 98 and Wewahitchka Road (now E. 3rd Street) in Springfield, Florida. Although Springfield is a separate city, everything in it, including the city’s offices, has a Panama City address. Construction was begun on the second Bay Theatre in early 1942, but wartime material restrictions delayed its completion.
The second Bay Theatre advertised in the December 30, 1957, issue of the Panama City News, but I can’t find any later ads. For at least a year prior to that the house had most often shown double features of older movies, with the program changing three times a week, so it was apparently surviving as a revival house with occasional double features of exploitation movies.
WaterWinterWonderland has another photo of the theater entrance on its Courtyard Cinema page. There is also a shot of the freestanding attraction board at the street, which says “Courtyards Cinema 5” on it, so that must be its actual name though all the Internet says just Courtyard Cinema.
The description of the building at 1913 Lakin Avenue in a brochure with a walking tour of Great Bend says this:
“Charles Andress, famous circus man and entrepreneur, built this brick building in 1909. In
the winter months, when he wasn’t on the road, Andress managed the Strand Theatre, which continued in business until 1954. Since that time, the space has been used as a retail store.”
The theater trade journals of the period don’t mention a Strand Theatre at Great Bend. There were houses called the Echo, the Lakin, the Regent, and the Elite, which was later renamed the Lyric.
A conflicting report about a theater Charles Andress owned in Great Bend came from the August 1, 1927, issue of The Hutchinson News:
“VETERAN SHOWMAN BUYS NEW GREAT BEND THEATRE.
“Great Bend, Kan., Aug. 1— Charles Andress, veteran Great Bend circus man, now retired, has bought the fine new theatre, how being built here, The State. The name will be changed and it will be known as the Andress.
“Several of tho improvements planned for the theatre but which have been held up because of lack of finances will now be finished.
“A. C. Woolen, manager of the theatre will be retained as manager, R. F. Rickart of Elkhart, Kan., who financed the building of the theatre, last week decided to withdraw from the enterprise.”
The trade journals don’t mention either a State Theatre or an Andress Theatre in Great Bend, either. I don’t know if these two sources refer to two different theaters, or if the history of one theater has gotten muddled over the years. An article saying that the Strand had closed permanently ran in the October 21, 1957, issue of the Great Bend Daily Tribune. That article said that the Strand had opened “…about 25 years ago.”
The new theater under construction for the Sproule brothers at 310-312 N. Main Street was designed by the local architectural firm of Smith & English, according to the May 6, 1936, issue of The Hutchinson, Kansas, News.
Here is the official web site of the Aztec Theatre. There are a few music events scheduled this month, but fewer for November and December. At least the place is open.
The North Star Cinema was designed by William Riseman Associates. Plans, sections, and detail sheets are in the J. Evan Miller collection of Cinerama Theater Plans at UCLA’s Charles E. Young Research Library.
The Palace Theatre in Corpus Christi had a Reuter organ of three manuals and eight ranks, opus 214, installed in 1926. The Reuter Organ Company of Lawrence, Kansas, is still in business. Throughout its history it has made primarily church organs, but there were about fifty installations in theaters, mostly in Texas and Kansas, from 1919 to 1929.
The Grande Theatre has been demolished and construction has begun on the site for the new headquarters of the Nueces County Regional Transportation Authority. The Melba Theatre across the street has also been demolished, but for private redevelopment for which plans are indefinite.
This house originally opened on May 10, 1913, as the Martin Theatre. I don’t know when it was renamed DeLuxe, but the DeLuxe Theatre reopened on March 17, 1923, after being remodeled. Wayne Martin’s original lease was for five years, so the house might have been renamed DeLuxe before the 1923 remodeling.
A full page ad for the Diana Theatre in the April 23, 1948, issue of The Tipton Daily Tribune said that the fire the previous year had virtually destroyed the old theater and building, and that the new Diana Theatre was new construction. The project was designed by the architectural and engineering firm of Johnson, McKinney & Schenck.
An article in the Monday, June 24, 1946, issue of The Tipton Daily Tribune said that Wednesday would mark the 20th anniversary of the Diana Theatre. Nick Paikos, the original owner, was still operating the house. The article said that prior to being remodeled and reopened as the Diana the building had housed the Grand Theatre, but that it had been closed for some time.
The Grand Theatre was mentioned in the April 1, 1922, issue of Exhibitors Herald, which said that it had been bought by Clyde Wilson. Previously it had been operated by Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Jackson.
The July 19, 1929, issue of The Film Daily reported that the Dixie Theatre at Uniontown, Pennsylvania, had been gutted by a fire causing an estimated $30,000 of damage.
This article from Lehigh Valley Business of May 1, 2014, says that the Palace Theatre building is being renovated for use as a brew pub/restaurant, bakery, and coffee shop. Seat from the theater will be used in the waiting area, and movie posters found in the theater will be displayed.
A list of historic theaters in Iowa prepared in 2009 (pdf here) has this ambiguous line for the address of the Capitol: “193 South Central Avenue or 314 South Central Avenue.” It also gives an alternate name for the structure as the P. A. Leese Building. Here is a photo of the P. A. Leese Building, which is at 193 S. Central Avenue. I’m not sure where the address 314 originated, but it seems an unlikely location for a theater, being on the other side of the railroad tracks from Hartley’s small business district and adjacent to a large grain elevator.
The Capitol was mentioned in the Iowa “Changes in Ownership” column of the July 1, 1929, issue of The Film Daily: “ Hartley — Capitol, sold to C. A. Sartorius by A. M. Inman.” Mr. Sartorius sent in a couple of capsule movie reviews for the “What the Picture Did for Me” column of Motion Picture Herald in 1934.
Someone named H. Midland was operating a theater at Hartley in 1913 according to the December 27 issue of The Moving Picture World, but the name of the theater was not given. The May 6, 1916, issue of the same publication mentioned a Rex Theatre in Hartley, and it might have been the same house that H. Midland was operating in 1913.
The Capitol might have closed for a while in the 1950s, but must have reopened later as it was advertising in the newspaper at least as late as December 30, 1976.
The August 12, 1978, issue of The Pittsburgh Press said that the Strand Theatre in Oakland, which had recently closed, was being converted into space for three stores. The total space being converted was 8,500 square feet, so the Strand must have been a good-sized theater.
The obituary of Squirrel Hill architect Edgar A. Kwalwasser in the August 6, 1998, issue of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette said that he had designed theaters in six states, but only gives the names of three of them, one of which was the Cranberry Mall Cinemas. Kwalwasser established his practice in 1951 and retired only a few months before his death in 1998.
The obituary of Squirrel Hill architect Edgar A. Kwalwasser in the August 6, 1998, issue of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette listed alterations to the Squirrel Hill and Manor Theatres among his works. The remodeling of the Manor he handled might have been the 1965 project for Stanley-Warner I mentioned in my comment of March 6, 2010, or it might have been the 1978 renovations rivest266 mentioned in the comment of last month, or it might have been both, as Kwalwasser established his practice in 1951 and remained active until April, 1998.
The obituary says that he designed theaters in six states, but only mentions three theater projects by name. The third was the Cranberry Mall Cinemas in Cranberry Township.
The obituary of Squirrel Hill architect Edgar A. Kwalwasser in the August 6, 1998, issue of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette listed alterations to the Squirrel Hill and Manor Theatres among his works. As Kwalwasser established his practice in 1951, the remodeling of the Squirrel Hill Theatre that he handled might have been the one for Stanley-Warner in 1956, or it might have been a later one.
An article in the October 27, 1979, issue of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette mentioned in passing that the King’s Court Theatre had been designed by architect Edgar A. Kwalwasser.
The only mention I can find of the 8th & Broadway Corp. in the trade journals is this item from the California “Changes in Ownership” column of the July 22, 1932, issue of The Film Daily:
“Olympic (formerly Bards 8th St.) sold to Laurence Cohen by 8th & Broadway Corp.”
The Olympic was on 8th Street west of Broadway, and opened as Bard’s 8th Street Theatre in April, 1927. Lou Bard operated the house, but I don’t know if he owned it outright. It’s possible that the house was financed by someone else.
The lease on the Garrick (and the land under it) was taken over by H. L. Gumbiner in 1921, and he operated the house until having it replaced by the Tower in 1927. In the early 1930s the Gumbiners were operating the Cameo and Broadway Theatres as well as the Tower, but so far I haven’t been able to connect them with Lou Bard. There could have been a business relationship of some sort between them, and if so the Garrick’s organ might have gone to Bard’s 8th Street.
Gumbiner is best known for having built the Los Angeles Theatre in 1930, which is how the Tower’s organ ended up there. The Los Angeles was expensive to build, and Gumbiner’s finances were stretched thin, so moving the organ from the Tower was probably an economy move.
Andrew: I don’t recall having seen an organ console in the El Rey when I attended movies there at least a dozen times in the late 1950s and early 1960s. But then I don’t think I ever attended the El Rey prior to the installation of the CinemaScope screen in 1954. The screen was quite wide, and if the organ hadn’t been removed earlier it was probably taken out when the screen was installed.
The only old house in the San Gabriel Valley that I know for certain still had an organ in the 1960s was the Rialto in South Pasadena. I believe it’s still there, but it hasn’t been used since being damaged in a fire in the 1970s.
A lobby display promoting war bonds is the main feature of this 1945 photo from the Pasadena Digital Archive. Not much of the theater can be seen, but it looks as though some remodeling had been done which left the lobby rather plain. The subsequent photo in the stream shows a military band posed in front of the Strand’s curtain, but the most interesting thing is that there appears to be an organ console in the orchestra pit.
Saving the best for last, Pasadena Digital History now has four vintage photos of the Strand available from the Harold A. Parker collection at the Huntington Library:
An item in the October 7, 1927, issue of Motion Picture News said that I. Brotman was the owner of the Clybourn Theatre. Brotman’s son, Oscar, went on to have a long career in exhibition, operating several notable Chicago theaters.
There were two houses called the Bay Theatre in the Panama City area. The first was a small house that was being operated by J. E. Church at the time Martin Theatres bought out Church in the early 1930s. The original Bay Theatre was subsequently closed.
Martin later built the second Bay Theatre, which was located at Highway 98 and Wewahitchka Road (now E. 3rd Street) in Springfield, Florida. Although Springfield is a separate city, everything in it, including the city’s offices, has a Panama City address. Construction was begun on the second Bay Theatre in early 1942, but wartime material restrictions delayed its completion.
The second Bay Theatre advertised in the December 30, 1957, issue of the Panama City News, but I can’t find any later ads. For at least a year prior to that the house had most often shown double features of older movies, with the program changing three times a week, so it was apparently surviving as a revival house with occasional double features of exploitation movies.
WaterWinterWonderland has another photo of the theater entrance on its Courtyard Cinema page. There is also a shot of the freestanding attraction board at the street, which says “Courtyards Cinema 5” on it, so that must be its actual name though all the Internet says just Courtyard Cinema.
The July 11, 1925, issue of Motion Picture News mentioned Mr. and Mrs. A. M. Atkinson, operators of the Panama Theatre in Panama City, Florida.
The Tift Theatre bears a strong resemblance to the Martin Theatre (formerly the Ritz) in Panama City, Florida, which was opened in 1936.
The description of the building at 1913 Lakin Avenue in a brochure with a walking tour of Great Bend says this:
The theater trade journals of the period don’t mention a Strand Theatre at Great Bend. There were houses called the Echo, the Lakin, the Regent, and the Elite, which was later renamed the Lyric.A conflicting report about a theater Charles Andress owned in Great Bend came from the August 1, 1927, issue of The Hutchinson News:
The trade journals don’t mention either a State Theatre or an Andress Theatre in Great Bend, either. I don’t know if these two sources refer to two different theaters, or if the history of one theater has gotten muddled over the years. An article saying that the Strand had closed permanently ran in the October 21, 1957, issue of the Great Bend Daily Tribune. That article said that the Strand had opened “…about 25 years ago.”The new theater under construction for the Sproule brothers at 310-312 N. Main Street was designed by the local architectural firm of Smith & English, according to the May 6, 1936, issue of The Hutchinson, Kansas, News.
Here is the official web site of the Aztec Theatre. There are a few music events scheduled this month, but fewer for November and December. At least the place is open.
The North Star Cinema was designed by William Riseman Associates. Plans, sections, and detail sheets are in the J. Evan Miller collection of Cinerama Theater Plans at UCLA’s Charles E. Young Research Library.
The Palace Theatre in Corpus Christi had a Reuter organ of three manuals and eight ranks, opus 214, installed in 1926. The Reuter Organ Company of Lawrence, Kansas, is still in business. Throughout its history it has made primarily church organs, but there were about fifty installations in theaters, mostly in Texas and Kansas, from 1919 to 1929.
The Grande Theatre has been demolished and construction has begun on the site for the new headquarters of the Nueces County Regional Transportation Authority. The Melba Theatre across the street has also been demolished, but for private redevelopment for which plans are indefinite.
This house originally opened on May 10, 1913, as the Martin Theatre. I don’t know when it was renamed DeLuxe, but the DeLuxe Theatre reopened on March 17, 1923, after being remodeled. Wayne Martin’s original lease was for five years, so the house might have been renamed DeLuxe before the 1923 remodeling.
A full page ad for the Diana Theatre in the April 23, 1948, issue of The Tipton Daily Tribune said that the fire the previous year had virtually destroyed the old theater and building, and that the new Diana Theatre was new construction. The project was designed by the architectural and engineering firm of Johnson, McKinney & Schenck.
An article in the Monday, June 24, 1946, issue of The Tipton Daily Tribune said that Wednesday would mark the 20th anniversary of the Diana Theatre. Nick Paikos, the original owner, was still operating the house. The article said that prior to being remodeled and reopened as the Diana the building had housed the Grand Theatre, but that it had been closed for some time.
The Grand Theatre was mentioned in the April 1, 1922, issue of Exhibitors Herald, which said that it had been bought by Clyde Wilson. Previously it had been operated by Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Jackson.
The July 19, 1929, issue of The Film Daily reported that the Dixie Theatre at Uniontown, Pennsylvania, had been gutted by a fire causing an estimated $30,000 of damage.
This article from Lehigh Valley Business of May 1, 2014, says that the Palace Theatre building is being renovated for use as a brew pub/restaurant, bakery, and coffee shop. Seat from the theater will be used in the waiting area, and movie posters found in the theater will be displayed.
A list of historic theaters in Iowa prepared in 2009 (pdf here) has this ambiguous line for the address of the Capitol: “193 South Central Avenue or 314 South Central Avenue.” It also gives an alternate name for the structure as the P. A. Leese Building. Here is a photo of the P. A. Leese Building, which is at 193 S. Central Avenue. I’m not sure where the address 314 originated, but it seems an unlikely location for a theater, being on the other side of the railroad tracks from Hartley’s small business district and adjacent to a large grain elevator.
The Capitol was mentioned in the Iowa “Changes in Ownership” column of the July 1, 1929, issue of The Film Daily: “ Hartley — Capitol, sold to C. A. Sartorius by A. M. Inman.” Mr. Sartorius sent in a couple of capsule movie reviews for the “What the Picture Did for Me” column of Motion Picture Herald in 1934.
Someone named H. Midland was operating a theater at Hartley in 1913 according to the December 27 issue of The Moving Picture World, but the name of the theater was not given. The May 6, 1916, issue of the same publication mentioned a Rex Theatre in Hartley, and it might have been the same house that H. Midland was operating in 1913.
The Capitol might have closed for a while in the 1950s, but must have reopened later as it was advertising in the newspaper at least as late as December 30, 1976.
The August 12, 1978, issue of The Pittsburgh Press said that the Strand Theatre in Oakland, which had recently closed, was being converted into space for three stores. The total space being converted was 8,500 square feet, so the Strand must have been a good-sized theater.
The obituary of Squirrel Hill architect Edgar A. Kwalwasser in the August 6, 1998, issue of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette said that he had designed theaters in six states, but only gives the names of three of them, one of which was the Cranberry Mall Cinemas. Kwalwasser established his practice in 1951 and retired only a few months before his death in 1998.
The obituary of Squirrel Hill architect Edgar A. Kwalwasser in the August 6, 1998, issue of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette listed alterations to the Squirrel Hill and Manor Theatres among his works. The remodeling of the Manor he handled might have been the 1965 project for Stanley-Warner I mentioned in my comment of March 6, 2010, or it might have been the 1978 renovations rivest266 mentioned in the comment of last month, or it might have been both, as Kwalwasser established his practice in 1951 and remained active until April, 1998.
The obituary says that he designed theaters in six states, but only mentions three theater projects by name. The third was the Cranberry Mall Cinemas in Cranberry Township.
The obituary of Squirrel Hill architect Edgar A. Kwalwasser in the August 6, 1998, issue of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette listed alterations to the Squirrel Hill and Manor Theatres among his works. As Kwalwasser established his practice in 1951, the remodeling of the Squirrel Hill Theatre that he handled might have been the one for Stanley-Warner in 1956, or it might have been a later one.
An article in the October 27, 1979, issue of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette mentioned in passing that the King’s Court Theatre had been designed by architect Edgar A. Kwalwasser.
The only mention I can find of the 8th & Broadway Corp. in the trade journals is this item from the California “Changes in Ownership” column of the July 22, 1932, issue of The Film Daily:
The Olympic was on 8th Street west of Broadway, and opened as Bard’s 8th Street Theatre in April, 1927. Lou Bard operated the house, but I don’t know if he owned it outright. It’s possible that the house was financed by someone else.The lease on the Garrick (and the land under it) was taken over by H. L. Gumbiner in 1921, and he operated the house until having it replaced by the Tower in 1927. In the early 1930s the Gumbiners were operating the Cameo and Broadway Theatres as well as the Tower, but so far I haven’t been able to connect them with Lou Bard. There could have been a business relationship of some sort between them, and if so the Garrick’s organ might have gone to Bard’s 8th Street.
Gumbiner is best known for having built the Los Angeles Theatre in 1930, which is how the Tower’s organ ended up there. The Los Angeles was expensive to build, and Gumbiner’s finances were stretched thin, so moving the organ from the Tower was probably an economy move.
Andrew: I don’t recall having seen an organ console in the El Rey when I attended movies there at least a dozen times in the late 1950s and early 1960s. But then I don’t think I ever attended the El Rey prior to the installation of the CinemaScope screen in 1954. The screen was quite wide, and if the organ hadn’t been removed earlier it was probably taken out when the screen was installed.
The only old house in the San Gabriel Valley that I know for certain still had an organ in the 1960s was the Rialto in South Pasadena. I believe it’s still there, but it hasn’t been used since being damaged in a fire in the 1970s.
A lobby display promoting war bonds is the main feature of this 1945 photo from the Pasadena Digital Archive. Not much of the theater can be seen, but it looks as though some remodeling had been done which left the lobby rather plain. The subsequent photo in the stream shows a military band posed in front of the Strand’s curtain, but the most interesting thing is that there appears to be an organ console in the orchestra pit.
Saving the best for last, Pasadena Digital History now has four vintage photos of the Strand available from the Harold A. Parker collection at the Huntington Library:
A 1924 view of a lounge;
a 1924 view of the entrance lobby;
A 1924 view of the auditorium including what could be the same organ console that appears in the 1945 photo;
A 1929 view of the front, the marquee advertising movies starring Vilma Banky and Charley Chase.