Marlow Theatre

March 1942 John Vachon photo with a street banner for the Marlow Theatre. Click on “View full size” for greater detail.

https://www.shorpy.com/node/26395

This page about the world premier of Warner Brothers movie “Montana” at the Marlow Theatre on January 10, 1950, appeared in the January 21 issue of Boxoffice.

One of the newspaper articles displayed at the above link says that the architect of the Marlow Theatre was Henderson Ryan. The Marlow was one of several theaters built around this time that featured Ryan’s inclined ramp system for access to the balcony and mezzanine.

Link about the Marlow with many photos. Copy & paste to view.

http://www.helenahistory.org/marlow_theatre.htm

Here is part of a September 1941 article in the Helena Independent:

Manager Jack Edwards of the Marlow Theater and Frank Pratt of the Rio Theater announce the opening today of the Fox-Intermountain theaters “Let’s Go to a Movie” month. Both the Marlow and Rio theaters will participate actively in this campaign.

The “Lets Go to a Movie” month will be far more significant to the community than the usual “Greater Show Season,” Edwards said. “We are all aware of the unique place the motion picture theater holds in the community, and in this campaign we are making sure the theaters live up to their responsibility.”

The “Let’s Go to a Movie” month was set to begin Sept. 15, this year, because our finest pictures will be released during the next 45 days. Among the exceptional pictures coming to the Marlow theater during this period are, “Hold That Ghost,” with Bud Abbott and Lou Costello, “Sun Valley Serenade,” with Sonja Henie, John Payne and Glenn Miller and his orchestra, “Tom, Dick and Harry,” with Ginger Rogers, “Belle Starr” in technicolor and starring Randolph Scott and Gene Tierney, “Dive Bomber,” with Errol Flynn and Fred MacMurray, “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,” with Spencer Tracy, “When Ladies Meet,” with Joan Crawford and Robert Taylor, “Lady Be Good,” with Eleanor Powell, Ann Sothern and Robert Young, “A Yank in the R.A.F.,” with Tyrone Power and Betty Grable, “Aloma of the South Seas” in technicolor and starring Dorothy Lamour and Jon Hall, “Sergeant York,” with Gary Cooper, “Parachute Battalion,” with Robert Preston and Nancy Kelly, “Wild Geese Calling,” with Henry Fonda and Joan Bennett, “Navy Blues,” with Ann Sheridan, Jack Oakie, Martha Raye and Jack Haley, and the picture the whole world is waiting to see, “Citizen Kane,” with Orson Welles.

Here is an article about the long-time projectionist dated 2/28/54:

Gene Sherman Notes Another Milestone In Theater Career

“The Robe,” the new CinemaScope production to be shown at the Marlow for a full week beginning Wednesday, will be one of many milestones passed by Gene Sherman, the theater projectionist. Sherman has been projectionist at the Marlow for the past 20 years of the 47-year career. He began as a trouper in a stock company operated by Lulu Sutton, daughter of Montana’s famous Uncle Dick Sutton, who built the Empress theaters in Helena and Butte, the Broadway (now the Montana) in Butte, and other theaters, and who presented scores of shows when no other producer would venture into the backwoods that was then Montana.

In the winter of 1907-1908 Sherman deserted the stage for the projection booth, and from there he has seen such innovations as a one reel version of the opera “Carmen” (1908), the first movie made in California; D. W. Griffith’s “The Birth of a Nation” (1915), the forerunner of the feature picture as we have come to know it, and “Lights of New York” (1928), the first all-talking picture. His earliest work was with the Vitagraph company and later for General Programs, produced by Lubin-Selig-Essanay. He has been a Fox Intermountain Amusement projectionist for 28 yearsâ€"eight years in Lewistown and 20 years in Helena. Looking at the plans for CinemaScope, and working on them, he asks, “What next?” A faithful patron suggests noiseless popcorn.

Is it OK to scream “fire” in a crowded theater if the theater is actually on fire? Ordinarily it’s a misdemeanor and not considered freedom of speech under the Constitution.

Here’s some political propaganda that mentions the Marlow:
http://tinyurl.com/shcn8