Regina Theatre
2559 Plank Road,
Baton Rouge,
LA
70805
2559 Plank Road,
Baton Rouge,
LA
70805
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Even allowing for an extensive remodel, I’m having trouble placing the theater within the ugly derelict which is shown on the 2011 street view. The left side of that was gone by 2013.
Status should be demolished. Gone from Street View by 2016.
The Regina Theatre was a new-build $60,000 venue named for the fourth of operator Joseph A. Barcelona’s daughters, two year old Regina. It opened February 14, 1942 with “Small Town Deb.” It had a streamline moderne appearance in its exterior and interior.
Barcelona had started working in movie theaters at age 14 as a rewinder but elevated to operator when he bought the Gem Theatre in 1927 and renaming it as the the Tivoli Theatre. Under Joseph A. Barcelona Enterprises, he added the Peoples - which he closed in favor of the new-build Istrouma Theatre - the new-build Avenue Theatre and his final theatre here with the Regina.
Barcelona would sublease the Tivoli, Avenue and Istrouma effective on January 3, 1943 to Jefferson J. Rebstock and Roy E. Pfeiffer of Rebstock-Pfeiffer Theaters. He retained the Regina, however. A lawsuit against Rebstock-Pfeiffer by RKO, Loew’s, Paramount and 20th-Fox over box office percentage fraud would change the subleasing deals. Rebstock-Pfeiffer soon split. They ended their subleasing agreements early with Barcelona effective February 4, 1951 and the Tivoli and Avenue were returned to Barcelona Enterprises. (Pfeiffer bought out the Istrouma Theatre for $85k.)
Barcelona now had to figure out how to deal with not only the Regina but the Avenue and the Tivoli in the TV age. He closed the Avenue immediately and followed that with the Tivoli in 1955. In the interim, a massive new-build department store changed the 2500-block of Plank Road when Abbot-Wimberly opened thereAugust 21, 1951. It brough abundant parking in the rear and cash flow to Barcelona. He equipped the Regina with widescreen projection to present CinemaScope films.
The theater drifted under new operators to adult programming and blaxploitation in the 1970s before closing.
This opened on February 14th, 1942 and switched to adult movies in 1969. Picture and grand opening ad posted here.
A photo taken in 1973 of the Regina Theater in Baton Rouge showing “Saddle Tramp Women”.