Guild Theatre
782 E. McMillan Street,
Cincinnati,
OH
45206
782 E. McMillan Street,
Cincinnati,
OH
45206
4 people
favorited this theater
Showing 17 comments
I think I may have an answer to the narrow design of the Eden/Guild theatre.
I looked up the address of 782 E. McMillan in Newspapers dot com from 1900 onward, and from 1920 to approximately 1932, it was an auto shop!
One ad from September 5, 1920, proclaimed, “ROOM FOR 12 CARS, AND EQUIPMENT FOR REPAIRING.” Another from April 25, 1926, advertises Peebles Corner Auto Sales at the 782 address.
A classified ad on Aug 07, 1932, simply reads, “Store, reasonable rent, good for any business.” So that may well be when the site got scouted by Willis Vance for a movie theatre.
So it’s still a wild guess, but perhaps that former Cincy Theater from 1913 got gutted and turned into a garage, and then was reconfigured back in the ‘30s. Maybe the ceilings got elevated in the 30s?
It’s safe to say that the Guild’s lean to adult fare began in 1969, where they transitioned from R-rated art films and moveovers to straight up softcore. In the hierarchy of the active adult theatres in Cincinnati of the time, they would share higher-profile titles with Cinema X on Race St., while the Royal would effectively be second-run double features and the Imperial stressed their striptease performers more than the movies they played. Besides VIXEN, the Guild also opened PUTNEY SWOPE, Morrissey’s TRASH, and Art Napoleon’s THE ACTIVIST (ghost released by Universal under the “Regional Films” alias).
1972 saw some cracks in the fascade, interspersing a Charlie Chaplin compilation and the Black drama THE BUS IS COMING with the skin flicks. It looks like they went dark for a few months, and reopened in December of that year under a new owner, “Mark I Theatres,” and a new name, Midtown Cinema, and became a second-run double feature house. They even instituted super late night 2am shows on the weekend. More importantly, much like Black-attended theatres as the Regal and the State, they stopped listing showtimes in the Cincinnati papers and only occasionally put their name in display ads if joining a city-wide saturation run. They apparently dabbled back in adult films again, attempting to play DEEP THROAT in 1974 after it had already been shut down at the Alpha Fine Arts in Northside; they too had their run raided and ended early.
Some time before 1976, they entered a joint-operation agreement with the Alpha, and rebranded again as Eden Theatre. Looks like they still weren’t putting times in the papers, but reportedly they concentrated on exploitation fare like martial arts movies, and were only open on weekends.
This item about a movie theater at the Guild’s address appeared in the March 1, 1913, issue of Motography:
While it’s possible that the Cincy Theatre was in an earlier building on the same site, the side walls of the Guild’s building do look sufficiently worn to have been there since the 1910s or earlier (it was listed at this address in the 1910 city directory.)Also, I doubt that a brand new neighborhood house built in 1939 would have been as narrow as the Eden, which is another indication that it was most likely an older theater remodeled and reopened at that time. However, I’ve been unable to find any references to the house between 1913 and 1939. It might have operated under other names.
November 4th, 1948 grand opening ad in photo section
Eden Theater was build in 1939.
Eden Theater address was 782 East McMillian Avenue as of the 1944 Cincinnati,Ohio City Directory.Charles F.Clarke was its manager.
The earliest mentions of the Guild Theatre in Boxoffice are in 1949, when it was already running foreign films. The most recent mention of the Eden Theatre I’ve found is from March 30, 1946.
The November 16, 1935, issue of Boxoffice reported that Willis Vance would open a new theater at Peebles Corner to be called the Eden. It was to have about 300 seats.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/wallyum/3871784609/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/wallyum/3871782119/
Sound Electronics is at 782 E. McMillan:
http://tinyurl.com/lzqam8
This is from the Lima (OH) News on September 30, 1969:
CINCINNATI (AP)-Obscenity charges against a movie operator for showing the film “Vixen” were returned to Hamilton county common pleas court today from U. S. District court. Judge Davis S. Porter said there were no federal or civil rights questions in the case and refused to hear it. But he ordered the film returned to the defendant, Malibu, Inc. operators of the Guild Theater in Cincinnati. The charges were brought by Charles Keating, founder of the Citizens for Decent Literature.
Is this the theater? It would be around the 700 block of E. McMillan street.
http://tinyurl.com/lkmq2m
I think there was an attempt to reopen it as the Eden in the early/mid-70s, some kind of joint attempt between the Alpha Fine Arts and one of the local theatre bookers/owners. It didn’t last long.
At the beginning of Willis Vance’s management, this theatre was called the Eden, no doubt due to its proximity to lovely Eden Park. Vance also managed the State in Newport, KY, before it became Cinema X, and the Ohio in Norwood.
Being a member of the “counterculture” , and also somewhat “artsy”, I remember trekking to the Guild to see Andy Wharhol’s “TRASH” – a film that also caused some controversy in good ol' Cincy! Even conservative Enquirer columnist Frank Weikel devoted space in his column to film! (frankly, Frank just didnt get it – though he thought he did!)
To scottfavareille— The Guild was independently owned by an man whose name was Willis Vance. He owned it through the mid to late 60s. I don’t remember who it was sold to. Mr. Vance, at one time controlled the tickets sales for most of the live performances that came to Cinti—at Music Hall, Taft, etc. I worked there as usherett and my mom worked there for many years as cashier.
The Guild was formally called “The Guild Fine Arts Cinema.” Peebles Corner, like many other formerly vibrant neighborhoods in Cincinnati, has become a ghetto to the nth degree. Unless you are a little older, you would never know the Guild existed. As for Charles Keating, his self-righteous ass got his comeuppance. He cost many good people their life savings, but I digress.
The banning of the film Vixen is still in effect today in Cincinati. This was one of the first acts of Charles Keating, who became a fervent anti-pornography crusader (and later appointed by then-President Richard Nixon in his anti-smut campaign). Keating later went after Larry Flynt and his Hustler club in Cincinnati in the early 1970’s and then focused on the Mitchell Brothers for almost a decade (1975-1985, the Mitchell Brothers took over a former UA theater in an upscale mall in Santa Ana, CA and converted it to a XXX format—Keating had one of his Lincoln Savings and Loan Branches across the street. Keating, along with the city of Santa Ana, filed over 47 lawsuits against the Mtichells for showing obscene films. The Mitchells eventually won and the city of Santa Ana spent over $11 million trying to prosecute them.) Keating was later convicted for fraud in one of the largest savings and loan scandals in US history.
Was this theater part of Louis Sher’s Art Theater Guild empire?