Metry Theatre

Suburban Amusement Company built the Metairie Ridge Theatre in 1925. The $25,000 Spanish Colonial Revival venue had a Gardner Screen and union musicians at its January 8, 1926 opening. The first film was Constance Talmadge in “Her Sister Form Paris” with live accompaniment by the Jefferson Orchestra. By 1928, the Metairie Theatre had downgraded to four day a week operation unable to convert to sound.

On April 29, 1930, the theater was equipped with RCAP sound-on-film under new operators beginning with the film, “The Cock-Eyed World". In 1937, the Metairie Theatre was sold by Alex Dumestre to United Theatres Circuit. Dumestre had claimed United Theatres business practices with the town gave them unfair advantages. United Theatres not only bought Dumestre out but installed him as manager of the refresh theater.

United Theatres gave the interior and exterior a Streamline Moderne style makeover with an update unveiled at its July 14, 1937 rebranding as the Metry Theatre on a 15-year leasing agreement. Its opening film was “Shall We Dance?” with Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire. United Theatres closed the Metry Theatre permanently on May 17, 1952 at end of lease with Rod Cameron in “The Sea Hornet.” And then something strange happened.

A group of local teenage boys called the Nazi Stormtroopers Club made a crude bomb in their headquarters - a boarded up Metairie grocery store - with the intent to blow up the former Metry Theatre. They had previously done widespread damage to the Southern Railway System as well as rampant damage and theft around town. And their aspirations of imploding the theater were thwarted by an eight-year old boy who identified the persons responsible for the plan. Police intervened before the bomb could do its damage.

So the old Metry Theater had to wait for a more traditional final act. It sat vacant until it was demolished in 1961 in favor a new post office. And it holds the distinction of the only Metry Theatre in the Cinema Treasure database.

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