The description of this 1914 photo from the McArthur Library notes “Balsams Theater, the first ground-floor movie theater in Biddeford. Located at Franklin and Main Streets, the admission was 5 cents and it operated from 1912 to 1916.”
The earliest mention of the State I’ve found in the trades is from the July 6, 1933 issue of The Film Daily and it simply says: “Bridgton, Me.— C. W. Millett has closed the State.”
Another brief item appears in the May 2, 1936 issue of Motion Picture Herald: “C. F. Millett is having the State, 900-seat theatre in Bridgton, Me., extensively reconditioned.” This would probably account for the claim of a 1936 opening for the State in the MGM Theatre Report cited earlier by Ron Salters.
Bridgton earlier had theaters called the Opera House and the Riverside. State might have been a later name for the Opera House (Cinema Tour gives the location of the Riverside Theatre as Depot Street.)
The Mayfair Theatre opened on June 5th, 1929 as the Meserve Theatre. Later operating as the Mayfair for a time, it was eventually renamed the Brookside Theatre, and finally the Magic Lantern Theatre. In 1990, the theater’s stage was closed and a second screen was added. The Magic Lantern Theatre closed on October 2nd, 2005, and the aged building, parts of which dated back to 1856, was demolished on February 7th, 2006. On the cleared site rose the new Magic Lantern Theatre, a three-screen operation which pays tribute to its predecessor by calling its three auditoriums the Meserve, the Mayfair, and the Brookside.
This history, and a bit more detail, can be found on this page of the Magic Lantern’s web site. There is also one historic photo of the original theater building.
“Ogden Theatre closed in 1974 when Bill McGraw passed away at the age of 88.” (Ogden Reporter, January 24, 2018.) The operators of the McGraw Center have bought a 16-foot inflatable screen which has been set up on the stage, and a used projector (type not specified) and as of 2018 were attempting to bring movies back to the theater part time, but were having trouble with getting licenses from the movie companies. I don’t see anything on the Internet about movies being shown there currently, so they’ve probably not been able to get the project going yet.
Here is an item from the January 22, 1927 issue of The Moving Picture World Concerning the theater to be built at Sylvania and Belmar avenues in Toledo:
“WEST TOLEDO, O. — Barbare Ferris has plans by Albert [sic] Hahn for two-story moving picture theatre and store building, to be located at northwest corner Sylvania and Belmar avenues. Site contains 130 feet on Sylvania avenue and extends 185 feet on Belmar avenue. Estimated cost $100,000.”
Note that the architect’s first name is in error. The correct name is Alfred A. Hahn.
The Story Theatre is in operation, but they haven’t updated their web site since last July. If you want to know what they are showing, the best bet is to check their Facebook page.
Here is an item about the Lyric from the September 16, 1916 issue of The Moving Picture World:
“Abilene, Kan.—G. A. Kubach, proprietor of the Lyric theater, Abilene, Kan., one of the handsomest theaters In the state of Kansas, has been sick all summer, and is only now growing able to attend to business. But the theater has had one of its most prosperous seasons. The reason is that when Mr. Kubach was taken ill, his wife pitched in, took charge, and has run the house most efficiently. The Lyric seats 500, and 5 and 10 cents are the charges. Features are run every night.”
Issues of The American Contractor from early 1915 carried several notices about a theater project in Woburn. Here is the notice in the issue of March 6:
“Theater, Store & Office Bldg. (theater cap. 1,100): 2 sty. & bas. 70x155. Woburn, Mass. Archt. A. J. Carpenter, Jr., 39 Dunreath st., Roxbury dist., Boston. Owner Woburn Theater, Inc.. care archt. Archt. taking bids on all materials separately. Brk., limestone, stucco on tile, tar & gravel rf.”
This item is from the December 8, 1923 issue of The Moving Picture World:
“PONTIAC, MICH. — Renovating process has given practically new interior to Rialto Theatre, formerly the Howland, on West Pike street. Improvements which cost about $10,000 include new furnishings, carpets, redecorated ceiling and side walls; new pipe organ features; new stage setting built around screen, with appropriate draperies and curtain finished in gold and black and colored artificial flowers; new ventilating system; two new Simplex machines; operator’s booth enlarged and improved; marquee and electric sign erected. Will show only first-run pictures.”
The March 13, 1926 issue of The Moving Picture World said that “[t]he new Orpheum Theatre at Pontiac was opened last week and it proved a gala occasion in very respect for A. J. Kleist and his associates.”
I think the final, short paragraph of the current introduction must be in error. John A. Miller’s Historic Theaters of New York’s Capital District says that the original Strand was demolished at the time the New Strand opened.
Miller also notes that the Orpheum was renamed the Palace in 1918, and was renamed Strand in 1923.
John A. Miller’s Historic Theaters of New York’s Capital District says that Schenectady’s Strand Theatre “…closed its doors for the final time in 1953….”
Jack Tillmany’s Theatres of San Francisco gives a somewhat different (and possibly more accurate) history of the Clay Theatre than we have at this time. It says that the house opened as the Regent Theatre in 1914, was renamed Avalon Theatre in 1931, and became the Clay International Theatre, an art house, on April 11, 1935.
However, it appears that the name Clay Theatre was adopted before the name Clay International. A May 6, 1935 article uploaded to this theater’s photo page by Mike Rivest says that “Herbert Rosener… has taken the Clay Theatre on Fillmore at Clay, changed its name to the Clay-International, and will use it as an exhibition place for outstanding films of European origin.”
I’ve been unable to discover the year the name Clay Theatre was first used, or the year when the addition “International” was dropped. An ad indicates that it had returned to being simply the Clay Theatre by February, 1941.
The staff at the Clay Theatre have been informed that the house will close on January 26. The landlord is rumored to have plans that might include demolishing the venerable theater.
In its issue of August 24, 1964, Boxoffice reported that workers were busy renovating the Capitol Theatre in Augusta, Maine, in preparation for its reopening. The Capitol had closed its doors in August, 1954. I’ve been unable to find any followup articles saying that the house did in fact reopen for movies after a decade of darkness, but the house was definitely used for live performances by the Augusta Players, a local community theater group who performed on its stage from 1964 to 1974.
Boxoffice of August 24, 1964, said that the Northland Cinema in Columbus had held its public opening on August 13. Originally a single-screen house operated by Cincinnati Theatres Co., the Northland featured a screen 60x25 feet and planned to show first-run movies.
Boxoffice of August 24, 1964 reported that the State Theatre in Pittsburg, Texas, had recently been destroyed by a fire. The house was unoccupied at the time, as the fire took place on a Sunday afternoon and the theater only operated on weekdays.
The August 24, 1964 issue of Boxoffice said that the new Cobb Center Theatre was designed by Robert W. Kahn Associates, the firm that designed the shopping center itself.
The August 24, 1964 issue of Boxoffice had a brief item dateline Merrick which said “[t]he Merrick Theatre here will be celebrating its second anniversary on Tuesday (25) with a champagne party.”
Architect Harvey Nathaniel Johnson designed the Attucks Theatre in collaboration with his mentor, Charles Thaddeus Russell, the first African American to establish an architectural practice in Richmond. The theater was one of several projects on which Johnson and Russell collaborated.
The December 2, 1974 issue of Boxoffice reported that the new Spectrum Twin Theatre in Tulsa had opened on November 15th. The two 80-foot wide auditoriums each featured screens 22x44 feet. The Spectrum was the eleventh house in the local chain Family Theatres Inc., operated by Marjorie Snyder.
The recently opened St. Vincent 6 was American Multi Cinema’s first operation in the state of Louisiana, according to an item in the June 27, 1977 issue of Boxoffice.
The description of this 1914 photo from the McArthur Library notes “Balsams Theater, the first ground-floor movie theater in Biddeford. Located at Franklin and Main Streets, the admission was 5 cents and it operated from 1912 to 1916.”
Cinema Tour gives 69 Main Street as the address of this house. The entrance of the new Magic Lantern is around the corner on Depot Street.
The earliest mention of the State I’ve found in the trades is from the July 6, 1933 issue of The Film Daily and it simply says: “Bridgton, Me.— C. W. Millett has closed the State.”
Another brief item appears in the May 2, 1936 issue of Motion Picture Herald: “C. F. Millett is having the State, 900-seat theatre in Bridgton, Me., extensively reconditioned.” This would probably account for the claim of a 1936 opening for the State in the MGM Theatre Report cited earlier by Ron Salters.
Bridgton earlier had theaters called the Opera House and the Riverside. State might have been a later name for the Opera House (Cinema Tour gives the location of the Riverside Theatre as Depot Street.)
The Mayfair Theatre opened on June 5th, 1929 as the Meserve Theatre. Later operating as the Mayfair for a time, it was eventually renamed the Brookside Theatre, and finally the Magic Lantern Theatre. In 1990, the theater’s stage was closed and a second screen was added. The Magic Lantern Theatre closed on October 2nd, 2005, and the aged building, parts of which dated back to 1856, was demolished on February 7th, 2006. On the cleared site rose the new Magic Lantern Theatre, a three-screen operation which pays tribute to its predecessor by calling its three auditoriums the Meserve, the Mayfair, and the Brookside.
This history, and a bit more detail, can be found on this page of the Magic Lantern’s web site. There is also one historic photo of the original theater building.
“Ogden Theatre closed in 1974 when Bill McGraw passed away at the age of 88.” (Ogden Reporter, January 24, 2018.) The operators of the McGraw Center have bought a 16-foot inflatable screen which has been set up on the stage, and a used projector (type not specified) and as of 2018 were attempting to bring movies back to the theater part time, but were having trouble with getting licenses from the movie companies. I don’t see anything on the Internet about movies being shown there currently, so they’ve probably not been able to get the project going yet.
Here is an item from the January 22, 1927 issue of The Moving Picture World Concerning the theater to be built at Sylvania and Belmar avenues in Toledo:
Note that the architect’s first name is in error. The correct name is Alfred A. Hahn.The Story Theatre is in operation, but they haven’t updated their web site since last July. If you want to know what they are showing, the best bet is to check their Facebook page.
Here is an item about the Lyric from the September 16, 1916 issue of The Moving Picture World:
Issues of The American Contractor from early 1915 carried several notices about a theater project in Woburn. Here is the notice in the issue of March 6:
This item is from the December 8, 1923 issue of The Moving Picture World:
The March 13, 1926 issue of The Moving Picture World said that “[t]he new Orpheum Theatre at Pontiac was opened last week and it proved a gala occasion in very respect for A. J. Kleist and his associates.”
The Whitestone Cinemas was one of over 1,000 theater projects designed by architect Burt W. Federman.
I think the final, short paragraph of the current introduction must be in error. John A. Miller’s Historic Theaters of New York’s Capital District says that the original Strand was demolished at the time the New Strand opened.
Miller also notes that the Orpheum was renamed the Palace in 1918, and was renamed Strand in 1923.
John A. Miller’s Historic Theaters of New York’s Capital District says that Schenectady’s Strand Theatre “…closed its doors for the final time in 1953….”
Jack Tillmany’s Theatres of San Francisco gives a somewhat different (and possibly more accurate) history of the Clay Theatre than we have at this time. It says that the house opened as the Regent Theatre in 1914, was renamed Avalon Theatre in 1931, and became the Clay International Theatre, an art house, on April 11, 1935.
However, it appears that the name Clay Theatre was adopted before the name Clay International. A May 6, 1935 article uploaded to this theater’s photo page by Mike Rivest says that “Herbert Rosener… has taken the Clay Theatre on Fillmore at Clay, changed its name to the Clay-International, and will use it as an exhibition place for outstanding films of European origin.”
I’ve been unable to discover the year the name Clay Theatre was first used, or the year when the addition “International” was dropped. An ad indicates that it had returned to being simply the Clay Theatre by February, 1941.
The staff at the Clay Theatre have been informed that the house will close on January 26. The landlord is rumored to have plans that might include demolishing the venerable theater.
In its issue of August 24, 1964, Boxoffice reported that workers were busy renovating the Capitol Theatre in Augusta, Maine, in preparation for its reopening. The Capitol had closed its doors in August, 1954. I’ve been unable to find any followup articles saying that the house did in fact reopen for movies after a decade of darkness, but the house was definitely used for live performances by the Augusta Players, a local community theater group who performed on its stage from 1964 to 1974.
Boxoffice of August 24, 1964, said that the Northland Cinema in Columbus had held its public opening on August 13. Originally a single-screen house operated by Cincinnati Theatres Co., the Northland featured a screen 60x25 feet and planned to show first-run movies.
Boxoffice of August 24, 1964 reported that the State Theatre in Pittsburg, Texas, had recently been destroyed by a fire. The house was unoccupied at the time, as the fire took place on a Sunday afternoon and the theater only operated on weekdays.
The August 24, 1964 issue of Boxoffice said that the new Cobb Center Theatre was designed by Robert W. Kahn Associates, the firm that designed the shopping center itself.
The August 24, 1964 issue of Boxoffice had a brief item dateline Merrick which said “[t]he Merrick Theatre here will be celebrating its second anniversary on Tuesday (25) with a champagne party.”
Architect Harvey Nathaniel Johnson designed the Attucks Theatre in collaboration with his mentor, Charles Thaddeus Russell, the first African American to establish an architectural practice in Richmond. The theater was one of several projects on which Johnson and Russell collaborated.
The December 2, 1974 issue of Boxoffice reported that the new Spectrum Twin Theatre in Tulsa had opened on November 15th. The two 80-foot wide auditoriums each featured screens 22x44 feet. The Spectrum was the eleventh house in the local chain Family Theatres Inc., operated by Marjorie Snyder.
Prior to its acquisition by Plitt Southern Theatres in 1978, the Terrace Theatre I and II was operated by ABC Southeastern Theatres.
The recently opened St. Vincent 6 was American Multi Cinema’s first operation in the state of Louisiana, according to an item in the June 27, 1977 issue of Boxoffice.