Rex Theatre
119 S. C Street,
Madera,
CA
93638
119 S. C Street,
Madera,
CA
93638
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The Rex listed with 450 seats starting with the 1935 FDY must have been the one at 119 S. C Street. The 1938 FDY lists a 650-seat New Rex Theatre, and that must have been the house at 232 E. Yosemite which was opened in 1937. Oddly, both the Rex and the New Rex continued to be listed in the FDYs well into the 1940s, but with the Rex always listed as closed.
This undated photo (though “Young Tom Edison” was released in March, 1940) shows the Madera Theatre at the left, and the marquee of the Rex can be made out on the right side of the street near the beginning of the next block, just past the hotel on the corner of C Street. The sites of both the hotel and the Rex Theatre are now occupied by a branch of Chase Bank.
The Rex Theatre opened on October 17th, 1934.
The July 10, 1937, issue of Boxoffice makes reference to “Henry Preciado’s elaborate new Rex Theatre, just opened in Madera, Calif.”
The Film Daily Yearbook, 1941 has the Rex, 450 seats (closed) which is obviously the South C Street location and puts an approximate date on the ‘move’ of the theatre to 1940/41.
The same edition of F.D.Y.B. lists the New Rex with 675 seats.