Thanks for the pics from my neck of the woods. The opening date was probably in the early 60s. I saw Snow White, some other Disney film (Bluebeard’s Ghost?) and Sergeant Deadhead (with the Three Stooges) as a five or six year old, circa 1966.
On 4/23/56, the Midway was showing Alfred Hitchcock’s “To Catch a Thief”, with Cary Grant and Grace Kelly, along with co-feature “Finger Man”, a gangster movie. The phone number was HI 2-3370. Other local theaters at that time were the Rialto, State, Fortuna, Arcata and Eureka.
I used to go to a coffee shop across the street from Lit’s called the Stanley. They had great pies. That place burned down in the mid 70s. There was also a bar further down South Carolina between Atlantic and Pacific called the Melody Lounge. Harold and the Blue Notes and some other great Philly R&B groups used to play there.
Other theaters in town circa August 1960 were the Rialto, Virginian and Warner Fairmont:
THEATER WON’T DIE – “Closed” Rialto Reopens Friday
The last film at the Rialto was “13 Ghosts.” But the 43-year-old
theater in the Morrison Building on Quarrier Street is not one
of them. After a shutdown of four days, the Rialto will reopen tomorrow with “The Apartment,” the picture being shifted from the Virginian, also a unit of Stanley Warner Corp.
Newspaper ads last week announced that the Rialto would be closed last Sunday night, ending the four-decade life of the theater. John Cox, the Rialto’s manager, was transferred to the Warner Fairmont theater. William Wyatt, manager of the Virginian, was ordered by the Pittsburgh region office to take over the closing of
the Rialto.
Last Monday, Wyatt moved dozens of large cartons into the theater
for packing of the seats. A filing case was removed from the Rialto office to the Virginian. “All I can say now is that the lease for the Rialto has been renewed with the Stanley Warner Corp.” said John Morrison, an owner of the Morrison building. He declined to discuss prospective remodeling of the building, which at its birth in 1917 was the pride of Charleston for its elegance.
This is an unidentified theater in Los Angeles, circa 1950. The audience is integrated. Perhaps someone might recognize the distinctive patterns on the walls. http://jpg1.lapl.org/pics03/00001372.jpg
MANAGER OF PARK HAS HEADED THEATERS FOR LAST 13 YEARS
Four men will take major roles in the “Hollywood Premier” opening of Mansfield’s new Park theater on South Park street. Brought here from Canton by Interstate Theaters, Inc., operators of the new theater, Ralph H. Shaffer will be manager of the Park theater. Shaffer until recently was manager of the Palace theater in Canton, another theater owned by the Interstate company. He was transferred here to take charge of the new show. Shaffer comes to Mansfield with 13 years of experience in the theater business. He formerly managed theaters in Washington and Charleroi, Pa, and Salem, East Liverpool, Portsmouth and Canton.
On 9/10/50, the Merrimack was showing “Stella” with Ann Sheridan and Victor Mature. The Merrimack Drive-In on Lawrence Boulevard was showing “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” and “It Happened One Night”.
Here is an article from the Long Beach Press-Telegram dated 7/29/68:
Not every old New York movie palace is condemned to die to make way for a glass and steel monolith. Nor must it fade away into the sad anonymity reserved for theaters that play last run commercial films or first-run sex movies. Now, amoeba-like, it may split up into two or three new theaters, each equipped with â€" as one exhibitor
said proudly recently, “the last word in new projection and sound
systems, and in luxurious appointments for the ladies' lounges”.
Tuesday night, the Warner Cinerama Theater on Times Square will be
formally unveiled as three separate new theaters, the 1,000-seat Cinerama, the 1,200-seat Penthouse, and the 400-seat Orleans. Another Broadway theater, Loew’s State, which was built in 1921, will close Sept. 8. It will reopen as two theaters, Loew’s State
one and Loew’s State Two.
The new theaters are examples of what the film trade calls “piggy-back conversions,” and they will mean a new lease on life for the Broadway movie house. With the recent demolition of the Paramount
and Roxy thaters, and the planned closing of the Capitol in September, the fear had been expressed that Broadway was doomed to extinction as the moviegoing center of New York and the world. Apparently this is not happening.
Broadway movie business is bigger than ever,“ according to Matthew
Polon, the short, stocky, ebullient president of the Pro-Stanley Warner Corporation. "But Broadway movie business has changed,” Polon
said. “Because of taxes and the rising value of real estate, it’s no longer economical to operate theaters with more than 1,000 or 1,200 seats.” As the movies themselves have become more specialized (and occasionally more adult) in themes, there have been changes in the theaters in which they are exhibited.
Today’s movie houses are less eclectic than were the Rococo movie palaces of the teens and twenties. Those were very special structures with their unembarrassed mixtures of Byzantine, Baroque and Moorish architecture, their fountains, paintings and statuary, even their ceiling clouds that hypnotized several generations of move-struck children.
Here is a 1956 article from the Long Beach Independent Press-Telegram:
In Long Beach after midnight the brightest lights blaze from the Palace Theater at 30 Pine Ave and the Roxy at 127 W. Ocean. They are open all night. Who are the people on the streets after midnight? What sort of people go to all-night theaters? The range of opinion on this subject is as wide as the difference between Mickey Mouse
and Mamie Van Doren.
A plainclothes officer expressed a one sided and extreme view
about the character of the night strollers. “It’s been my experience that 90 per cent of the people regularly on the streets after midnight have police records of one kind or another, if only for minor violations.” He added, “The managements of ihe theaters co-operate with authorities 100 per cent, but I can’t say as much for all of their late customers.”
The policeman’s view was quoted to Jack Feder, owner-manager of the Roxy. “He’s completely wrong!” Feder stated emphatically. “We know who our late customers are, and most of them are swing shift workers and service men. Then, too, we have restaurant and bar workers who want to relax a little before they go home. All-night theaters are under an aura of suspicion because they are open all-night. That isn’t a very good reason. Our standards are high here. We constantly turn away customers. We don’t allow drunks or rowdies and neither do we allow the Roxy to be used as a flop house. Offhand I can’t think of anything happening in an all-night theater that can’t happen in a
first-run house.”
Feder has been a resident of Long Beach for 26 years. Part of this time he traveled with George Jessel and more recently he produced network television shows in addition to operating the Roxy. “The Roxy was the first allnight theater in Long Beach and it became one because we felt the service men needed such a theater. We started keeping open all night in 1942 when there was a big storm and
thousands of sailors were stranded because they couldn’t get back to their ships”.
Here is a 1999 article from the Doylestown Intelligencer, edited for length:
Bob Hope and Jack Benny played the Palace. So did Mae West, Jimmy Durante and Sophie Tucker, in an era when vaudeville was the lifeblood of a thriving theater district in downtown Chicago.
Seventy years later, that theater is back as the Cadillac Palace â€"
the latest chapter in the city’s push to recreate past glory by restoring once-grand showplaces and building new ones.
“This is an opportunity to evoke that historical love of theater that
Chicago’s always had,” said Marj Halperin, executive director of the
League of Chicago Theaters. “We would love to see theater be so
much of the Chicago experience that you wouldn’t come to the city
without seeing a show.” The Cadillac Palace recently reopened with the Elton John-Tim Rice revamp of “Aida.”
As the western anchor of the district along Randolph Street, the
the Cadillac is the third downtown theater to reopen after costly renovations. The Chicago Theater reopened in the mid-‘80s and the
Oriental reopened last year as the Ford Center for the Performing
Arts.
The Palace was modeled after the French palaces of Fontainbleau
and Versailles. In restoring it, architect Daniel P. Coffey sought to retain the theater’s former grace while meeting the demands of Broadway productions.
Seating was slightly reduced for comfort, to 2,370, and its stage
enlarged. Its interior remains decorated with gold leaf and marble.
Built in 1926, the Palace was once part of one of the liveliest
theater districts in the country. “There was a time when there
were dozens of theaters in and around the north Loop,” said Becky Carroll, a spokeswoman for the city’s Planning Department. “To play the Palace in Chicago was to play the big time,” added Richard Sklenar, head of the Theater Historical Society of America.
But the district was hit hard by the Depression and never recovered.
Many of the once-great theaters were demolished. Others, including the Oriental and Chicago, became run-down movie houses, while surrounding downtown blocks, a center of business,finance and government, were usually deserted at night. The city hopes the Randolph Street theater district will change all that.
“It’s our hope that theaters will continue to build off and around
Randolph Street,” Carroll said of the city’s push to give the Big
Apple a run for its money. Architect Coffey, who’s had a hand in the renovations of the Palace, Oriental and Chicago theaters, said the new theater district secures “Chicago’s place as a world city with the best of everything.”
I think the status should be closed. Here are some photos I took in July 2006:
http://tinyurl.com/va7z6
http://tinyurl.com/sa9pw
Here are two photos I took in July 2006:
http://tinyurl.com/yccbbp
http://tinyurl.com/y6hy96
It looked empty when I went by several months ago. I don’t think it’s being used for anything.
Here a few photos taken in July 2006:
http://tinyurl.com/yjn68f
http://tinyurl.com/ydv2g9
Here is a photo I took in July 2006:
http://tinyurl.com/y4wssb
Here are some photos I took in July 2006:
http://tinyurl.com/y5uhkv
http://tinyurl.com/yaydye
Here they are:
http://tinyurl.com/y6olqq
http://tinyurl.com/ylr9ex
There was an interesting lineup at the State on 1/13/46:
Days And Nights Of Romance And Uproarious Adventure
In TECHNICOLOR!
Out of the legendary East comes an amazing tale of prlncesses and
and paupers… and the genie with the light brown hair!
Spectacular slave girl auctions, luscious dancing girls, the Sultan's
Darling, the Giant who performs miracles… all in
A THOUSAND AND ONE NIGHTS
Short Hits
John Nesbitt presents
A New, Interesting Passing Parade Story of “THE GREAT AMERICAN MUGGS"
plus
LATEST NEWS EVENTS
Open Daily 9:45 a.m.
MIDNIGHT SHOW TONIGHT-AND MONDAY * TUESDAY
THE FRIENDLY STATE
Thanks for the pics from my neck of the woods. The opening date was probably in the early 60s. I saw Snow White, some other Disney film (Bluebeard’s Ghost?) and Sergeant Deadhead (with the Three Stooges) as a five or six year old, circa 1966.
On 4/23/56, the Midway was showing Alfred Hitchcock’s “To Catch a Thief”, with Cary Grant and Grace Kelly, along with co-feature “Finger Man”, a gangster movie. The phone number was HI 2-3370. Other local theaters at that time were the Rialto, State, Fortuna, Arcata and Eureka.
I used to go to a coffee shop across the street from Lit’s called the Stanley. They had great pies. That place burned down in the mid 70s. There was also a bar further down South Carolina between Atlantic and Pacific called the Melody Lounge. Harold and the Blue Notes and some other great Philly R&B groups used to play there.
According to CT contributor crazybob, the Absecon Drive-In was first owned by Walter Reade and later by the Frank family.
There was a motel where the Shore Mall is located? Did it front the Black Horse Pike or was it set on the back of the property?
Other theaters in town circa August 1960 were the Rialto, Virginian and Warner Fairmont:
THEATER WON’T DIE – “Closed” Rialto Reopens Friday
The last film at the Rialto was “13 Ghosts.” But the 43-year-old
theater in the Morrison Building on Quarrier Street is not one
of them. After a shutdown of four days, the Rialto will reopen tomorrow with “The Apartment,” the picture being shifted from the Virginian, also a unit of Stanley Warner Corp.
Newspaper ads last week announced that the Rialto would be closed last Sunday night, ending the four-decade life of the theater. John Cox, the Rialto’s manager, was transferred to the Warner Fairmont theater. William Wyatt, manager of the Virginian, was ordered by the Pittsburgh region office to take over the closing of
the Rialto.
Last Monday, Wyatt moved dozens of large cartons into the theater
for packing of the seats. A filing case was removed from the Rialto office to the Virginian. “All I can say now is that the lease for the Rialto has been renewed with the Stanley Warner Corp.” said John Morrison, an owner of the Morrison building. He declined to discuss prospective remodeling of the building, which at its birth in 1917 was the pride of Charleston for its elegance.
I always wondered what happened to Flipper after his show was canceled. Maybe his residuals ran out.
This is an unidentified theater in Los Angeles, circa 1950. The audience is integrated. Perhaps someone might recognize the distinctive patterns on the walls.
http://jpg1.lapl.org/pics03/00001372.jpg
Here is a 2005 photo from the LA Library:
http://jpg3.lapl.org/pics28/00063879.jpg
Thanks.
Carol Burnett was a movie usher in LA when she was in high school. I would be curious to know which theater, if anybody is a fan.
Here is the text of an ad from the Atlanta Constitution on 11/27/24:
TODAY
FOUR VAUDEVILLE SHOWS
AT 2â€"4â€"7â€"9 P.M.
THE LAUGH SENSATION OF THE YEAR
BUSTER KEATON
â€"INâ€" “THE NAVIGATOR"
AT 1â€"3â€"5â€"8â€"10 P.M.
From the Mansfield, Ohio News Journal on 9/15/38:
MANAGER OF PARK HAS HEADED THEATERS FOR LAST 13 YEARS
Four men will take major roles in the “Hollywood Premier” opening of Mansfield’s new Park theater on South Park street. Brought here from Canton by Interstate Theaters, Inc., operators of the new theater, Ralph H. Shaffer will be manager of the Park theater. Shaffer until recently was manager of the Palace theater in Canton, another theater owned by the Interstate company. He was transferred here to take charge of the new show. Shaffer comes to Mansfield with 13 years of experience in the theater business. He formerly managed theaters in Washington and Charleroi, Pa, and Salem, East Liverpool, Portsmouth and Canton.
On 9/10/50, the Merrimack was showing “Stella” with Ann Sheridan and Victor Mature. The Merrimack Drive-In on Lawrence Boulevard was showing “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” and “It Happened One Night”.
Here is an article from the Long Beach Press-Telegram dated 7/29/68:
Not every old New York movie palace is condemned to die to make way for a glass and steel monolith. Nor must it fade away into the sad anonymity reserved for theaters that play last run commercial films or first-run sex movies. Now, amoeba-like, it may split up into two or three new theaters, each equipped with â€" as one exhibitor
said proudly recently, “the last word in new projection and sound
systems, and in luxurious appointments for the ladies' lounges”.
Tuesday night, the Warner Cinerama Theater on Times Square will be
formally unveiled as three separate new theaters, the 1,000-seat Cinerama, the 1,200-seat Penthouse, and the 400-seat Orleans. Another Broadway theater, Loew’s State, which was built in 1921, will close Sept. 8. It will reopen as two theaters, Loew’s State
one and Loew’s State Two.
The new theaters are examples of what the film trade calls “piggy-back conversions,” and they will mean a new lease on life for the Broadway movie house. With the recent demolition of the Paramount
and Roxy thaters, and the planned closing of the Capitol in September, the fear had been expressed that Broadway was doomed to extinction as the moviegoing center of New York and the world. Apparently this is not happening.
Broadway movie business is bigger than ever,“ according to Matthew
Polon, the short, stocky, ebullient president of the Pro-Stanley Warner Corporation. "But Broadway movie business has changed,” Polon
said. “Because of taxes and the rising value of real estate, it’s no longer economical to operate theaters with more than 1,000 or 1,200 seats.” As the movies themselves have become more specialized (and occasionally more adult) in themes, there have been changes in the theaters in which they are exhibited.
Today’s movie houses are less eclectic than were the Rococo movie palaces of the teens and twenties. Those were very special structures with their unembarrassed mixtures of Byzantine, Baroque and Moorish architecture, their fountains, paintings and statuary, even their ceiling clouds that hypnotized several generations of move-struck children.
Here is a 1956 article from the Long Beach Independent Press-Telegram:
In Long Beach after midnight the brightest lights blaze from the Palace Theater at 30 Pine Ave and the Roxy at 127 W. Ocean. They are open all night. Who are the people on the streets after midnight? What sort of people go to all-night theaters? The range of opinion on this subject is as wide as the difference between Mickey Mouse
and Mamie Van Doren.
A plainclothes officer expressed a one sided and extreme view
about the character of the night strollers. “It’s been my experience that 90 per cent of the people regularly on the streets after midnight have police records of one kind or another, if only for minor violations.” He added, “The managements of ihe theaters co-operate with authorities 100 per cent, but I can’t say as much for all of their late customers.”
The policeman’s view was quoted to Jack Feder, owner-manager of the Roxy. “He’s completely wrong!” Feder stated emphatically. “We know who our late customers are, and most of them are swing shift workers and service men. Then, too, we have restaurant and bar workers who want to relax a little before they go home. All-night theaters are under an aura of suspicion because they are open all-night. That isn’t a very good reason. Our standards are high here. We constantly turn away customers. We don’t allow drunks or rowdies and neither do we allow the Roxy to be used as a flop house. Offhand I can’t think of anything happening in an all-night theater that can’t happen in a
first-run house.”
Feder has been a resident of Long Beach for 26 years. Part of this time he traveled with George Jessel and more recently he produced network television shows in addition to operating the Roxy. “The Roxy was the first allnight theater in Long Beach and it became one because we felt the service men needed such a theater. We started keeping open all night in 1942 when there was a big storm and
thousands of sailors were stranded because they couldn’t get back to their ships”.
Here is a 1999 article from the Doylestown Intelligencer, edited for length:
Bob Hope and Jack Benny played the Palace. So did Mae West, Jimmy Durante and Sophie Tucker, in an era when vaudeville was the lifeblood of a thriving theater district in downtown Chicago.
Seventy years later, that theater is back as the Cadillac Palace â€"
the latest chapter in the city’s push to recreate past glory by restoring once-grand showplaces and building new ones.
“This is an opportunity to evoke that historical love of theater that
Chicago’s always had,” said Marj Halperin, executive director of the
League of Chicago Theaters. “We would love to see theater be so
much of the Chicago experience that you wouldn’t come to the city
without seeing a show.” The Cadillac Palace recently reopened with the Elton John-Tim Rice revamp of “Aida.”
As the western anchor of the district along Randolph Street, the
the Cadillac is the third downtown theater to reopen after costly renovations. The Chicago Theater reopened in the mid-‘80s and the
Oriental reopened last year as the Ford Center for the Performing
Arts.
The Palace was modeled after the French palaces of Fontainbleau
and Versailles. In restoring it, architect Daniel P. Coffey sought to retain the theater’s former grace while meeting the demands of Broadway productions.
Seating was slightly reduced for comfort, to 2,370, and its stage
enlarged. Its interior remains decorated with gold leaf and marble.
Built in 1926, the Palace was once part of one of the liveliest
theater districts in the country. “There was a time when there
were dozens of theaters in and around the north Loop,” said Becky Carroll, a spokeswoman for the city’s Planning Department. “To play the Palace in Chicago was to play the big time,” added Richard Sklenar, head of the Theater Historical Society of America.
But the district was hit hard by the Depression and never recovered.
Many of the once-great theaters were demolished. Others, including the Oriental and Chicago, became run-down movie houses, while surrounding downtown blocks, a center of business,finance and government, were usually deserted at night. The city hopes the Randolph Street theater district will change all that.
“It’s our hope that theaters will continue to build off and around
Randolph Street,” Carroll said of the city’s push to give the Big
Apple a run for its money. Architect Coffey, who’s had a hand in the renovations of the Palace, Oriental and Chicago theaters, said the new theater district secures “Chicago’s place as a world city with the best of everything.”