Regent Theatre
1365 Main Street,
Buffalo,
NY
14209
1365 Main Street,
Buffalo,
NY
14209
2 people
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Additional Info
Architects: Charles Howard Crane, Gustavus A. Mang
Functions: Church
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The 1,300-seat Regent Theatre was opened on September 27, 1914. It was equipped with a $10,000 pipe organ. It was closed as a movie theatre in 1953. On August 8, 1953 the first screening of prototype Todd-AO took place in this theatre. American Optical Company rented this theatre to use it as a “test” cinema for the new wide screen technology. It was at this theatre that Rogers and Hammerstein decided Todd-AO had the visual scope and depth they needed and finally gave in and sold the movie rights to their stage play, “Oklahoma!”.
The Regent Theatre now houses a church.
Contributed by
Bob Jensen
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Recent comments (view all 12 comments)
There is some aural evidence that the projectors in the Granada theater were also the hand-made prototype projectors from the Todd-AO testing.
TODD-AO Concept Tests
On June 23, 1953 TODD-AO tests were done at the Regent in both 20 and 30 frames per second. Photographic equipment was Thomascolar 65mm cameras rebuilt by American Optical Corporation and Mitchell Camera Corporation. More tests were done on August 14, 1953 with 30 frames per second. (More 30 frames per second were done on June 23, 1954 on MGM Stage 2 in Los Angeles.)
Ladies and Gentlemen, This is TODD-AO!
A small photo of the interior of this theatre can be seen in an ad in Boxoffice magazine, September 19, 1936. Left side of page.
View link
Gustavus A. Mang must have been the local associate architect for this theater. The Regent Theatre in Buffalo is listed among the works of Detroit architect C. Howard Crane in the thesis of Lisa Maria DiChiera, “The Theater Designs of C. Howard Crane,” which can be read on line at the Internet Archive.
Like the Majestic Theatre (1915) in Detroit, also a Crane design, the Regent featured a section of stadium seating which had considerably greater capacity than the orchestra floor.
The Regent Theatre was drastically altered by the mid-1930s, when the original stadium seating section was removed and replaced with a conventional orchestra floor. A cross section of the Regent’s auditorium as originally designed can be seen on this page of Lisa Maria DiChiera’s The Theatre Designs of C. Howard Crane.
Contrast that with this photo of the remodeled Regent that was featured in a Heywood-Wakefield ad in Boxoffice of September 19, 1936.
I’ve been unable to find a photo of the Regent’s auditorium before its remodeling, but DeChiera’s thesis includes these photos of the Majestic Theatre in Detroit, built the year after the Regent and designed by Crane with a very similar seating configuration.
link
The link above is the obituary for the former owner of this theatre.
I was a projectionist at the Granada in the 1980’s and remember the projectors as Norelco AA’s, not AA-ll’s…I was new at projection and heard that the parts ordered for them would sometimes not fit correctly. They had a double motor on them, one for 30fps. Built like tanks.
Linkrot repair: The Heywood-Wakefield ad with the photo of the Regent’s remodeled auditorium, from the September 19, 1936, issue of Boxoffice, can now be seen at this link.
The Regent theatre opened on September 27th, 1914. Grand opening ad posted.
Listings ended in 1953.