Whitehouse Theatre

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Uploaded on: February 14, 2017

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That’s the new lobby and snack area in the streamlined conversion of the former Whitehouse turned Atlantic Theatre in 1953. You can see John Rudolph Freuler at the end of the lobby. Milwaukee film pioneer Freuler had opened his first theatre in 1905 with a nickelodeon named the Comique. But film production was where he wanted to be and challenged the Edison “Trust” a film studio in Chicago and moving to Santa Barbara to get away from Edison legal challenges and better shooting environment. The company ostensibly morphed to Mutual Film and Feuler gambled big time on free agent star Charlie Chaplin. That gamble paid out.

As Freuler’s film-making career ramped down as the studio system was crumbling, Freuler went all in with his Milwaukee roots transforming both the Whitehouse and the Century to streamlined moderne houses that would hopefully endure the next twenty year’s leases. His optimism is a sad footnote in a spectacular career in which he offers the his two remodeled theaters for sale. With tax liens due, the remodeled Atlantic is torn down to escape further taxes. The gamble in Milwaukee movie palace exhibition with the Century and Atlantic in the TV era game up double-zero for Freuler.