Roxy Theatre
514 2nd Avenue S,
Glasgow,
MT
59320
514 2nd Avenue S,
Glasgow,
MT
59320
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The Roxy Theatre opened on October 12, 1934 with Joe E. Brown in “6 Day Bike Rider” & Morton Downey in “Off the Beat”. Seating was listed at 500. The theatre was destroyed by fire on November 26, 1951.
It was replaced by the Survant Theatre (now valley Cinemas) further along 2nd Avenue S which has its own page on Cinema Treasures.
Contributed by
Chuck
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Recent comments (view all 7 comments)
I went to many Gene Autry-type westerns at the Roxy in the very early 1950’s. The price was something like $0.10 for the matinee. It was sad to see it burn (along with several other buildings including Shipps Cafe, and Rexall Drugs). Two minor clarifications: The spelling of Servant is something like “Survant,” and it didn’t replace the Roxy in the same location. The Survant was located a block west on the same street, as I remember.
GoRaWa1 is correct. The Survant Theatre is at the northwest corner of 2nd Avenue S. and 6th Street S. As the vintage photo shows, the Roxy was a few doors west of 5th Street S., not on the corner. The Survant Theatre replaced the Roxy when it burned down, but not on the same site.
I was a six year-old kid in Glasgow when the Roxy burned. I remember watching the fire from my bike, wondering how I’d ever know what became of Commando Cody after last week’s cliffhanger… Two years later, the new Survant Theatre introduced Cinemascope, Hollywood’s answer to television (still a distant dream in 1955’s Glasgow…) The first film to be shown was “A Man Called Peter,” which I watched for about 5 minutes before walking out, not wanting to waste the experience on this talkathon… The next week’s feature wasn’t in Cinemascope (or 3-D), 1953’s “Inferno” with Robert Ryan, but ironic considering the Survant arose from the actual inferno down the street when the Roxy burned… Not long after that came “Bad Day At Black Rock,” with, of course Spencer Tracy and Robert Ryan, maybe the best Cinemascope picture ever…
And Commando Cody was back! He escaped after all! (Whew!)
Google Maps didn’t send their camera car along the block the Roxy was on, but Bing Maps Streetside shows the site.
I posted a couple postcards just now but you have to click on “photos” to see them …
Boxoffice, Dec. 8, 1951: “GLASGOW, MONT. - The Roxy Theatre here burned in a fire, which did an estimated $500,000 damage when it destroyed three downtown buildings housing six business establishments. The Roxy Theatre was housed in a two-story, stucco building.”
The Roxy Theatre opened its doors on October 12, 1934 with Joe E. Brown in “6 Day Bike Rider” along with the Morton Downey short “Off The Beat”, the Buddy Looney Tunes cartoon “Buddy Of The Apes”, and the novelty reel “The Superstition Of The Black Cat”.
According to its original manager Art Abelson, he said a statement that the decorations alongside its black vitrolite front weren’t complete at the time of its grand opening. In connection of that for a short time, the theater ended up operating at a temporarily box office before its shipping and completion.
The November 26, 1951 fire was caused by an overheated heating pipe and destroyed six businesses including the Roxy Theatre at approximately 10:15 AM that morning. The Roxy, alongside two lounges, a bar, two cafes, and a drug store were all impacted by the fire, centering around one of the two cafes (Shipp’s Cafe). The fire caused an estimate $500,000 in damage, with half going towards the theater and the another half towards the cafe and the lounges.
The Roxy was never rebuilt nor reopened, and a J.C. Penney was built on the former theater site in early-1953. A newer theater, called the Survant Theatre, was then built a few buildings away from the Roxy.