The Boxoffice article Tinseltoes linked to says that the Community Theatre in Eatontown was designed by architect David Marner. As the article says (and photos demonstrate) that the Community Theatre in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, opened in 1963, was almost identical to this house, it’s probable that Marner designed that house as well.
Both the Boxoffice article that Tinseltoes linked to and this page of the October, 1964, issue of International Projectionist attribute the design of the Fox Rossmoor Theatre to the firm of Burke, Kober & Nicolais. However, Millard Archuleta joined the firm in 1961, so the design should probably be attributed to Burke, Kober, Nicolais & Archuleta. Archuleta was probably left off the list because the original firm had begun designing the shopping center in which the theater was located four years before the theater itself was built.
The June, 1964, issue of International Projectionist featured a two page article about the Lenox Square Threatre which can be seen at this link. The house was designed for Georgia Theatres by architect J. B. Finch, of the firm Finch, Alexander, Barnes, Rothchild & Paschal.
This page of the May, 1964, issue of International Projectionist was devoted to the Wayne Theatre, and features four photographs (click the + sign in the toolbar at lower right of the page to enlarge.) The Wayne Theatre was designed by architect Drew Eberson.
Half a dozen photos of the 34th Street Theatre appear on this page of the April, 1964, issue of International Projectionist. (Enlarge the images by clicking on the + sign in the toolbar at lower right corner of the page.)
A brief article with photos of the last RKO 23rd Street Theatre appears on this page of the March, 1964, issue of International Projectionist. The house was designed by architect John J. McNamara, in collaboration with Herman J. Jessor, architect of the Penn Station South development, in which the theater was located.
Maybe somebody who saw Mutiny on the Bounty at the Jesse James Drive-In will recognize their car in the nocturnal photo that appears on this page of the October, 1963, issue of International Projectionist. (Click on the + sign in the toolbar at the lower right of the page to enlarge the image.)
This house opened as the Shoppers' Haven Cinema. A small photo of the screen end of the auditorium appeared in the October, 1963, issue of International Projectionist. The house featured a maskless Schlanger screen, which suggests that theater designer Benjamin Schlanger was probably the consulting architect for the house. He played that role for Genreal Cinema’s Cinema Shoppers' World in Framingham, Massachusetts, an a number of other General Cinema projects of the period.
The architect’s surname is Zelnik, not Selnik. His surname is spelled correctly on the Playhouse Theatre and Joyce Theatre pages, but his middle initial is missing from both.
A two-page article about the Festival Theatre with photos appeared in the July, 1963, issue of International Projectionist. See it at this link.
The 1962 remodeling of the Empire Theatre is the subject of an article starting on this page of the June, 1963, issue of International Projectionist. There are two photos of the auditorium. Enlarge the image by clicking on the + sign in the tool bar at lower right of the page. Scroll down for the second page of the article.
The Cinema Theatre is the name given for this house in the article That appeared in the July, 1963, issue of International Projectionist. Stewart & Everett’s new 600-seat house was designed in a spare, Modern style by architects Charles H. Wheatley & Associates.
this page of the magazine has four photos showing the theater’s front and public interior. Not surprisingly, subsequent pages feature a couple of photos of the projection room and a description of its equipment.
The April, 1963, issue of International Projectionist ran a brief article about Walter Reade-Sterling’s new Continental Theatre in Forest Hills, which had opened on March 21 with director Joseph Strick’s film adaptation of Jean Genet’s play The Balcony. The 600-seat Continental Theatre was designed by architect John J. McNamara, and featured rooftop parking and a permanent art gallery that was to be devoted to exhibiting the works of artists from Queens.
Thanks, Jesse. If there was no room for expansion then it’s likely that whoever put the web site together for Vanney Associates simply recorded the wrong number of screens for the Anoka Theatre project. The only other explanation would be that an expansion was planned but never carried out.
Three photos on this web page show the General Custer Hotel when the theater entrance was in place. It was on North Main Street, in the building with the cornice and the balustraded parapet, not in the plainer building right on the corner.
The buildings at the intersection are all still standing in the Street View, which is dated 2008, but in the satellite view, which is dated 2013, the roofs of several look like they are being demolished. I’ve been trying to puzzle out of the building toward the center of the block, which also looks partly roofless, was actually the theater’s auditorium. As the theater entrance was under the second and third upper floor window bays at the south end of the hotel, the lobby would have led straight back to the south end of the building that might have been the auditorium, and I’m inclined to think that’s what it was.
This page of The Film Daily for February 17, 1929, features a photo showing part of the soffit of the Strand Theatre’s marquee and a fancy bracket at the side of the arched entrance. (Click on the + sign in the toolbar at lower right of the page to repeatedly enlarge the image. It can get pretty big before it goes pixely.)
Down the block there is a marquee that looks like it might say The Owl. Was that another theater, or some other business? California had a chain of Owl Drug Co. stores, but I don’t think they had stores in Cincinnati. It might also be a tobacconist’s shop touting Owl Cigars, a popular brand at one time.
The Rialto Theatre at Boone, Iowa, was mentioned in the January 13, 1929, issue of The Film Daily, so it must have been open by 1928 at the latest. This comment by IowaBackroads on our Boone Theatre page says that the Rialto Theatre was destroyed by a fire and was subsequently replaced by the Boone Theatre on the same site. CinemaTour’s Rialto page says that the fire took place on September 10, 1966.
Google Street View is currently set to the wrong block. The Luna-Lite Theatre was on West Fourth Street, probably just past the alley behind the seven-story bank building at Fourth and Washington Streets. It was almost across the street from the Lyric Theatre, which was at 116-118 W. Fourth, about where the driveway of the modern building with the maroon awnings is now.
This PDF listing theaters that have operated in Indiana lists a total of 19 houses in Marion, and two of them are called the Orpheum. One is listed simply as the Orpheum Theater, and the other as the Orpheum Theater; Luna-Lite Theater.
I have found references to a New Orpheum Theatre operating at Marion as part of the Gus Sun circuit in 1910, and I have also found an Orpheum Theater at Marion operating in 1922. As the Luna-Lite was mentioned in The Moving Picture World in 1916, my guess would be that it was the old Gus Sun house, renamed.
One reference to the other Orpheum is on this page at BoxRec, listing a match between local boxer Vaughn Treber and Joe Lohman at the Orpheum on August 7, 1922. The only other reference I can find is on this page, which says that the Denishawn Dance Company appeared at the Orpheum in Marion, Indiana, on November 30, 1923. It’s possible that the second Orpheum never operated as a movie theater.
This web page about four of Marion’s theaters says that the Lyric was located at 118 W. Fourth Street, across the street from the Luna-Lite Theatre, so the Lyric is the one we currently have listed with the wrong address. The page says the Lyric was demolished in 1952.
The Lyric Theatre was built in 1916 by the owners of the Luna-Lite Theatre. An item about the project appeared in the February 12 issue of The Moving Picture World:
“Marion, Ind.—Incorporation papers have been filed in Indianapolis for the formation of the Washington Theater Company headed by B. F. Metcalf, of the Luna Lite theater, Marion, Indiana. Associated with Mr. Metcalf are a number of Marion capitalists. The stock in the company has been subscribed and negotiations have been closed for the site of the Mecca Club on West Fourth street where a $35,000 theater will be erected.”
“Mr. Metcalf has conducted the LunaLite theater in a most succesful way and had no trouble at all in financing the bigger theater.”
A 1916 program for the Lyric Theatre that was listed at auction site WorthPoint (link, probably temporary) says at the bottom of the front cover that the house was owned by the Washington Theatre Company, so there can be no mistake that it was the same house.
Broan: trade journals from the 1920s mention the Luna Lite and Lyric Theatres being in operation at the same time, so they were not the same theater. We’ve apparently just got the wrong address for one or the other of them, though I don’t know which.
A Grand Theatre in Marion was the smaller of two houses listed for that city (the other was the Indiana Theatre) in the 1906-1907 edition of Julius Cahn’s guide. The Grand was a ground-floor house with over 700 seats. It the older of the two theaters as well, as I’ve found it mentioned as early as 1895. One later By 1916, when one magazine item referred to it as “…a ramshackle old place….”, it was being operated as a movie house with the name Royal Grand Theatre.
The August 6, 1916, issue of The Moving Picture World reported that the operators of the Royal Grand, brother and sister Dolly and Howard Spurr, had been arrested for showing movies on Sunday in violation of a city ordinance. The August 19 issue reported that the Spurrs had been found guilty and had each been fined ten dollars, but were appealing the court’s decision.
This might or might not have been the same theater that was in operation as the Royal Grand in later years. The July 14, 1917, issue of The American Contractor said that preliminary plans were being drawn by architect H. G. Bowstead for a theater for the Royal Grand Realty Company of Marion, Indiana. I’ve been unable to discover if this project was carried out or, if it was, that it was the Royal Grand itself and not one of the other theaters in Marion that were operated by the Spurrs, but it’s possible that the orginal Grand was entirely replaced. The Music Trade Review said that the Royal Grand Theater Company would build a new theater on the site of the AME church on Fifth Street.
The November 8, 1919, issue of Motion Picture News published a letter from Dolly Spurr, who was by then operating the Lyric and Indiana Theatres as well as the Royal Grand. The letter mentioned that she was still unable to show movies on Sunday, so that battle was apparently lost.
The 1925 Yearbook of Motion Pictures lists a Marion Theatre Company operating five houses at Marion; the Luna Lite, Lyric, Indiana, Royal Grand, and Marion Theatres. The company also operated the Isis Theatre at Kokomo.
The January 2, 1925, issue of the Kokomo Tribune said that the Royal Grand Theatre at Marion had suffered $25,000 damage from a fire, most of the loss the result smoke and water which damaged the theater’s furnishings and decorations.
The Royal Grand Theatre is mentioned in the oral history of Milford Freeman, a Marionite who talked about growing up in the town in the 1930s and 1940s, so the house apparently operated into the 1940s, at least.
Here is a photo of Main Street in Marshalltown, probably from the late 1930s, with the Strand Theatre at left. The facade does look more like something from the 1910s than from the 1920s, so most likely this was the theater that was being outfitted in 1915. It probably opened late that year or in early 1916.
I’ve found a reference to a Strand Theatre in Marshalltown being outfitted in 1915. Owners of the theater ordered 714 opera chairs from the Progressive Seating Company of Chicago on November 3, 1915. No address was given for the theater, so I don’t know if it was this same Strand or not.
The Boxoffice article Tinseltoes linked to says that the Community Theatre in Eatontown was designed by architect David Marner. As the article says (and photos demonstrate) that the Community Theatre in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, opened in 1963, was almost identical to this house, it’s probable that Marner designed that house as well.
Both the Boxoffice article that Tinseltoes linked to and this page of the October, 1964, issue of International Projectionist attribute the design of the Fox Rossmoor Theatre to the firm of Burke, Kober & Nicolais. However, Millard Archuleta joined the firm in 1961, so the design should probably be attributed to Burke, Kober, Nicolais & Archuleta. Archuleta was probably left off the list because the original firm had begun designing the shopping center in which the theater was located four years before the theater itself was built.
Three photos of the renovated Strand Theatre can be seen on this page of the July, 1964, issue of International Projectionist.
The June, 1964, issue of International Projectionist featured a two page article about the Lenox Square Threatre which can be seen at this link. The house was designed for Georgia Theatres by architect J. B. Finch, of the firm Finch, Alexander, Barnes, Rothchild & Paschal.
This page of the May, 1964, issue of International Projectionist was devoted to the Wayne Theatre, and features four photographs (click the + sign in the toolbar at lower right of the page to enlarge.) The Wayne Theatre was designed by architect Drew Eberson.
Half a dozen photos of the 34th Street Theatre appear on this page of the April, 1964, issue of International Projectionist. (Enlarge the images by clicking on the + sign in the toolbar at lower right corner of the page.)
A brief article with photos of the last RKO 23rd Street Theatre appears on this page of the March, 1964, issue of International Projectionist. The house was designed by architect John J. McNamara, in collaboration with Herman J. Jessor, architect of the Penn Station South development, in which the theater was located.
Maybe somebody who saw Mutiny on the Bounty at the Jesse James Drive-In will recognize their car in the nocturnal photo that appears on this page of the October, 1963, issue of International Projectionist. (Click on the + sign in the toolbar at the lower right of the page to enlarge the image.)
This house opened as the Shoppers' Haven Cinema. A small photo of the screen end of the auditorium appeared in the October, 1963, issue of International Projectionist. The house featured a maskless Schlanger screen, which suggests that theater designer Benjamin Schlanger was probably the consulting architect for the house. He played that role for Genreal Cinema’s Cinema Shoppers' World in Framingham, Massachusetts, an a number of other General Cinema projects of the period.
The architect’s surname is Zelnik, not Selnik. His surname is spelled correctly on the Playhouse Theatre and Joyce Theatre pages, but his middle initial is missing from both.
A two-page article about the Festival Theatre with photos appeared in the July, 1963, issue of International Projectionist. See it at this link.
The 1962 remodeling of the Empire Theatre is the subject of an article starting on this page of the June, 1963, issue of International Projectionist. There are two photos of the auditorium. Enlarge the image by clicking on the + sign in the tool bar at lower right of the page. Scroll down for the second page of the article.
The Cinema Theatre is the name given for this house in the article That appeared in the July, 1963, issue of International Projectionist. Stewart & Everett’s new 600-seat house was designed in a spare, Modern style by architects Charles H. Wheatley & Associates.
this page of the magazine has four photos showing the theater’s front and public interior. Not surprisingly, subsequent pages feature a couple of photos of the projection room and a description of its equipment.
The April, 1963, issue of International Projectionist ran a brief article about Walter Reade-Sterling’s new Continental Theatre in Forest Hills, which had opened on March 21 with director Joseph Strick’s film adaptation of Jean Genet’s play The Balcony. The 600-seat Continental Theatre was designed by architect John J. McNamara, and featured rooftop parking and a permanent art gallery that was to be devoted to exhibiting the works of artists from Queens.
Thanks, Jesse. If there was no room for expansion then it’s likely that whoever put the web site together for Vanney Associates simply recorded the wrong number of screens for the Anoka Theatre project. The only other explanation would be that an expansion was planned but never carried out.
Three photos on this web page show the General Custer Hotel when the theater entrance was in place. It was on North Main Street, in the building with the cornice and the balustraded parapet, not in the plainer building right on the corner.
The buildings at the intersection are all still standing in the Street View, which is dated 2008, but in the satellite view, which is dated 2013, the roofs of several look like they are being demolished. I’ve been trying to puzzle out of the building toward the center of the block, which also looks partly roofless, was actually the theater’s auditorium. As the theater entrance was under the second and third upper floor window bays at the south end of the hotel, the lobby would have led straight back to the south end of the building that might have been the auditorium, and I’m inclined to think that’s what it was.
This page of The Film Daily for February 17, 1929, features a photo showing part of the soffit of the Strand Theatre’s marquee and a fancy bracket at the side of the arched entrance. (Click on the + sign in the toolbar at lower right of the page to repeatedly enlarge the image. It can get pretty big before it goes pixely.)
Down the block there is a marquee that looks like it might say The Owl. Was that another theater, or some other business? California had a chain of Owl Drug Co. stores, but I don’t think they had stores in Cincinnati. It might also be a tobacconist’s shop touting Owl Cigars, a popular brand at one time.
The Rialto Theatre at Boone, Iowa, was mentioned in the January 13, 1929, issue of The Film Daily, so it must have been open by 1928 at the latest. This comment by IowaBackroads on our Boone Theatre page says that the Rialto Theatre was destroyed by a fire and was subsequently replaced by the Boone Theatre on the same site. CinemaTour’s Rialto page says that the fire took place on September 10, 1966.
Google Street View is currently set to the wrong block. The Luna-Lite Theatre was on West Fourth Street, probably just past the alley behind the seven-story bank building at Fourth and Washington Streets. It was almost across the street from the Lyric Theatre, which was at 116-118 W. Fourth, about where the driveway of the modern building with the maroon awnings is now.
This PDF listing theaters that have operated in Indiana lists a total of 19 houses in Marion, and two of them are called the Orpheum. One is listed simply as the Orpheum Theater, and the other as the Orpheum Theater; Luna-Lite Theater.
I have found references to a New Orpheum Theatre operating at Marion as part of the Gus Sun circuit in 1910, and I have also found an Orpheum Theater at Marion operating in 1922. As the Luna-Lite was mentioned in The Moving Picture World in 1916, my guess would be that it was the old Gus Sun house, renamed.
One reference to the other Orpheum is on this page at BoxRec, listing a match between local boxer Vaughn Treber and Joe Lohman at the Orpheum on August 7, 1922. The only other reference I can find is on this page, which says that the Denishawn Dance Company appeared at the Orpheum in Marion, Indiana, on November 30, 1923. It’s possible that the second Orpheum never operated as a movie theater.
This web page about four of Marion’s theaters says that the Lyric was located at 118 W. Fourth Street, across the street from the Luna-Lite Theatre, so the Lyric is the one we currently have listed with the wrong address. The page says the Lyric was demolished in 1952.
The Lyric Theatre was built in 1916 by the owners of the Luna-Lite Theatre. An item about the project appeared in the February 12 issue of The Moving Picture World:
A 1916 program for the Lyric Theatre that was listed at auction site WorthPoint (link, probably temporary) says at the bottom of the front cover that the house was owned by the Washington Theatre Company, so there can be no mistake that it was the same house.Broan: trade journals from the 1920s mention the Luna Lite and Lyric Theatres being in operation at the same time, so they were not the same theater. We’ve apparently just got the wrong address for one or the other of them, though I don’t know which.
I’ve found the Luna Lite Theatre mentioned in The Moving Picture World as early as 1916.
A Grand Theatre in Marion was the smaller of two houses listed for that city (the other was the Indiana Theatre) in the 1906-1907 edition of Julius Cahn’s guide. The Grand was a ground-floor house with over 700 seats. It the older of the two theaters as well, as I’ve found it mentioned as early as 1895. One later By 1916, when one magazine item referred to it as “…a ramshackle old place….”, it was being operated as a movie house with the name Royal Grand Theatre.
The August 6, 1916, issue of The Moving Picture World reported that the operators of the Royal Grand, brother and sister Dolly and Howard Spurr, had been arrested for showing movies on Sunday in violation of a city ordinance. The August 19 issue reported that the Spurrs had been found guilty and had each been fined ten dollars, but were appealing the court’s decision.
This might or might not have been the same theater that was in operation as the Royal Grand in later years. The July 14, 1917, issue of The American Contractor said that preliminary plans were being drawn by architect H. G. Bowstead for a theater for the Royal Grand Realty Company of Marion, Indiana. I’ve been unable to discover if this project was carried out or, if it was, that it was the Royal Grand itself and not one of the other theaters in Marion that were operated by the Spurrs, but it’s possible that the orginal Grand was entirely replaced. The Music Trade Review said that the Royal Grand Theater Company would build a new theater on the site of the AME church on Fifth Street.
The November 8, 1919, issue of Motion Picture News published a letter from Dolly Spurr, who was by then operating the Lyric and Indiana Theatres as well as the Royal Grand. The letter mentioned that she was still unable to show movies on Sunday, so that battle was apparently lost.
The 1925 Yearbook of Motion Pictures lists a Marion Theatre Company operating five houses at Marion; the Luna Lite, Lyric, Indiana, Royal Grand, and Marion Theatres. The company also operated the Isis Theatre at Kokomo.
The January 2, 1925, issue of the Kokomo Tribune said that the Royal Grand Theatre at Marion had suffered $25,000 damage from a fire, most of the loss the result smoke and water which damaged the theater’s furnishings and decorations.
The Royal Grand Theatre is mentioned in the oral history of Milford Freeman, a Marionite who talked about growing up in the town in the 1930s and 1940s, so the house apparently operated into the 1940s, at least.
Here is a photo of Main Street in Marshalltown, probably from the late 1930s, with the Strand Theatre at left. The facade does look more like something from the 1910s than from the 1920s, so most likely this was the theater that was being outfitted in 1915. It probably opened late that year or in early 1916.
I’ve found a reference to a Strand Theatre in Marshalltown being outfitted in 1915. Owners of the theater ordered 714 opera chairs from the Progressive Seating Company of Chicago on November 3, 1915. No address was given for the theater, so I don’t know if it was this same Strand or not.