Standard Theatre

The Standard Theatre was Steelton’s first movie house and had a 40-year operational lifecycle from 1907 to 1947. Harry L. Sellers was Steelton’s movie pioneer establishing the 300-seat Standard Theatre in an existing retail building on N. Front Street. The theatre launched September 10, 1907. The theatre had a big hit with “The Passion Play: Life and Death of Christ”, a 1903 silent film that was held over many times.

The Standard Theatre was joined on the block by the smaller and competing Nickelodeon Theatre also in 1907 at 159 N. Front Street. However, the latter moved shortly thereafter on November 2, 1907 to the vacated The Vaudeville, a live theatre venue that had shuttered.

The Standard Theatre was a big hit vanquishing the Nickelodeon Theatre. Sellers would then go on to build a far-superior, second motion picture house in Steelton, the Strand Theatre, launching on November 8, 1915. Beginning in 1923, the Standard Theatre was closed in the warm summer months with the Strand Theatre carrying all of the local film bookings.

As the theatre was reaching 20th anniversary and its end of a 20-year lease, Sellers died. There was a new sheriff in town running the Standard Theatre in 1927: Charles E. Newbaker - also the town’s sheriff. He would run the theatre on a new 20-year lease and equipped it for sound. He sold it in 1931 to Nicholas F. Power. As the lease was coming close to terminus, Harry Chertcoff acquired both the Standard Theatre & Strand Theatre in 1936.

Chertcoff closed both theatres late in 1937 for remodeling to the plans of architect Paul A. Martin relaunching the Strand Theatre on January 19, 1937 and the Standard Theatre on January 22, 1937. The Standard Theatre’s reopening film was Boris Karloff in “West of Shanghai”. Patrons almost didn’t recognize the new-look venue with its Streamlined Moderne style and modern, illuminated front.

As World War II was ending, Chertcoff decided the Standard Theatre would not be a viable long-term venue especially as population was moving away from the Harrisburg central business district. He announced in the Fall of 1945 his plan to invest his money in two large “sister” suburban movie theatres: what would become the Hill Theatre in Camp Hill and the Elton Theatre in Steelton.

The Standard Theatre was closed at end of lease on April 30, 1947 with Bela Lugosi in “The Devil Bat”. That also coincided with the opening three days later of the 960-seat Elton Theatre on May 2, 1947 with James Cagney in “13 Rue Madeleine” The former Standard Theatre was later demolished.

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