Ritz Civic Center

The Saturday March 03, 1917 edition of the Memphis Commercial Appeal newspaper mentions the Gem Theatre, Blytheville Arkansas. The article is about the pipe organ being installed at the First Methodist Church “being the third church to conform to the new regime. The Gem picture show was the first in the pipe organ line.”

So there was some business in Blytheville in 1917 showing movies and using the name “Gem.”

The information about the opera house is wrong. This space is an empty lot on the 1913 map. The 1921 map shows the Gem theater at this location, in a building that probably became the old Ritz as shown before the 1951 remodel. Confusingly, the old address was 106-108 W Main, which coincides with the current address for where the Roxy used to be.

Thanks so much to James Honecut for his most descriptive, nostalgic, and accurate word picture of the Ritz (but posted on the Roxy Theatre page). I remember all the people he mentioned (as well as James). One minor corretion: the manager of the Ritz, Roxy, and Starvue Drive-in from Mr. Mac’s death until Mrs. Mac passed away (when all their theatres were sold to the Malco chain) was Audreanel Freeman, my grandmother. Yes, indeed, she did cut quite a figure with that cigarette holder and jet black hair.

The Ritz burned twice, once in 1931 and was rebuilt then in 1950 it burned again and that is when McClutchen bought the adjoining buildings and built the Ritz. The grand openig I attended was in 1951.

Here is a fresh link to the 1951 Boxoffice article about the Ritz Theatre. The impression I get from the article is that the old Ritz was completely razed to make way for the new Ritz. The article doesn’t mention a fire in the Ritz prior to its demolition, though other sources mention a fire in 1931.

This photo shows the Ritz before the 1951 rebuilding. The Boxoffice article says that the adjacent space in the building was occupied by a shoe store and a grocers prior to rebuilding. Doubling the theater’s width would have required at the very least the complete demolition of the interior, and at least the center section of the old facade would have to have come down as well, to provide for the new center entrance. If all that was coming down, then the roof must have been removed too. That adds up to virtually an entirely new building between the old side walls.

The entry for Uzzell S. Branson in the 1956 edition of the AIA’s American Architects Directory lists the Ritz Theatre as a 1951 project. Our description currently says that he designed a 1936 remodeling of the Ritz, but this web page says that the Ritz was severely damaged by fire in 1931, and reopened in October that year after a $30,000 reconstruction job. It’s possible that Branson was the architect for that project as well, as his practice was established in Blytheville in 1923, according to the AIA directory.

I grew up in Blytheville and I worked for the RGR theater chain while attending high school in the 1960s. During the 1950’s the town had 5 theaters. The Mox on West Main st was a second run theater operated by Mr. Moxley, the Ritz was about the 500 block of Main and was the premier theater, the Gem was a second run theater located at the corner of Main and Broadway and the Roxy was on East Main St. We had another called the Savoy which was a colored theater… By the time I worked in the movies in 1960 the Mox and Gem were closed. I think the Gem may have been the “Home” theater at one time. The lease on the Roxy was allowed to expire and the theater was run for awhile by the building’s owner Mr. Simon. The Ritz burned in 1949 or 1950 and I remember the opening night of the rebuilt Ritz (Feb 1951) We had high school bands, search lights and the movie star Ward Bond attended. The marquee loads of neon including chase red, blue and green tubes. I don’t think I’ll ever forget the excitement.

There is an interior photo on this page. The correct address is 306 W. Main Street.
http://tinyurl.com/nwl4hw

A Wurlitzer organ, opus 1187, was installed in the Ritz Theatre on 10/26/1925.