An interesting article in Boxoffice of August 17, 1946, recounts some of the story of the Paramount Theatre during the occupation of Paris by the Nazis. The scan is a bit blurry, but after clicking on the magazine image to enlarge it, you can click on the + sign in the bar that appears above it to enlarge further and most of the text will be fairly readable.
A biographical item about retiring Fox Midwest manager Larry Breuninger in Boxoffice of March 31, 1956, said that the circuit had bought the Jayhawk Theatre at Salina from him in early 1932.
Breuninger’s career had outlasted the theater’s. Boxoffice of January 15, 1955, said that the Jayhawk was being dismantled. The building was to be converted for business use.
Boxoffice of October 15, 1938, reported that the Vogue Theatre at Salina had opened the previous Thursday. The magazine’s October 22 issue reported some details of the event, and revealed that architect Larry P. Larson had designed the Vogue.
The Vogue’s original owner, Gus Diamond, sold the house to Lon Cox in 1949. Boxoffice of July 23 said that Cox would take over operation of the Vouge and of the Howard Theatre at Arkansas City, which he had also bought from Diamond, on August 1. Diamond would move to Los Angeles where he would devote his time to his interests in the Pacific Drive-In Theatres circuit.
Cox operated the Vogue until 1962 when he sold the house to the Dickinson circuit, reported in Boxoffice of June 25. The house operated at least into the mid-1970s, and was mentioned several times by Boxoffice in 1975.
Boxoffice of October 23, 1937, said that the Fox Strand Theatre at Salina was being extensively remodeled and expanded. The January 15, 1938, issue said that Fox Midwest would open the Strand within 30 days. The project had cost $35,000, and the expanded theater would seat 750. The original seating capacity was not mentioned.
A house called Shanberg’s Strand Theatre, Salina, Kas., was listed as one of the theaters showing the Pathe release “Play Ball” in an ad in The Reel Journal of August 8, 1925. This was most likely the same Strand Theatre that Fox Midwest later acquired.
The franchisees of The Movies! at Salina were Don and Carol Porter, according to an item in Boxoffice of July 12, 1971. The company selling the franchises was called American Automated Theatres Inc., and was headed by J. Cooper Burks and Athel Boyter.
Boxoffice of August 19, 1974, said that The Movies twin in Salina had been bought by Dickinson Theatres and would be renamed the Sunset Cinemas. Dickinson’s Mid-State Cinemas 1 & 2 had opened the previous year.
Boxoffice of February 15, 1971, ran this article about AATI. There are a few drawings of their prototype theaters, and a couple of photos of the first The Movies! at Altus, Oklahoma.
As does Okie Medley in a comment above, This page at Cinematour (with photos by Adam Martin) gives the theater’s address as 1221 W. Crawford St., Salina KS 67401.
The Grand was a very early theater. A March 3, 1945, Boxoffice article about the retirement of long-time showman Hort Ulrich says that he had worked at the Grand in Salina sometime between WWI and 1922.
The Grand was mentioned in The Reel Journal of June 6, 1925, when it was running “Charly’s Aunt” with Sydney Chaplin, and in Motion Picture Times of July 7, 1928, when it was showing an MGM release, “The Patsy” with Marion Davies.
The Reel Journal of October 2, 1926, listed the Grand as one of the theaters operated by M. B. Shamberg’s Midland Theatres circuit.
According to the item about the theater’s 40th anniversary that was run in Boxoffice of August 30, 1971, the exact opening date of the Fox was February 23, 1931.
A good question, Matt. A logical conclusion to draw from your information would be that they were the same theater, and it was simply renamed.
In fact a full-page ad for Paramount’s release “Bring On the Girls” that ran in Boxoffice of February 3, 1945, included the Melrose on a list of theaters that would be screening the movie, and it gives the address of the Melrose as 3419 Oak Lawn. That’s the address Cinema Treasures gives for the Esquire. It’s likely that the source Chuck and Ken used just got the address of the Melrose wrong, though maybe Dallas renumbered the building some time before 1945.
The last time I find the Melrose mentioned in Boxoffice is the issue of March 22, 1947, which said the house was being closed for a few days while a fast remodeling job was carried out and new seats were installed.
The earliest mention of the Esquire I’ve found in in Boxoffice of January 3, 1948, when it was listed in an ad for the Nu-Screen theater screen company as one of the houses in which their product had been installed.
Though I haven’t found anything in Boxoffice clearly stating that the Melrose was renamed the Esquire in 1947, that’s what I now suspect happened. A number of issues of the magazine appear to be missing from the online database, and I suspect that the magazine’s item noting the name change was in one of those issues.
The only photo I’ve found is this closely-cropped shot showing the Esquire’s vertical sign, which appeared as the frontispiece of Boxoffice’s Modern Theatre section for January 5, 1952. The vertical could have been from the Melrose. A photo of the Melrose from about 1946 would be helpful if somebody has one. Note that MELROSE and ESQUIRE have the same number of letters, and even share four in common (almost six, as an O is easily converted into a Q, and an L to an I) which would have made the name change simpler and less costly.
Also note the artist’s palette and brushes decorating the Esquire’s facade in the 1952 photo, suggesting that the house might have had an art film policy for a while. An intended switch from regular movies to art house fare could have inspired a name change.
There’s a nice photo of a lounge area at the Park Avenue featured in an ad for Gulistan carpeting that appeared in Boxoffice of March 29, 1947. There’s also a small inset photo showing the part of the auditorium with the stairway to the mezzanine.
The September, 1919, issue of The Architect and Engineer said that the Savoy Theatre was being extensively altered for conversion “…into a high class moving picture theatre….” Architects for the project were the Reid brothers.
The August 14, 1948, issue of Boxoffice said that the Redskin Theatre at Wetumka had opened on the 10th of that month. The Redskin was operated by Cecil Duncan, who also owned the Avalon Theatre in Wetumka.
The Nusho Theatre in Wetumka was mentioned in The Reel Journal, August 28, 1926. The Rogue is mentioned a couple of times, in 1940 and 1941. It was one of four theaters of that name operated in various Oklahoma towns by the Guthrie brothers. As I haven’t found the Avalon mentioned any earlier than 1946, there’s a possibility that it was either the Nusho or the Rogue renamed.
The Avalon, Redskin, and Time (opened in 1947) were all different houses, and all three were in operation between 1948 and at least 1954, the last year in which I’ve found the Avalon mentioned. The Avalon might not have survived into the CinemaScope era. A lot of theaters shut down because they couldn’t afford to install the new equipment.
Dale and Retha Groden took over the Redskin Theatre from Mr. and Mrs. C. W. Duncan on September 1, 1973, according to the September 17 issue of Boxoffice that year.
The Princess was one of five San Francisco theaters designed by the architectural firm of O'Brien & Werner (Matthew O'Brien and Carl Werner) that were listed in an ad for the firm in the 1907-1908 edition of Henry’s Official Western Theatrical Guide.
This 1907 Orpheum was designed by the architectural firm of O'Brien & Werner (Matthew O"Brien and Carl Werner) It was one of five San Francisco theaters they designed that were listed in an ad for the firm in the 1907-1908 edition of Henry’s Official Western Theatrical Guide.
This house was listed as the 16th Street Theatre in an ad for architects O'Brien & Werner (Matthew O'Brien and Carl Werner) that appeared in the 1907-1908 edition of Henry’s Official Western Theatrical Guide. The ad listed five theaters designed by the firm. The other four were the Orpheum, Valencia Street, Mission, and Princess theaters.
An earlier Mission Theatre was operating in San Francisco in 1907. Did the New Mission replace it? The earlier Mission was listed in an ad for the architectural firm O'Brien & Werner in the 1907-1908 edition of Henry’s Official Western Theatrical Guide. The Mission was one of five O'Brien & Werner designed houses listed in the ad. The others were the Orpheum, Princess, Valencia Street, and 16th Street theaters.
The Mid-Island Theatre was a Prudential house when it opened in 1961. Boxoffice of November 13 said the Mid-Island had opened on the 10th. There were 600 seats in the original single screen house. I’ve been unable to discover how or when the triplexing was done, but it probably changed the capacity.
A brief article about the Cinema at Menlo Park appeared in Boxoffice of November 13, 1961, not long after it had opened. There is a single photo of the exterior. The 1,600-seat house was operated by the General Drive-In Corporation, which was soon to become General Cinema Corporation.
The article says that the Cinema was “Conceived by designer Elliot Willensky, now head of the Architects Design Group, New York City….”, though the architect of record for the building was Lathrop Douglass. Willensky went on to write a number of books on architecture, most notably “The AIA Guide to New York City” first published in 1968. Lathrop Douglass is best known as an architect of shopping centers, and might have been the architect of the Menlopark Mall.
Southwest Builder & Contractor of May 18, 1928, said that H. L. Batey was building a theater on the west side of Vermont Avenue between 153rd and Magnolia Street in Gardena (153rd Street is now Redondo Beach Boulevard.) The entire 15300-15400 block now shows as a single parcel on the Assessor’s office web site, with a construction date of 2001. But Mr. Batey’s 1928 project (probably completed in 1929) must have been the Embassy.
Boxoffice of October 5, 1940, said that Laraine Valuskis had taken over the Embassy Theatre at Gardena from J. Reese. That’s the only mention of the house I’ve been able to find in Boxoffice.
The photo Lost Memory linked to is a pretty close match to the rendering of the Sandia Theatre by architect Jack Corgan, published in the “Just Off the Boards” feature of Boxoffice for December 7, 1946.
Despite its appearance in this feature, the Sandia was not “just off the boards,” but had in fact already opened on May 7, as noted in Boxoffice of June 1, 1946.
A couple of issues of Boxoffice in the mid-1940s mention the Gardena Theatre (it suffered a fire in 1945) operated by Harry Millstein and Harry Mellenkoff. It was most likely the unnamed theater being built for Mellenkoff that was mentioned in Southwest Builder & Contractor of October 28, 1938.
This 800-seat house was designed by architect C. E. Noerenberg, best known for designing a number of branch libraries for the City of Los Angeles, and for Dorsey High School, which he designed in partnership with Hollywood architect H. L. Gogerty.
Are we certain of the address for this theater? The L.A. County Assessor (not always reliable) doesn’t list 1002 W. Gardena, but gives an original construction date of 1924 and an effective construction date of 1940 for the 4625 sq. ft. building on the corner lot at 1004 Gardena, and those dates don’t match the 1938 construction and 1945 reconstruction of the Gardena Theatre.
This is the southwest corner of Gardena and Vermont, by the way. The lots on the east side of Vermont are in Los Angeles which has a different numbering system, so that’s the 800 W. block of Gardena Blvd. as it runs east from Vermont.
If this house opened as the Palace in 1935, it might have operated under a different name for a decade or so before that. A July 7, 1956, article about the rebuilding of the Palace said that it was then about 30 years old. Before and after photos show that the building was quite old. The article says that only two walls of the original building were incorporated in the rebuilt Palace.
The Liberty was one of two theaters lately remodeled by Martin Theatres which were featured in Boxoffice of July 7, 1956. Before and after photos illustrate the article. Both projects were designed by architect Rufus E. Bland.
An interesting article in Boxoffice of August 17, 1946, recounts some of the story of the Paramount Theatre during the occupation of Paris by the Nazis. The scan is a bit blurry, but after clicking on the magazine image to enlarge it, you can click on the + sign in the bar that appears above it to enlarge further and most of the text will be fairly readable.
A biographical item about retiring Fox Midwest manager Larry Breuninger in Boxoffice of March 31, 1956, said that the circuit had bought the Jayhawk Theatre at Salina from him in early 1932.
Breuninger’s career had outlasted the theater’s. Boxoffice of January 15, 1955, said that the Jayhawk was being dismantled. The building was to be converted for business use.
Boxoffice of October 15, 1938, reported that the Vogue Theatre at Salina had opened the previous Thursday. The magazine’s October 22 issue reported some details of the event, and revealed that architect Larry P. Larson had designed the Vogue.
The Vogue’s original owner, Gus Diamond, sold the house to Lon Cox in 1949. Boxoffice of July 23 said that Cox would take over operation of the Vouge and of the Howard Theatre at Arkansas City, which he had also bought from Diamond, on August 1. Diamond would move to Los Angeles where he would devote his time to his interests in the Pacific Drive-In Theatres circuit.
Cox operated the Vogue until 1962 when he sold the house to the Dickinson circuit, reported in Boxoffice of June 25. The house operated at least into the mid-1970s, and was mentioned several times by Boxoffice in 1975.
Boxoffice of October 23, 1937, said that the Fox Strand Theatre at Salina was being extensively remodeled and expanded. The January 15, 1938, issue said that Fox Midwest would open the Strand within 30 days. The project had cost $35,000, and the expanded theater would seat 750. The original seating capacity was not mentioned.
A house called Shanberg’s Strand Theatre, Salina, Kas., was listed as one of the theaters showing the Pathe release “Play Ball” in an ad in The Reel Journal of August 8, 1925. This was most likely the same Strand Theatre that Fox Midwest later acquired.
The franchisees of The Movies! at Salina were Don and Carol Porter, according to an item in Boxoffice of July 12, 1971. The company selling the franchises was called American Automated Theatres Inc., and was headed by J. Cooper Burks and Athel Boyter.
Boxoffice of August 19, 1974, said that The Movies twin in Salina had been bought by Dickinson Theatres and would be renamed the Sunset Cinemas. Dickinson’s Mid-State Cinemas 1 & 2 had opened the previous year.
Boxoffice of February 15, 1971, ran this article about AATI. There are a few drawings of their prototype theaters, and a couple of photos of the first The Movies! at Altus, Oklahoma.
As does Okie Medley in a comment above, This page at Cinematour (with photos by Adam Martin) gives the theater’s address as 1221 W. Crawford St., Salina KS 67401.
The Grand was a very early theater. A March 3, 1945, Boxoffice article about the retirement of long-time showman Hort Ulrich says that he had worked at the Grand in Salina sometime between WWI and 1922.
The Grand was mentioned in The Reel Journal of June 6, 1925, when it was running “Charly’s Aunt” with Sydney Chaplin, and in Motion Picture Times of July 7, 1928, when it was showing an MGM release, “The Patsy” with Marion Davies.
The Reel Journal of October 2, 1926, listed the Grand as one of the theaters operated by M. B. Shamberg’s Midland Theatres circuit.
According to the item about the theater’s 40th anniversary that was run in Boxoffice of August 30, 1971, the exact opening date of the Fox was February 23, 1931.
There is an article about the Jayhawk in the September 4, 1926, issue of The Reel Journal.
A good question, Matt. A logical conclusion to draw from your information would be that they were the same theater, and it was simply renamed.
In fact a full-page ad for Paramount’s release “Bring On the Girls” that ran in Boxoffice of February 3, 1945, included the Melrose on a list of theaters that would be screening the movie, and it gives the address of the Melrose as 3419 Oak Lawn. That’s the address Cinema Treasures gives for the Esquire. It’s likely that the source Chuck and Ken used just got the address of the Melrose wrong, though maybe Dallas renumbered the building some time before 1945.
The last time I find the Melrose mentioned in Boxoffice is the issue of March 22, 1947, which said the house was being closed for a few days while a fast remodeling job was carried out and new seats were installed.
The earliest mention of the Esquire I’ve found in in Boxoffice of January 3, 1948, when it was listed in an ad for the Nu-Screen theater screen company as one of the houses in which their product had been installed.
Though I haven’t found anything in Boxoffice clearly stating that the Melrose was renamed the Esquire in 1947, that’s what I now suspect happened. A number of issues of the magazine appear to be missing from the online database, and I suspect that the magazine’s item noting the name change was in one of those issues.
The only photo I’ve found is this closely-cropped shot showing the Esquire’s vertical sign, which appeared as the frontispiece of Boxoffice’s Modern Theatre section for January 5, 1952. The vertical could have been from the Melrose. A photo of the Melrose from about 1946 would be helpful if somebody has one. Note that MELROSE and ESQUIRE have the same number of letters, and even share four in common (almost six, as an O is easily converted into a Q, and an L to an I) which would have made the name change simpler and less costly.
Also note the artist’s palette and brushes decorating the Esquire’s facade in the 1952 photo, suggesting that the house might have had an art film policy for a while. An intended switch from regular movies to art house fare could have inspired a name change.
There’s a nice photo of a lounge area at the Park Avenue featured in an ad for Gulistan carpeting that appeared in Boxoffice of March 29, 1947. There’s also a small inset photo showing the part of the auditorium with the stairway to the mezzanine.
You can see photos of the Glendale 18 at the web site of the architects, Perkowitz + Ruth.
The September, 1919, issue of The Architect and Engineer said that the Savoy Theatre was being extensively altered for conversion “…into a high class moving picture theatre….” Architects for the project were the Reid brothers.
The August 14, 1948, issue of Boxoffice said that the Redskin Theatre at Wetumka had opened on the 10th of that month. The Redskin was operated by Cecil Duncan, who also owned the Avalon Theatre in Wetumka.
The Nusho Theatre in Wetumka was mentioned in The Reel Journal, August 28, 1926. The Rogue is mentioned a couple of times, in 1940 and 1941. It was one of four theaters of that name operated in various Oklahoma towns by the Guthrie brothers. As I haven’t found the Avalon mentioned any earlier than 1946, there’s a possibility that it was either the Nusho or the Rogue renamed.
The Avalon, Redskin, and Time (opened in 1947) were all different houses, and all three were in operation between 1948 and at least 1954, the last year in which I’ve found the Avalon mentioned. The Avalon might not have survived into the CinemaScope era. A lot of theaters shut down because they couldn’t afford to install the new equipment.
Dale and Retha Groden took over the Redskin Theatre from Mr. and Mrs. C. W. Duncan on September 1, 1973, according to the September 17 issue of Boxoffice that year.
The Princess was one of five San Francisco theaters designed by the architectural firm of O'Brien & Werner (Matthew O'Brien and Carl Werner) that were listed in an ad for the firm in the 1907-1908 edition of Henry’s Official Western Theatrical Guide.
This 1907 Orpheum was designed by the architectural firm of O'Brien & Werner (Matthew O"Brien and Carl Werner) It was one of five San Francisco theaters they designed that were listed in an ad for the firm in the 1907-1908 edition of Henry’s Official Western Theatrical Guide.
This house was listed as the 16th Street Theatre in an ad for architects O'Brien & Werner (Matthew O'Brien and Carl Werner) that appeared in the 1907-1908 edition of Henry’s Official Western Theatrical Guide. The ad listed five theaters designed by the firm. The other four were the Orpheum, Valencia Street, Mission, and Princess theaters.
An earlier Mission Theatre was operating in San Francisco in 1907. Did the New Mission replace it? The earlier Mission was listed in an ad for the architectural firm O'Brien & Werner in the 1907-1908 edition of Henry’s Official Western Theatrical Guide. The Mission was one of five O'Brien & Werner designed houses listed in the ad. The others were the Orpheum, Princess, Valencia Street, and 16th Street theaters.
The Mid-Island Theatre was a Prudential house when it opened in 1961. Boxoffice of November 13 said the Mid-Island had opened on the 10th. There were 600 seats in the original single screen house. I’ve been unable to discover how or when the triplexing was done, but it probably changed the capacity.
Boxoffice of April 25, 1960, has a rendering of the Mall Theatre and says that it was being designed by architect Drew Eberson.
A brief article about the Cinema at Menlo Park appeared in Boxoffice of November 13, 1961, not long after it had opened. There is a single photo of the exterior. The 1,600-seat house was operated by the General Drive-In Corporation, which was soon to become General Cinema Corporation.
The article says that the Cinema was “Conceived by designer Elliot Willensky, now head of the Architects Design Group, New York City….”, though the architect of record for the building was Lathrop Douglass. Willensky went on to write a number of books on architecture, most notably “The AIA Guide to New York City” first published in 1968. Lathrop Douglass is best known as an architect of shopping centers, and might have been the architect of the Menlopark Mall.
Southwest Builder & Contractor of May 18, 1928, said that H. L. Batey was building a theater on the west side of Vermont Avenue between 153rd and Magnolia Street in Gardena (153rd Street is now Redondo Beach Boulevard.) The entire 15300-15400 block now shows as a single parcel on the Assessor’s office web site, with a construction date of 2001. But Mr. Batey’s 1928 project (probably completed in 1929) must have been the Embassy.
Boxoffice of October 5, 1940, said that Laraine Valuskis had taken over the Embassy Theatre at Gardena from J. Reese. That’s the only mention of the house I’ve been able to find in Boxoffice.
The photo Lost Memory linked to is a pretty close match to the rendering of the Sandia Theatre by architect Jack Corgan, published in the “Just Off the Boards” feature of Boxoffice for December 7, 1946.
Despite its appearance in this feature, the Sandia was not “just off the boards,” but had in fact already opened on May 7, as noted in Boxoffice of June 1, 1946.
A couple of issues of Boxoffice in the mid-1940s mention the Gardena Theatre (it suffered a fire in 1945) operated by Harry Millstein and Harry Mellenkoff. It was most likely the unnamed theater being built for Mellenkoff that was mentioned in Southwest Builder & Contractor of October 28, 1938.
This 800-seat house was designed by architect C. E. Noerenberg, best known for designing a number of branch libraries for the City of Los Angeles, and for Dorsey High School, which he designed in partnership with Hollywood architect H. L. Gogerty.
Are we certain of the address for this theater? The L.A. County Assessor (not always reliable) doesn’t list 1002 W. Gardena, but gives an original construction date of 1924 and an effective construction date of 1940 for the 4625 sq. ft. building on the corner lot at 1004 Gardena, and those dates don’t match the 1938 construction and 1945 reconstruction of the Gardena Theatre.
This is the southwest corner of Gardena and Vermont, by the way. The lots on the east side of Vermont are in Los Angeles which has a different numbering system, so that’s the 800 W. block of Gardena Blvd. as it runs east from Vermont.
If this house opened as the Palace in 1935, it might have operated under a different name for a decade or so before that. A July 7, 1956, article about the rebuilding of the Palace said that it was then about 30 years old. Before and after photos show that the building was quite old. The article says that only two walls of the original building were incorporated in the rebuilt Palace.
The architect for the rebuilding was Rufus Bland.
The Liberty was one of two theaters lately remodeled by Martin Theatres which were featured in Boxoffice of July 7, 1956. Before and after photos illustrate the article. Both projects were designed by architect Rufus E. Bland.