Showcase Cinemas Toledo

The installation of a Cinerama strip screen at the Showcase Cinema Toledo was not a “coincidence.” According Sharon Redstone, daughter of the chains father, Sumner Redstone, Showcase Cinemas, in their earlier years, deliberately installed louvered Cinerama screens (built by Hurley Screen which built most of them – and still can if you can afford one) in a number of their early twin and triplex theaters and had an agreement with Cinerama to be an exhibitor.

The curve of the Showcase louvered screens was shallower than the original Cinerama screens as 70mm Cinerama was now standard, and as the original release of “It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, World” proved, there was more distortion of the image on the original Cinerama screens than on the later ones with a shallower curve.

Also, in regard to another comment, I may be wrong, but I don’t recall this theater ever been used for retail; from the theater’s closing until its demolition, I was in Toledo several times staying at a hotel just a few yards up Secor Road, and during that period it just sat there, boarded up. There was a plan to incorporate it into a new retail/shopping complex, but nothing came of that. The demolition photos show clearly that the auditoriums at least weren’t converted to anything but rubble.

The Showcase complex was indeed vacant and unused up to the time of demolition. It remains vacant although I do recall seeing a “sold” sign on the for sale sign. Of note the Super Cinema complex at Spring Meadows has been sold and they are going to demolish it for a furniture store. It was a"shoebox cinema" with small auditoriums and flat screens. I am guessing that the curved screen at Cinema 1 was curved to approx. 120 degrees for 70mm TODD-AO, Super Panavision etc. According to Stanley Kramer who directed It’s A Mad Mad Mad Mad World the film was marketed as a “Cinerama” film and filmed in Ultra Panavision…he said that they had trouble trying to make it fit on some Cinerama screens and was not impressed with the fact that they promoted it as a Cinerama film when in fact it wasn’t.

Uploaded the grand opening ad from Dec 17,1964

The seating capacity needs to be updated. The original Cinema I & II seated 1,805 (705 and 1,100.) The addition of the 1,140-seat third auditorium in 1967 brought the total to 2,945. I don’t know if any seats were lost when two auditoriums were later divided to make this a five-screen multiplex.

Here’s a new 4-page 50th anniversary FIDDLER ON THE ROOF retrospective featuring a roadshow playdate chronology and historian Q&A. Showcase Cinemas’ lengthy run is mentioned in the piece.