Did Any Of These Boston Theatres Show Movies?

I see the Colonial and Wilbur listed there. Do you know when they showed movies, and what films they showed?

Film Daily Yearbooks list civic auditoriums in addition to movie theatres. (take a look at 1934, for example, Massachusetts towns of Holliston, Hopkinton, Sandwich, Brookfield, with town halls and their seating capacity listed. They even contain errors such as a listing for Saxonville, which is a neighborhood in Framingham, and they list a town hall there as well. ) In Boston, the Yearbook lists a theatre named the Lancaster on Causeway St., a Waldron’s Casino on Hanover St. and I’m sure everyone who knows their region can find similar errors. Under Boston, there’s no Wilbur, Colonial, nor Shubert, but there is a Bowdoin Square, a Bijou-Dream, and a Grand Opera House, as well as a Repertory on Huntington Ave and a South Station Terminal, in addition to a Congress Hall in South Boston.
I’d guess that the ones you listed weren’t “movie theatres” but were “theaters” for other sorts of entertainment. (note the difference in spelling) For example, it’s probable that they were built without projection booths and no sound, and at the time, there were already so many movie theatres in the city that they weren’t considered locations for film. We should keep in mind, movies were considered entertainment for the masses, where plays were regarded as entertainment for the wealthy and upperclass.

Out the initial list above I have listings on the Film Daily Yearbooks for the following theatres:

1941 edition
Columbia Theatre, Washington Street 1,800 seats (closed)

1943 edition
Columbia Theatre, Washington Street 1,800 seats

1950 edition
Columbia Theatre, 978 Washington Street 975 seats

There is a Tremont Theatre, Tremont Street 1,500 seats listed in both 1941 & ‘43 but I’m not sure if the is the Tremont Temple you mention above but it operated as a movie theatre by the 1930’s. Later known as the Astor Theatre.

I have a record of the Selwyn Theatre (former Globe) being run as a vaudville film house in the 1900 by Loew’s. Later went to Burlesque. After W.W.II it was taken over by E.M.Loew’s Theatres and was re-named Centre Theatre, showing movies.

The Tremont Theatre (later Astor, now demolished) was a different building from the Tremont Temple Baptist Church, which still stands five or six blocks further north. I’ve read somewhere that the Temple was used as a movie theatre at some point (maybe only on weekdays?) but would like to confirm this.

There were two Selwyn theatres in Boston. The first Selwyn, on Washington Street, became the first Globe, which then burned and was replaced on site with the second Globe. That theatre in turn was torn down to build the 600 Washington-Essex building that eventually contained the RKO Boston. These Globes were unrelated to the third Globe, a block away, that eventually became the Center and is now a Chinese restaurant.

The second Selwyn, originally the Cort, was in Park Square. Here’s a 1925 photo (described here). I believe this was a live stage but I’m trying to determine whether it also showed movies at any point. I’m also curious exactly where it was located in Park Square – perhaps where the Park Plaza Hotel is today?

A look inside the Tremont Temple would probably confirm that there’s no projection booth thus if there were film shown there, it may have been on a 16mm table top projector for a special event. (Much like local libraries occasionally do).
Keep in mind that in those days, 35 mm film was nitrate, lamphouses burned carbon, and needed exhaust ducts. Therefore, if a public hall or church or legitimate theatre did a once-in-a-while movie series from a temporary projector set up on the aisle or on the rear balcony, it doesn’t become a “movie theatre”. Boston was on the circuit for pre-Broadway shows, thus the existence of several legitimate theatres devoted to stage plays.

Its in my shopping cart!

Ron, thank you again for doing such a fine job of research, and making this site interesting, for those of us in the Boston area. Maybe someone can start getting into the suburbs too. There were lots of neighborhood theatres that are long gone, but maybe not forgotten.

A case can be made for listing Symphony Hall as a “cinema treasure” since, especially during the silent era, a goodly number of movies had showings here, with live orchestral accompaniment. There is a display panel in the first floor rear hallway on this topic, complete with memorabilia, programs, titles of the films. I believe “Salome'” was one of then, Eisenstein’s “Ten Days that Shook the World” another (but I’m operating on faulty memory here.) More recently Seiji Ozawa played the Prokofiev score to Eisenstein’s sound-era “Alexander Nevsky” with the movie being shown. It all becomes an interesting, perhaps academic, question. In New York would you list Avery Fisher Hall and Alice Tully Hall as “cinema treasures?” They are the home of the annual New York Film Festival, after all. The rest of the time, of course, they are purely concert halls.

Another one that needs more research is the Franklin Park Theatre on Blue Hill Avenue, which I believe still stands today as a church. At one time it was a big venue for live Yiddish theatre.

The ‘Dorchester Athenaeum’ web site has a list of 16 theatres that used to be in Dorchester and Mattapan.

Only one of them, the Strand, still operates, and it no longer shows movies. Cinema Treasures has listings for a few of the others, such as the Oriental and the Park Cinema, but I’ve never heard of most of these.