A brief item about E. M. Loew’s Mohawk Theatre in North Adams appeared in the lower right corner of this page of the April 29, 1939, issue of Boxoffice. There is a photo showing one side wall of the auditorium as seen from the top of the balcony.
The item notes Mowll & Rand as architects, but attributes the decoration of the theater to William Riseman and someone named Alec Lercari (who I can’t find mentioned anywhere on the Itnernet, so perhaps it is a typo.)
I believe that the rendering of a proposed Vogue Theatre at Santa Rosa appearing in the upper right corner of this page of Boxoffice for April 29, 1939, depicts an early version of the house that eventually opened as the Tower Theatre.
Several of the comments on this theater’s page actually pertain to the later Rialto Theatre at 546 S. State Street, which took the name sometime after this house closed.
bigjoe59: The Chinese hosted some roadshow engagements other than West Side Story over the years, but the only ones I recall offhand were Hello Dolly and Windjammer. By the late 1950s, which is as far back as my personal experience of Hollywood Boulevard goes, roadshow engagements were much more likely to be booked at the Egyptian or the Pantages or even the Paramount (now El Capitan) than at the Chinese. The Warner Hollywood got all the Cinerama roadshows of course, until the Cinerama Dome opened.
Hard ticket engagements also took place at some theaters outside Hollywood, usually at houses on or near Wilshire Boulevard. The Carthay Circle was the most notable roadshow house outside Hollywood, but there were also quite a few hard ticket engagements at the Fox Wilshire and the Warner Beverly Hills, and even at a few smaller theaters.
According to David Welling’s Cinema Houston, The Prince Theatre was located at 320 Fannin Street, on the site of the Houston Theatre (originally Sweeney & Coombs Opera House), which had been destroyed by a fire. The Prince Theatre opened on September 24, 1908, with a play. It presented plays, vaudeville, and movies at various times, was briefly a Loew’s vaudeville house in the early 1920s, and in 1922 was leased to a stock company.
In the 1930s the theater was converted into a four-level parking garage. It was eventually demolished, but Welling doesn’t give the date. The building now on the site, the Harris County Administration Building, looks to date from the 1970s, but the theater might have been long gone by the time it was built.
None of the period sources I’ve found so far give the seating capacity, but it must have been a fairly large theater. Here is the announcement of the opening that was published in the October 10, 1908, issue of The Billboard:
“Most auspicious was the opening of the New Prince Theatre at Houston. Texas, on September 24. In the Land of Nod was the opening attraction, and pleased capacity business. The season of 1908-09 may be said to have commenced for Houston theatregoers.
“On entering the new auditorium, the first effect produced is a sense of clear spaciousness, and this impression deepens with further experience. The flooring of both balconies, and the steps of all the stairways throughout the building, are of concrete. The exits are numerous, wide and easy of access. The predominating colors in the auditorium’s furnishings are of dark green and cool gray, with a lavish use, as high lights, of brass bars and gold brush work. The paintings of figures and scenes, put in as ceiling and side wall frescoes, are all fittingly artistic.
“Mr. Dave Weis. formerly manager of the Grand. Galveston, Texas, is manager of the new theatre and Mr. Charles Brian is his assistant.
“The new theatre cost over $190,000, and is said to be one of the finest in the South.”
If this house was aka the Fox Merrill Theatre, the September 10, 1930, issue of The Film Daily reported that the circuit had closed it and that the building was to be used for a store.
The September 23, 1927, issue of The Film Daily said that George Mann expected his new State Theatre, under construction at Fort Bragg, to go into operation in November.
According to this item from the September 23, 1927, issue of The Film Daily, the Granada Theatre was built by the Skouras Borthers and Harry Koplar:
“New St. Louis House Named
“St. Louis — The Granada is the name selected for the theater at Gravois and Ellenwood Sts. which will be opened by the St. Louis Amusement Co. in a few weeks. The new house will seat about 2000 and will be among the largest of the outlying theaters operated by Skouras Bros, and Harry Koplar. It is planned to use this house for subsequent runs getting pictures immediately after the Missouri and Ambassador.”
Warner Bros. took over Skouras Brothers Enterprises in 1928. I don’t know when the Arthurs took over the Saint Louis Amusement Company.
American Cinema’s Transitional Era: Audiences, Institutions, Practices, by Charlie Keil and Shelly Stamp, cites a 1913 advertisement for a Doan Theatre in Cleveland. A Doan Theatre was also mentioned in the July 1, 1916, issue of The Moving Picture World, but no location was mentioned, and it might not have been this house.
Showtime in Cleveland: The Rise of a Regional Theater Center, by John Vacha, mentions the Doan Theatre in a paragraph about houses opened in the 1920s, saying that “…the Doan ushered moviegoers into a lobby rotunda modeled after an Aztec temple….” which certainly doesn’t sound like something that would have been built prior to the 1920s. The earlier Doan Theatre might have been remodeled, or replaced altogether.
As for the Doan ever having been a Loew’s house, a Loew’s Doan Theatre in Cleveland is mentioned on page 27 of a 1986 issue of Theatre Organ: Journal of the American Theatre Organ Society, Volume 28. It quotes a source dated July, 1926. So, while this house was certainly never Loew’s Euclid, it must have been Loew’s Doan.
This house re-opened as Loew’s Euclid in 1919. It had already been in operation as the Euclid Theatre for several years. Here is an item from a late 1913 issue of Variety:
“CLEVELAND’S NEXT BIG ONE.
“Cleveland, Dec. 26.
“The next big theatre to open here will be the Euclid. It will seat over 2,000 people. The date for English Grand Opera to start the house off is set for March 1.
“Max Faetkenhauer will manage the Euclid, built by Jas. Holcomb who has of late purchased considerable of the property on Euclid avenue near where the new theatre is located.
“Mr. Faetkenhauer promoted and built the Cleveland Hippodrome, now playing Keith vaudeville.
“Nothing is known of the future policy of the Euclid beyond that it will open with opera.”
It looks like the opening year of 1914 we originally gave was correct.
jlove: I’ve tried to discover when the Penn Square Theatre’s facade was remodeled, but no luck so far. The change in the front from the 1911 photo to the 1928 photo is indeed drastic, but I’ve found no evidence that the Penn Square ever changed locations so they must be the same building. There are clues in the adjacent buildings, especially the one to the right, which shows many of the same first and second floor details in both photos, though it appears to have lost its cornice before 1928.
Like a number of other architects of the period, George A. Grieble studied architecture through correspondence. This advertisement for International Correspondence Schools, featuring a biographical sketch of Grieble, appeared in various publications in the early 1920s, and it mentions both the Alhambra Theatre and the Penn Square Building as being Grieble’s designs. The Cleveland Landmarks Commission lists both the Gordon Square and the Olympia Theatre as Grieble’s designs.
I don’t know how Knox & Elliot got the commission for the Hippodrome project, but it is not unheard of for an architect to design only one or two theaters in a career. I do know that Max Faetkenhauer, who commissioned the theater, was experienced as a theatrical manager as well as being a composer and orchestra conductor, and it could be that he had ideas of his own about how a theater should be designed, and he didn’t want to bicker over them with an experienced theater architect, preferring an architect who would defer to him. Faetkenhauer’s partner in the project, former mayor Robert McKisson, would undoubtedly have been acquainted with Knox and Elliot, and likely would have considered them a good choice for the rest of the project, which included two large office buildings.
I’ve found this house listed as the New Orpheum Theatre as early as 1911 and as late as 1924. I don’t think it means that this Orpheum was rebuilt at any time. A list of Gus Sun’s theaters in Frank Cullen’s Vaudeville Old and New has six houses called the New Orpheum, and several other theaters in the circuit had the word “New” as part of their names. Apparently, Gus Sun was just partial to it.
The Septemer 2, 1911, issue of The Billboard reported that the Lyric Theatre in Lima, Ohio, would open on September 4. The house was to be booked by the Sullivan & Considine vaudeville circuit.
The September 23, 1927, issue of The Film Daily ran a brief item about the remodeling of this house when it was called the Lyric:
“Remodeling Lima Lyric Lima, O. — Remodeling and improvements costing $50,000 on the Lyric will be started in November, with seating capacity increased to 1,000. The house is owned by the Lima Amusement Co.”
News of the Arco Theatre from Motography, April, 1911:
“Messrs. Duggan and Huff have prepared plans for a theater to be erected at the northwest corner of Manchester and Arco avenues, St. Louis, by the Magnet Amusement Company, which will cost $65,000. It will be the first moving picture house in that section of the city. The building will be of brick, steel and concrete, making it entirely fireproof. The front is to be of gray brick, with white glazed terra cotta trimmings and a copper roof. It is to have a stage 35 feet wide and 25 feet deep, and will have a seating capacity of 2,200. It will be completed about June 1. Moving pictures and vaudeville will be presented and the managers are considering the organization of a stock company. The combination of pictures with stock will be something new in amusement in St. Louis.”
The Strand Theatre was in operation under that name by 1920. these comments on a Van Wert Forum web page indicate that the Strand was an old theater once called the Auditorium, a photo of which can be seen on this page at Silent Era. The Auditorium is listed in the 1908 Cahn guide as a ground floor theater of 1000 seats. It was called the Auditorium Opera House on a photo postcard reproduced on page 81 of Van Wert County, by Cheryl Bauer. A 1902 list of theaters in Ohio had only a 500-seat, second-floor theater listed for Van Wert, so the Auditorium was built between 1902 and 1908.
This house opened in 1911 as the Empire Theatre. The April issue of Motography ran this notice:
“The Empire theater, Lima’s new moving picture house, was recently opened to the public by Messrs. H. B. Hoffman and H. B. Spencer. The decorations and equipment are elaborate in every detail and have been installed without regard to expense. There is a seating capacity of 300, fitted with opera chairs, and the floor inclines sufficiently to provide a clear view from any point in the house. On the opening night all patrons were presented with a bouquet of flowers.”
This 2011 article from limaohio.com (with two photos) says that the theater was enlarged and renamed the Sigma in late 1919-early 1920. It had another remodeling in 1931, and was was closed for a full year after the 1949 fire, reopening on March 1, 1950. The article doesn’t mention the theater closing in the 1960s, but only that it “fell on harder times” during that decade and operated as a second-run house. In its last years as the Cinema 1, adult films were shown. The conversion to office space took place in 1981.
An advertisement for Paramount and Art Craft films in the October 8, 1918, issue of Michigan Film Review listed this house as the Princess Paramount Theatre.
The earliest mention of the United States Theatre I’ve found is this item from the March 1, 1913, issue of Motography:
“Announcement was made that work on the United States theater building, a $100,000 moving picture house to be built in Denver, will begin about May 1. The promoter, J. J. McClusky, of New York, has taken a ninety-nine-year lease on the two lots.”
I’ve been unable to discover if J. J. McClusky was related to the R. H. McClusky who operated the house under lease until 1916, or how ownership of the theater passed to Albert Lewin (see MPW citation in my previous comment.)
The April 19, 1913, issue of Motography ran a brief item about the Tudor Theatre (apparently not yet named) that was then nearing completion:
“The new Pearce theater, now under construction at New Orleans, is nearing completion. In less than six weeks the finest picture theater in the south will be thrown open to the public. Located at 610 Canal street, the new theater probably is one of the most expensive of the United States. Josiah L. Pearce & Sons will introduce another new feature of motion picture theaters in the new pipe organ which is on its way to New Orleans, and is thought to be the best of its kind in the south. The organ was built at Hagerstown, Md., and it is said to have cost $25,000.”
Hagerstown was the home of the M. P. Möller organ company.
Did this theater’s name actually use the spelling Beverley, rather than the standard Beverly?
The Mall Hall of Fame (which uses the standard spelling Beverly) says that Columbus Square was dedicated on March 25, 1965. As the theater was inside the mall, it most likely began operating the same day the mall did.
The entry for Morton James Coulson in the 1956 American Architects Directory lists a 1950 remodeling of the Regent Theatre in Ottawa, Canada, among his principal works.
The January 31, 1929, issue of the Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star devoted much of its space to Benjamin Pitts' new Colonial Theatre, which was set to open the following day. This article said that the Colonial was designed by the Richmond architectural firm of Lee, Smith & Vandervoort. The article says that the firm specialized in theater planning, but I’ve been unable to find any other theaters they designed.
I’ve found James T. Vandervoort’s surname spelled Van der Voort in a few places and Van Dervoort from one source. Merrill C. Lee designed a 1954 addition to the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts which included a theater. Horace L. Smith, Jr., is noted as the inventor of a double helix car ramp for parking garages, first used in 1928.
The Pitts' Theatres chain took over the Murphy Theatre in Front Royal in 1930, and took over the Park theater as well, sometime before 1939. It was called Pitts' Park on a list of twenty-five houses operated by Pitts' Theatres in 1952. As Pitts' Theatres was not inclined to give up successful houses, the Park probably remained under their control until the chain was taken over by R/C Theatres in 1970.
The April 4, 1930, issue of the Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star reported that Benjamin Pitts had taken a ten-year lease on Murphy’s Theatre in Front Royal and would immediately begin a remodeling which would include the installation of Western Electric sound equipment.
The theater was expected to reopen in about six weeks. It would be the sixth house in the Pitts' Theatres chain. The article said that Murphy’s was Front Royal’s leading playhouse, and one of the largest theaters in the Shenandoah Valley, seating over 1000.
The house was listed as Pitts' Murphy on a list of the twenty-five theaters operated by Pitts' Theatres in 1952. I found it mentioned in 1959, but an ambiguous context make it impossible to tell if it was still in operation at that time. Pitts' Theatres also took over the Park Theatre in Front Royal sometime after acquiring the Murphy, and appears to have operated it until at least 1960.
A brief item about E. M. Loew’s Mohawk Theatre in North Adams appeared in the lower right corner of this page of the April 29, 1939, issue of Boxoffice. There is a photo showing one side wall of the auditorium as seen from the top of the balcony.
The item notes Mowll & Rand as architects, but attributes the decoration of the theater to William Riseman and someone named Alec Lercari (who I can’t find mentioned anywhere on the Itnernet, so perhaps it is a typo.)
I believe that the rendering of a proposed Vogue Theatre at Santa Rosa appearing in the upper right corner of this page of Boxoffice for April 29, 1939, depicts an early version of the house that eventually opened as the Tower Theatre.
The Boxoffice article Tinseltoes linked to earlier says that the Cherokee Theatre was designed by Corgan & Moore.
Several of the comments on this theater’s page actually pertain to the later Rialto Theatre at 546 S. State Street, which took the name sometime after this house closed.
bigjoe59: The Chinese hosted some roadshow engagements other than West Side Story over the years, but the only ones I recall offhand were Hello Dolly and Windjammer. By the late 1950s, which is as far back as my personal experience of Hollywood Boulevard goes, roadshow engagements were much more likely to be booked at the Egyptian or the Pantages or even the Paramount (now El Capitan) than at the Chinese. The Warner Hollywood got all the Cinerama roadshows of course, until the Cinerama Dome opened.
Hard ticket engagements also took place at some theaters outside Hollywood, usually at houses on or near Wilshire Boulevard. The Carthay Circle was the most notable roadshow house outside Hollywood, but there were also quite a few hard ticket engagements at the Fox Wilshire and the Warner Beverly Hills, and even at a few smaller theaters.
According to David Welling’s Cinema Houston, The Prince Theatre was located at 320 Fannin Street, on the site of the Houston Theatre (originally Sweeney & Coombs Opera House), which had been destroyed by a fire. The Prince Theatre opened on September 24, 1908, with a play. It presented plays, vaudeville, and movies at various times, was briefly a Loew’s vaudeville house in the early 1920s, and in 1922 was leased to a stock company.
In the 1930s the theater was converted into a four-level parking garage. It was eventually demolished, but Welling doesn’t give the date. The building now on the site, the Harris County Administration Building, looks to date from the 1970s, but the theater might have been long gone by the time it was built.
None of the period sources I’ve found so far give the seating capacity, but it must have been a fairly large theater. Here is the announcement of the opening that was published in the October 10, 1908, issue of The Billboard:
If this house was aka the Fox Merrill Theatre, the September 10, 1930, issue of The Film Daily reported that the circuit had closed it and that the building was to be used for a store.
The September 23, 1927, issue of The Film Daily said that George Mann expected his new State Theatre, under construction at Fort Bragg, to go into operation in November.
According to this item from the September 23, 1927, issue of The Film Daily, the Granada Theatre was built by the Skouras Borthers and Harry Koplar:
Warner Bros. took over Skouras Brothers Enterprises in 1928. I don’t know when the Arthurs took over the Saint Louis Amusement Company.American Cinema’s Transitional Era: Audiences, Institutions, Practices, by Charlie Keil and Shelly Stamp, cites a 1913 advertisement for a Doan Theatre in Cleveland. A Doan Theatre was also mentioned in the July 1, 1916, issue of The Moving Picture World, but no location was mentioned, and it might not have been this house.
Showtime in Cleveland: The Rise of a Regional Theater Center, by John Vacha, mentions the Doan Theatre in a paragraph about houses opened in the 1920s, saying that “…the Doan ushered moviegoers into a lobby rotunda modeled after an Aztec temple….” which certainly doesn’t sound like something that would have been built prior to the 1920s. The earlier Doan Theatre might have been remodeled, or replaced altogether.
As for the Doan ever having been a Loew’s house, a Loew’s Doan Theatre in Cleveland is mentioned on page 27 of a 1986 issue of Theatre Organ: Journal of the American Theatre Organ Society, Volume 28. It quotes a source dated July, 1926. So, while this house was certainly never Loew’s Euclid, it must have been Loew’s Doan.
This house re-opened as Loew’s Euclid in 1919. It had already been in operation as the Euclid Theatre for several years. Here is an item from a late 1913 issue of Variety:
It looks like the opening year of 1914 we originally gave was correct.jlove: I’ve tried to discover when the Penn Square Theatre’s facade was remodeled, but no luck so far. The change in the front from the 1911 photo to the 1928 photo is indeed drastic, but I’ve found no evidence that the Penn Square ever changed locations so they must be the same building. There are clues in the adjacent buildings, especially the one to the right, which shows many of the same first and second floor details in both photos, though it appears to have lost its cornice before 1928.
Like a number of other architects of the period, George A. Grieble studied architecture through correspondence. This advertisement for International Correspondence Schools, featuring a biographical sketch of Grieble, appeared in various publications in the early 1920s, and it mentions both the Alhambra Theatre and the Penn Square Building as being Grieble’s designs. The Cleveland Landmarks Commission lists both the Gordon Square and the Olympia Theatre as Grieble’s designs.
I don’t know how Knox & Elliot got the commission for the Hippodrome project, but it is not unheard of for an architect to design only one or two theaters in a career. I do know that Max Faetkenhauer, who commissioned the theater, was experienced as a theatrical manager as well as being a composer and orchestra conductor, and it could be that he had ideas of his own about how a theater should be designed, and he didn’t want to bicker over them with an experienced theater architect, preferring an architect who would defer to him. Faetkenhauer’s partner in the project, former mayor Robert McKisson, would undoubtedly have been acquainted with Knox and Elliot, and likely would have considered them a good choice for the rest of the project, which included two large office buildings.
I’ve found this house listed as the New Orpheum Theatre as early as 1911 and as late as 1924. I don’t think it means that this Orpheum was rebuilt at any time. A list of Gus Sun’s theaters in Frank Cullen’s Vaudeville Old and New has six houses called the New Orpheum, and several other theaters in the circuit had the word “New” as part of their names. Apparently, Gus Sun was just partial to it.
The Septemer 2, 1911, issue of The Billboard reported that the Lyric Theatre in Lima, Ohio, would open on September 4. The house was to be booked by the Sullivan & Considine vaudeville circuit.
The September 23, 1927, issue of The Film Daily ran a brief item about the remodeling of this house when it was called the Lyric:
News of the Arco Theatre from Motography, April, 1911:
The Strand Theatre was in operation under that name by 1920. these comments on a Van Wert Forum web page indicate that the Strand was an old theater once called the Auditorium, a photo of which can be seen on this page at Silent Era. The Auditorium is listed in the 1908 Cahn guide as a ground floor theater of 1000 seats. It was called the Auditorium Opera House on a photo postcard reproduced on page 81 of Van Wert County, by Cheryl Bauer. A 1902 list of theaters in Ohio had only a 500-seat, second-floor theater listed for Van Wert, so the Auditorium was built between 1902 and 1908.
This house opened in 1911 as the Empire Theatre. The April issue of Motography ran this notice:
This 2011 article from limaohio.com (with two photos) says that the theater was enlarged and renamed the Sigma in late 1919-early 1920. It had another remodeling in 1931, and was was closed for a full year after the 1949 fire, reopening on March 1, 1950. The article doesn’t mention the theater closing in the 1960s, but only that it “fell on harder times” during that decade and operated as a second-run house. In its last years as the Cinema 1, adult films were shown. The conversion to office space took place in 1981.An advertisement for Paramount and Art Craft films in the October 8, 1918, issue of Michigan Film Review listed this house as the Princess Paramount Theatre.
The earliest mention of the United States Theatre I’ve found is this item from the March 1, 1913, issue of Motography:
I’ve been unable to discover if J. J. McClusky was related to the R. H. McClusky who operated the house under lease until 1916, or how ownership of the theater passed to Albert Lewin (see MPW citation in my previous comment.)The April 19, 1913, issue of Motography ran a brief item about the Tudor Theatre (apparently not yet named) that was then nearing completion:
Hagerstown was the home of the M. P. Möller organ company.Did this theater’s name actually use the spelling Beverley, rather than the standard Beverly?
The Mall Hall of Fame (which uses the standard spelling Beverly) says that Columbus Square was dedicated on March 25, 1965. As the theater was inside the mall, it most likely began operating the same day the mall did.
The entry for Morton James Coulson in the 1956 American Architects Directory lists a 1950 remodeling of the Regent Theatre in Ottawa, Canada, among his principal works.
The January 31, 1929, issue of the Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star devoted much of its space to Benjamin Pitts' new Colonial Theatre, which was set to open the following day. This article said that the Colonial was designed by the Richmond architectural firm of Lee, Smith & Vandervoort. The article says that the firm specialized in theater planning, but I’ve been unable to find any other theaters they designed.
I’ve found James T. Vandervoort’s surname spelled Van der Voort in a few places and Van Dervoort from one source. Merrill C. Lee designed a 1954 addition to the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts which included a theater. Horace L. Smith, Jr., is noted as the inventor of a double helix car ramp for parking garages, first used in 1928.
The Pitts' Theatres chain took over the Murphy Theatre in Front Royal in 1930, and took over the Park theater as well, sometime before 1939. It was called Pitts' Park on a list of twenty-five houses operated by Pitts' Theatres in 1952. As Pitts' Theatres was not inclined to give up successful houses, the Park probably remained under their control until the chain was taken over by R/C Theatres in 1970.
The April 4, 1930, issue of the Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star reported that Benjamin Pitts had taken a ten-year lease on Murphy’s Theatre in Front Royal and would immediately begin a remodeling which would include the installation of Western Electric sound equipment.
The theater was expected to reopen in about six weeks. It would be the sixth house in the Pitts' Theatres chain. The article said that Murphy’s was Front Royal’s leading playhouse, and one of the largest theaters in the Shenandoah Valley, seating over 1000.
The house was listed as Pitts' Murphy on a list of the twenty-five theaters operated by Pitts' Theatres in 1952. I found it mentioned in 1959, but an ambiguous context make it impossible to tell if it was still in operation at that time. Pitts' Theatres also took over the Park Theatre in Front Royal sometime after acquiring the Murphy, and appears to have operated it until at least 1960.