Queen Theater

3588 Waialae Avenue,
Honolulu, HI 96816

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Additional Info

Architects: Lyman Bigelow

Styles: Streamline Moderne

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News About This Theater

Jan 16, 2013 — REMEMBERING CINERAMA (Part 56: Honolulu)
Jun 29, 2010 — Grass roots effort begun to save the Queen Theater in Honolulu
Oct 30, 2009 — Happy 50th, "Sleeping Beauty"

Queen Theatre, Waialae Ave., Honolulu, HI February 2011

A neat theater in Honolulu’s Kaimuki neighborhood with a stage, fly tower, and dressing rooms for live shows. The Queen Theater was opened June 29, 1936 with Clive Brook in “Loves of a Dictator” on the screen and “The Milky Way” performed by the Hollywood Players on the stage.

Became a second run theater and was showing midnight “Rocky Horror Picture Show” shows for a while before closing.

Contributed by Eric Quakenbush

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Recent comments (view all 22 comments)

Mike Rogers on December 21, 2011 at 8:05 pm

thanks Jim for the update.

Shigeaki on August 16, 2012 at 3:52 pm

When I was a high school student in the mid fifties, the Queen used to be a art house and I remember seeing a lot of them at that theatre. In the late fifties, the theatre was made into a first run venue by Royal Theatres. A 70mm-Six stereo system was installed for the showing of Disney’s SLEEPING BEAUTY and I saw it and it was fantastic. The theatre was also Royal’s only road show venue and THE LION IN WINTER and PAINT YOUR WAGON played there as reserved seat engagements.

ainahaina on December 9, 2013 at 11:48 am

I remember “Sleeping Beauty” there too. The line of kids went several blocks up Center Street. They must’ve been letting them in for a nickel apiece because Disney didn’t make too much money from that movie the first time around. Something like “Frozen” was way beyond anybody’s imagination.

thisisjohnbook on March 19, 2015 at 9:16 am

Plan to restore historic Queen Theater set in motion. Nothing is happening yet but it’s the biggest news the Queen has had in 30 years.

http://www.bizjournals.com/pacific/blog/morning_call/2015/03/plan-to-restore-historic-queen-theater-in-honolulu.html

Joe Vogel on March 20, 2015 at 12:05 am

Friends of the Queen Theatre provides this web page with a brief history of the house. It says that the Queen was built by Franklin Theatrical Enterprises, operators of the King Theatre in downtown Honolulu, and was opened on June 29, 1936. It was designed by local architect Lyman Bigelow.

OKCdoorman on August 10, 2016 at 2:14 pm

Viewable in a couple of scene establishing shots in the Season 12/1980 Hawaii Five-0 episode, “For Old Time’s Sake.” The place must have already descended to its itch-house period; I don’t have access to expensive zoom software, but based on the word length and letter formations on the marquee, my guess is the Queen was showing at the time of filming two films from 1975: the cabin-crisis XXX-er WINTER HEAT, and director Wes Craven’s sole erotic venture, FIREWORKS WOMAN.