Chieftain Theatre

The former adult theatre turned to Hispanic films in 1985 known as the Chieftain Twin Theatre. It closed January 3, 1985. When the South Shields Mall was converted to an all outdoor plaza, the South Shields Twin was booted out of the mall. The operators found their new home here at the former at the former Chieftain Twin. The New Airline Twin launched on April 11, 1986, with “Rocky IV” and “Back to the Future (ad in photos) The theater’s last advertisement was on August 16, 1987 - perhaps its closing date. But it’s very likely that it returned to Hispanic screenings that were likely held there up to 1990 unadvertised in the local newspaper.

The theatre was converted for other uses which included a cabinet factory. And in the 2020s, the venue was used as a place of worship for the La Roca Community Church.

August 30th, 1951 grand opening ad in photo section.

Thanks for the info,seymour cox,gotta admit that marquee on the picture looks sad.

What lousy marquee for a theatre,about the worse i ever saw.Surprized it ever did business.Surely, they put something up better.

I’m certain the Chieftain Cinema was not a twin when I went there during the winter of ‘77. Just a guess, but probably adjoining retail footage was converted into another auditorium, rather than twiining the original cinema.

This theatre opened on August 30th, 1951

Admission tickets were five bucks. The Chieftain seated probably 900, and for the first few weeks these shows played to rowdy packed houses full of sreaming queens.
As the novelty wore off attendance began to steadily dip. To boost sagging ticket sales 50’s and 60’s era beefcake models were brought in to pose onstage while slides from their glory days were shown, but compared against those brawny young stud strippers who were also in the same show the aged adonises looked old and outdated. During the last few performances there were more people on stage than in the audience. All in all these gay pageants probably ran a total of three months, maybe a bit longer.
I performed my hootchy momma routine in the first show and the in the last. What a contrast in attendance.

Here are links to the type of gay films shown at the Chieftain Cinema-

http://www.bigkugels.com/content/BeefFrame.html

http://www.vintagegaymale.com/

httP://www.briansdriveintheater.com/beefcake.html

View link

The Chieftain was owned by R. Lewis Barton’s Barton Theatres, a local circuit that owned most of the drive-ins and most of the neighborhood theatres in the Oklahoma City Metropolitan area. By 1959, the area around the Chieftain had turned rough, and its patronage was also rough, and the Chieftain’s downhill slide was well underway.

Bill Edmondston, who owned the Rex Theatre in the tiny town of Covington, Oklahoma, wasn’t making much money, so he closed the Rex, moved to Oklahoma City, and went to work for Mr. Barton managing the Chieftain. Behavior was unruly.

Mr. Edmondston was a white-shirt-and-tie type of manager who insisted on good discipline, and it didn’t take long for him to see that controlling behavior at the Chieftain would be difficult. So he took the keys to Mr. Barton, resigned, and moved back to Covington. He then finished his career working as a projectionist at Video Independent Theatre’s Esquire Theatre in Enid, Oklahoma, under manager Paul Shipley. Mr. Edmondston was paid more than the other projectionists, and his paycheck was sent with the manager’s paycheck rather than with the staff paychecks, so no one else could see it. One other tidbit is that he got to be the first projectionist in the Video Circuit to use Xenon lamphouses.

On a cold, snowy, winter weekend during the late 1970’s I drove from Tulsa down to OKC to visit a dear friend. On Sunday night he took me to the Chieftain Cinema.
The Chieftain’s futuristic interior looked like it came right out of a “Jetsons” cartoon.
The first half of the gay entertainment program consisted of a “Laurel & Hardy” short, a mildly erotic, nude male wrestling film, and a Betty Boop cartoon.
Then, a loveable, over weight drag queen, who introduced himself as Miss Rotunda, stepped onstage to emcee the live portion of the show. Miss Rotunda expertly introduced the other drag acts, a magic show, and three brawny male strippers who looked as if they’d come right off a downtown street corner. These guys were dangerously good looking, definately rough trade.
Miss Rotunda’s finale stopped the show with her most amusing, uprouriously funny comedy routine, a first rate performance!

Casual inspection of Google Satellite Map function located at the top of this page shows that the Chieftain Cinema still stands a few doors left of 3450 SW 29th St, the auditorium can clearly be seen protruding above the West end of the long strip mall.
Built in 1951 to be the Westside anchor for a suave International Styled shopping center, the sleek Chieftain was 1950’s modernist in every way.
As mentioned above, indeed the Chieftain operated as a controversial skin flick house in the early 1970’s, and again was a porn theater throughout the 1980’s.