The “Better Theatres” section of the July 5, 1930, issue of Exhibitors Herald World featured an article about recent Canadian theaters which included a few paragraphs about the Capitol at Saskatoon:
“Turning to the Canadian West for another example, the new Capitol theatre in Saskatoon, Sask., has a stage no less than 80 feet wide and proportionate in depth. It was built for talking pictures and has thick carpets to deaden the sound of tramping feet, but it has that big stage for come what may.
“The Saskatoon Capitol, designed by Murray Brown of Toronto, an outstanding Canadian theatre architect, is of the average size of 1,600 seats — 1,400 on what was once known as the orchestra floor, and 200 somewhat more luxurious chairs on a narrow balcony just under the glass-covered portholes of the projection room.
“The Capitol at Saskatoon has a Spanish interior with Spanish lounges, Spanish garden walls and blue sky overhead. It was the first atmospheric theatre in the ‘prairie provinces’ of the Dominion and created plenty of talk when Manager Frank Miley, local veteran showman, opened the doors. Miley had his first ‘opening’ at the old Daylight theatre in Saskatoon back in 1911 and this latest theatre creation is rated as a $400,000 enterprise.
“The incidental Spanish furnishings and wrought iron lamps in the new Capitol cost more than the first theatre. And you can walk around in different luxurious places in the Capitol, whereas the old Daylight just had seats, a projection "booth,” a screen and a few other essentials. The new Capitol has spotlights emitting their beams of light through the edge of the balcony when desired and the atmospheric skyline is considered worthy of the price of admission alone. The lofty entrance leads one up over a hidden intervening alley, away from the main street, until one enters the theatre proper beyond. This long lobby helps to absorb the crowds.“
this illustration depicts the Capitol Theatre’s auditorium. The entire article can be read online using this link. It features additional photos of the Capitol.
This house was called the Hippodrome at least as late as 1913, when it was mentioned in the February 15 issue of Motography. Its operator, H. A. Wachter, was one of two Lancaster exhibitors who had attended a convention in Columbus. The other was George L. Law, who ran two movie houses called the Exhibit Theatre, one in Lancaster and the other in Portsmouth, Ohio.
The Tuxedo was one of two large Detroit neighborhood houses recently acquired by the Publix chain, according to the July 5, 1930, issue of Exhibitors Herald World. The other was the LaSalle Garden Theatre, which Publix renamed the Century.
According to the July 5, 1930, issue of Exhibitors Herald World, Publix had acquired the La Salle Garden Theatre in Detroit and reopened the house as the Publix Century Theatre.
This project noted in the April 6, 1929, issue of The Film Daily could have been the Mount Oliver Theatre:
“New Pittsburgh House
Opening Next Month
“THE theatre which Harris Amusement Co. is erecting in Mt. Oliver section of Pittsburgh, Pa, will probably be opened during May. The house will seat 1,600, will be equipped with Vitaphone-Movietone. Cost in the neighborhood of $450,000. No name chosen although it may be called the Harris Hill Top.”
A list of theaters showing The March of Time published in the January 10, 1938, issue of Life included two houses in Mt. Oliver: The Harris Mt. Oliver Theatre and a house called the Rialto Theatre. I found a reference to the Rialto being next door to a funeral parlor that was at 228 Brownsville Road, but it didn’t say in which direction. There was also a reference to a theater called the State in Mt. Oliver.
bigjoe59: I’m not an administrator, but I’ve been posting here for so many years that I’ve probably come to sound a bit possessive about the site. To answer your question, no, I don’t know of any theaters in the United States other than the Chinese that opened before 1941 as first run movie houses and have remained first run throughout their history. Most of them were downtown theaters, and as movie attendance shifted to the suburbs starting in the 1950s the old palaces began closing one after another. The survival of the Chinese can probably be attributed to its location in Hollywood more than any other single factor.
A City of Beverly Hills Cultural Heritage Commission report on the theater (PDF here) says that Fox West Coast Theatres took over the Regina Theatre in 1948, and renamed it the Fox Fine Arts Theatre. The house was still owned by Fox when I first became aware of it in the early 1960s, but I don’t recall it being listed as the Fox Fine Arts by that time. It’s called simply the Fine Arts in the earliest newspaper listing I have for it, which is from February 10, 1971.
Also, the report has a couple of photos (badly copied) from ca. 1948-1950, and the name Fox does not appear on the marquee, and if it was on the vertical sign it isn’t discernible in the photocopies. I don’t know if the house was actually called the Fox Fine Arts for a while, or if the Fox name just got attached to it in people’s memories.
In any case, the theater was designated a city landmark earlier this year. It’s too bad Beverly Hills wasn’t so eager to landmark theater buildings when the Beverly and the Warner were still standing.
A comment by weimlover6 on this forum page says that the Byam Theatre actually went into operation around 1924 as the Fairmount Theatre. The same post notes that the Majestic Theatre was at 214 N. Main Street, so that wasn’t an aka for the Byam.
The Byam Theatre’s auditorium was built in 1937 behind an existing commercial building at the southwest corner of Highway 24 and Ash Avenue in the Fairmount district of Independence. The theater was built by F. L. Byam, who owned a drug store on the corner, and the house was operated by Reube Finkelstein. It originally had 730 seats, according to an item in Boxoffice of January 8, 1938.
From 1999 to 2009, the auditorium (at 608 S. Ash Avenue- the theater’s entrance had been around the corner on Highway 24) housed the Fairmount Community Center, but has apparently been vacant since the center moved to new quarters. The Byam Theatre closed some years prior to 1961, by which time the marquee had been removed.
Here is an item from the January 3, 1928, issue of The Film Daily:
“Leominster, Mass. — Ground was broken this week for a new combination theater to replace the Music Hall destroyed a few months ago by fire. The new theater will be known as the Plymouth and will have seating accommodations for 1200. Thomas McEvoy who owned the Music Hall and who also conducts the Rialto here is building it.”
The March 2, 1937, issue of The Film Daily had this item:
“Lexington, Va. — Warner Bros, is replacing the theater which was destroyed by fire and is building a new fireproof house in typical American Colonial style here. Theater is to be called the ‘State,’ and the planning and construction of this building have been entrusted to the architectural firm of John Eberson.”
The Majestic was one of at least two theaters operating in Lexington in 1928, when the January 3 issue of The Film Daily reported that their owner, R. E. Falkinberg, was preparing to open another theater in the town. The name of the new house was not given, but the second theater Falkinburg was already operating was called the Lyric.
The January 3, 1928, issue of The Film Daily said that a new, 800-seat theater had opened at Marine City, Michigan. The name of the house was not given, but it was probably the Mariner. In the Photo of the building at Water Winter Wonderland the building looks like it would have dated from the mid-late 1920s.
Changes of theater ownership in Idaho reported in the January 9, 1928, issue of The Film Dailyincluded: “Sugar City — Ricks (formerly Weada), sold to Ricks & Thomas.”
From 1929 to 1933, the FDY lists a 240-seat Rialto Theatre at Sugar City. In 1934 it was again listing Ricks Theatre, which was listed as closed. There might be other aka’s, but I haven’t looked them up.
In 1910, The Billboard listed a 1,000-seat Opera House in Sugar City, which is rather odd considering that it also lists 1,000 as the population of the town.
The May 28, 1937, issue of Southwest Builder & Contractor said that Ben Aranda would build a new, 750-seat theater for himself at Brawley. The architect for the project was Walter Webber.
I’m not sure whether or not Walter I. Webber had a solo practice at this time. He had earlier been a member of the firm of Webber & Spaulding, architects of the Avalon Theatre and the Casino, in which the theater was located, at Avalon, on Santa Catalina Island. Nobody seems to know when the firm was dissolved.
Southwest Builder & Contractor of August 21, 1936, reported that a 600-seat theater would be built for Principal Theatres on Main Street near 6th in Brawley. The architect for the project was Clifford A. Balch.
bigjoe59: They must be referring to what is now the Cecchi Gori Fine Arts Cinema. It’s in Beverly Hills. I’ve never heard of it having been called the Fox Fine Arts, and we don’t list that as an aka, so that’s why it didn’t turn up in your search.
The big roadshow house on Hollywood Boulevard was the Egyptian, though the Pantages also had its share of hard ticket events. The Warner Hollywood was tied up with Cinerama through that period. I think that Fox West Coast booked more roadshow engagements into the Carthay Circle than any other theater in the region. The Chinese was the circuit’s big first-run house.
One thing I recall about the Chinese is that at one point, I think it must have been during the late 1950s, one of the television stations in Los Angeles had a weekly movie that was hosted by Francis X. Bushman, and it featured a wraparound of Bushman talking about the movie from a seat in the Chinese. At the end of the closing segment he would get up and walk up the aisle of the auditorium. I hadn’t thought about that show in years. I wonder if anyone else remembers it?
This nostalgia piece from the Oakland Press News says that the Huron Theatre burned on Christmas Eve, 1983. There’s a photo of the fire and one of the burned-out building. The article also says that the theater was in Waterford Township (Water Winter Wonderland also lists it in Waterford.)
The article was also blogged, accompanied by a different photo of the theater while it was still in operation. It was showing Around the World in Eighty Days, and there was special lettering on the building itself, not just the marquee, so this might have been the roadshow, which could date the photo to 1957. If not, it’s probably 1958.
The April 2, 1959, issue of Motion Picture Daily reported that W. Kinder, owner of the Star Theatre in Imperial, Nebraska, had affiliated his house with Allied Rocky Mountain Independent Theatres, Inc.. The move must not have helped business enough, as the Star soon closed. But the October 5, 1960, issue of the same journal reported that the theater had been re-opened under new management:
“Merchants Find Theatre Aids Their Businesses
“Special to THE DAILY
“IMPERIAL, Neb., Oct 4. – The importance of a theatre to a small town is illustrated by the re-opening of the Star Theatre here.
“All merchants in the small community experienced a slump in business when the Star shuttered several months ago.
“Merchants organized the Imperial Businessmens Association and raised sufficient funds to reopen the theatre. Newton Lippitt is acting as manager.”
An Imperial Valley directory published in 1914 lists a house called the L & S Theatre at 568 Main Street in El Centro. It might or might not have been in the same building that became the Valley Theatre.
The Valley should be listed on W. Main St., which is the historic center of town. That’s undoubtedly where it was. I have a strong suspicion that it was replaced by the drive-up teller and ATM lot of the Union Bank at 576 W.Main Street. To the east of the driveways is a vacant store, and next to that is a bike shop with the address 560 W. Main. The vacant store might be at 566, but is probably 564. The Valley Theatre has most likely been demolished.
The January 9, 1928, issue of The Film Daily said that S. U. Anderson, the original owner of the Belvedere Theatre in Brawley, had sold it to Principal Theatres. Princiapal had changed the name of the house to Brawley Theatre by 1929.
The Brawley Community Foundation is attempting to restore this theater. The front of the theater has already been restored and relighted, as seen in this news item from The Desert Review of May 17, 2013. The house has been renamed the Brawley Playhouse Theatre.
The theater’s Facebook page has a brief history of the house. It opened on March 22, 1922, as the Belvedere Theatre, with 815 seats. When restored the house is to have up to 428 seats, a stage for theatrical and music productions, an orchestra pit, and movie screen.
The “Better Theatres” section of the July 5, 1930, issue of Exhibitors Herald World featured an article about recent Canadian theaters which included a few paragraphs about the Capitol at Saskatoon:
this illustration depicts the Capitol Theatre’s auditorium. The entire article can be read online using this link. It features additional photos of the Capitol.This house was called the Hippodrome at least as late as 1913, when it was mentioned in the February 15 issue of Motography. Its operator, H. A. Wachter, was one of two Lancaster exhibitors who had attended a convention in Columbus. The other was George L. Law, who ran two movie houses called the Exhibit Theatre, one in Lancaster and the other in Portsmouth, Ohio.
The Tuxedo was one of two large Detroit neighborhood houses recently acquired by the Publix chain, according to the July 5, 1930, issue of Exhibitors Herald World. The other was the LaSalle Garden Theatre, which Publix renamed the Century.
According to the July 5, 1930, issue of Exhibitors Herald World, Publix had acquired the La Salle Garden Theatre in Detroit and reopened the house as the Publix Century Theatre.
This project noted in the April 6, 1929, issue of The Film Daily could have been the Mount Oliver Theatre:
A list of theaters showing The March of Time published in the January 10, 1938, issue of Life included two houses in Mt. Oliver: The Harris Mt. Oliver Theatre and a house called the Rialto Theatre. I found a reference to the Rialto being next door to a funeral parlor that was at 228 Brownsville Road, but it didn’t say in which direction. There was also a reference to a theater called the State in Mt. Oliver.An earlier Maplewood Theatre in Malden was destroyed by fire in early 1929, as reported in the April 6 issue of The Film Daily that year.
bigjoe59: I’m not an administrator, but I’ve been posting here for so many years that I’ve probably come to sound a bit possessive about the site. To answer your question, no, I don’t know of any theaters in the United States other than the Chinese that opened before 1941 as first run movie houses and have remained first run throughout their history. Most of them were downtown theaters, and as movie attendance shifted to the suburbs starting in the 1950s the old palaces began closing one after another. The survival of the Chinese can probably be attributed to its location in Hollywood more than any other single factor.
A City of Beverly Hills Cultural Heritage Commission report on the theater (PDF here) says that Fox West Coast Theatres took over the Regina Theatre in 1948, and renamed it the Fox Fine Arts Theatre. The house was still owned by Fox when I first became aware of it in the early 1960s, but I don’t recall it being listed as the Fox Fine Arts by that time. It’s called simply the Fine Arts in the earliest newspaper listing I have for it, which is from February 10, 1971.
Also, the report has a couple of photos (badly copied) from ca. 1948-1950, and the name Fox does not appear on the marquee, and if it was on the vertical sign it isn’t discernible in the photocopies. I don’t know if the house was actually called the Fox Fine Arts for a while, or if the Fox name just got attached to it in people’s memories.
In any case, the theater was designated a city landmark earlier this year. It’s too bad Beverly Hills wasn’t so eager to landmark theater buildings when the Beverly and the Warner were still standing.
A comment by weimlover6 on this forum page says that the Byam Theatre actually went into operation around 1924 as the Fairmount Theatre. The same post notes that the Majestic Theatre was at 214 N. Main Street, so that wasn’t an aka for the Byam.
The Byam Theatre’s auditorium was built in 1937 behind an existing commercial building at the southwest corner of Highway 24 and Ash Avenue in the Fairmount district of Independence. The theater was built by F. L. Byam, who owned a drug store on the corner, and the house was operated by Reube Finkelstein. It originally had 730 seats, according to an item in Boxoffice of January 8, 1938.
From 1999 to 2009, the auditorium (at 608 S. Ash Avenue- the theater’s entrance had been around the corner on Highway 24) housed the Fairmount Community Center, but has apparently been vacant since the center moved to new quarters. The Byam Theatre closed some years prior to 1961, by which time the marquee had been removed.
Here is an item from the January 3, 1928, issue of The Film Daily:
The March 2, 1937, issue of The Film Daily had this item:
The Majestic was one of at least two theaters operating in Lexington in 1928, when the January 3 issue of The Film Daily reported that their owner, R. E. Falkinberg, was preparing to open another theater in the town. The name of the new house was not given, but the second theater Falkinburg was already operating was called the Lyric.
The January 3, 1928, issue of The Film Daily said that a new, 800-seat theater had opened at Marine City, Michigan. The name of the house was not given, but it was probably the Mariner. In the Photo of the building at Water Winter Wonderland the building looks like it would have dated from the mid-late 1920s.
Changes of theater ownership in Idaho reported in the January 9, 1928, issue of The Film Dailyincluded: “Sugar City — Ricks (formerly Weada), sold to Ricks & Thomas.”
From 1929 to 1933, the FDY lists a 240-seat Rialto Theatre at Sugar City. In 1934 it was again listing Ricks Theatre, which was listed as closed. There might be other aka’s, but I haven’t looked them up.
In 1910, The Billboard listed a 1,000-seat Opera House in Sugar City, which is rather odd considering that it also lists 1,000 as the population of the town.
Architect Sumner Spaulding’s middle name was Maurice. Walter Webber’s middle initial was I.
The May 28, 1937, issue of Southwest Builder & Contractor said that Ben Aranda would build a new, 750-seat theater for himself at Brawley. The architect for the project was Walter Webber.
I’m not sure whether or not Walter I. Webber had a solo practice at this time. He had earlier been a member of the firm of Webber & Spaulding, architects of the Avalon Theatre and the Casino, in which the theater was located, at Avalon, on Santa Catalina Island. Nobody seems to know when the firm was dissolved.
Southwest Builder & Contractor of August 21, 1936, reported that a 600-seat theater would be built for Principal Theatres on Main Street near 6th in Brawley. The architect for the project was Clifford A. Balch.
bigjoe59: They must be referring to what is now the Cecchi Gori Fine Arts Cinema. It’s in Beverly Hills. I’ve never heard of it having been called the Fox Fine Arts, and we don’t list that as an aka, so that’s why it didn’t turn up in your search.
The big roadshow house on Hollywood Boulevard was the Egyptian, though the Pantages also had its share of hard ticket events. The Warner Hollywood was tied up with Cinerama through that period. I think that Fox West Coast booked more roadshow engagements into the Carthay Circle than any other theater in the region. The Chinese was the circuit’s big first-run house.
One thing I recall about the Chinese is that at one point, I think it must have been during the late 1950s, one of the television stations in Los Angeles had a weekly movie that was hosted by Francis X. Bushman, and it featured a wraparound of Bushman talking about the movie from a seat in the Chinese. At the end of the closing segment he would get up and walk up the aisle of the auditorium. I hadn’t thought about that show in years. I wonder if anyone else remembers it?
This nostalgia piece from the Oakland Press News says that the Huron Theatre burned on Christmas Eve, 1983. There’s a photo of the fire and one of the burned-out building. The article also says that the theater was in Waterford Township (Water Winter Wonderland also lists it in Waterford.)
The article was also blogged, accompanied by a different photo of the theater while it was still in operation. It was showing Around the World in Eighty Days, and there was special lettering on the building itself, not just the marquee, so this might have been the roadshow, which could date the photo to 1957. If not, it’s probably 1958.
The April 2, 1959, issue of Motion Picture Daily reported that W. Kinder, owner of the Star Theatre in Imperial, Nebraska, had affiliated his house with Allied Rocky Mountain Independent Theatres, Inc.. The move must not have helped business enough, as the Star soon closed. But the October 5, 1960, issue of the same journal reported that the theater had been re-opened under new management:
An Imperial Valley directory published in 1914 lists a house called the L & S Theatre at 568 Main Street in El Centro. It might or might not have been in the same building that became the Valley Theatre.
The Valley should be listed on W. Main St., which is the historic center of town. That’s undoubtedly where it was. I have a strong suspicion that it was replaced by the drive-up teller and ATM lot of the Union Bank at 576 W.Main Street. To the east of the driveways is a vacant store, and next to that is a bike shop with the address 560 W. Main. The vacant store might be at 566, but is probably 564. The Valley Theatre has most likely been demolished.
The January 9, 1928, issue of The Film Daily said that S. U. Anderson, the original owner of the Belvedere Theatre in Brawley, had sold it to Principal Theatres. Princiapal had changed the name of the house to Brawley Theatre by 1929.
The Brawley Community Foundation is attempting to restore this theater. The front of the theater has already been restored and relighted, as seen in this news item from The Desert Review of May 17, 2013. The house has been renamed the Brawley Playhouse Theatre.
The theater’s Facebook page has a brief history of the house. It opened on March 22, 1922, as the Belvedere Theatre, with 815 seats. When restored the house is to have up to 428 seats, a stage for theatrical and music productions, an orchestra pit, and movie screen.