Home Theater
2011 Quindaro Boulevard,
Kansas City,
KS
66104
2011 Quindaro Boulevard,
Kansas City,
KS
66104
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The Home Theater was operating by 1931. In the late-1940’s it was taken over by Commonwealth Amusement. I saw “The Wizard of Oz” and “Bambi” here as a child in the 1950’s. It seemed enormous. The Home Theater was closed on October 31, 1955. It went over to retail use.
Contributed by
mlind
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Seating capacities seem to vary over the years in edtions of Film Daily Yearbook. In 1941=600. In 1943=800. In 1950=811.
Found online at View link
True story: During the war years (WWII), while dad was overseas and mother had left with another man, we lived with grandma and grandpa. On Saturday afternoons, grandpa would drop us off at the local theater, named “The Home Theater” on Quindaro Boulevard, about a mile or so from our house on 27th street. We would watch a serial, several cartoons and the main feature. It was usually dark outside when we were ready to come home.
On the Saturday that Frankenstein was shown (1945, I think), they advertised that Frankenstein would be at the theater in person.
I was about six or seven and my sister was 18 months younger. After the Tom Mix serial and the cartoons, Frankenstein, the movie started. About midway through, the film stopped and the theater went dark. A spotlight focused on the stage in front of the screen. Out walked a man leading a remarkable realistically made up Frankenstein’s Monster. Immediately, a hundred kids began screaming. The monster walked down the steps with hands straight out in front of him, with that stiff-legged limp, just as he did in the movie.
As he walked up the aisle, kids by the dozen ran before him in delicious fear.
My sister turned to me and said “Jim, I’m going!”
I thought she meant going to the well-lighted lobby where many kids were now heading.
Wrong! She meant HOME! and safety.
She was no more than five or six at the time and she ran all the way home. After the movie was over and I couldn’t find her, I was starting to panic! (Maybe Frankenstein’s Monster did get her!!!)
I went out to the car to tell grandpa the tragic news and there sat Judy, happy as a clam, eating popcorn.
How a five or six year old girl was able to run more than a mile in the dark, making correctly making several turns onto poorly lighted streets still amazes me to this day.
Grandpa later teasingly asked her, “How did you know Frankenstein wasn’t following you?”
Judy replied “I never looked back!”
Boxoffice, Nov. 5, 1955: “The Home Theatre, operated for many years by Earl Jameson sr. and the late Sam Abend, was closed October 31 and its floor will be leveled for conversion into a retail store building. A subsequent run house, Ab Sher, general manager, says the Home was not operating at a profit. He predicted the merchants in the locality of the theatre will notice its demise and wish they had helped to keep it in operation.”