Mastbaum Theatre

veyoung52 on January 30, 2009 at 9:13 pm

Best I can think of is to run through microfilmed copies of the Phiadelphia “Inquirer” and “Evening Bulletin,” of that area which had full amusement sections, and also the weekly “Variety,” particularly in the “Picture Grosses” pages as well as the “Music” and “Concert” areas located towards the rear of this magazine.

Luis Vazquez on January 30, 2009 at 11:02 am

Howard Haas…Thank you for such a wonderful intro to this theater. It’s even more heartbreaking that this theater never even made it to 1960. Unfortunately, this theater was just too big and too lavish for the market to support.

As an aside, was the Mastbaum the first of the mega movie palaces to be demolished in the country?

finkysteet on July 18, 2008 at 7:25 pm

There was a rumor that the fire was intentionally set in order to collect insurance money. The first fire burned a small hole in the roof, visible from the Market-Frankford El. The next fire wiped the place out completely. Sad because though it wasn’t a movie theater, it still held great memories for those of us who frequented it (Phila. Warriors Roller Derby)

kencmcintyre on June 22, 2008 at 5:36 pm

I was trying to find out if the Philadelphia Arena on 46th and Market was still around, and an article mentioned that Jules Mastbaum was one of the original owners. The arena was never used for films, although it was used for just about everything else.

Life's Too Short on April 25, 2007 at 9:04 pm

Pictures like that are always bizarre to me. If there was one theatre that should have been saved (in an ideal world) in Philly this was it. And yet at the same time you realize that the demolition company was proud of the fact that they took it down. Then you realize that they had every right to be proud because 1920’s theatres were generally built like a fortress. Then you stop and say: “if they took the place down on-time and on-budget, that is pretty good”. Most people who frequent this forum, after all, know the story of the demolition firm that was charged with taking down Chicago’s Paradise Theatre. It doesn’t make sense from the standpoint of preservation to have those thoughts in the mind at the same time. But that is the reality of the matter.

mikemorano on September 12, 2006 at 9:52 am

Very cool photo. Sorry about the theatre.

mediagy on March 27, 2006 at 10:58 am

I didn’t know that they had saved the Midtown and transformed it into the Prince Music Theatre. That’s great. As I mentioned above when I was a boy it was the KARLTON and was a Hoooooorrrrrrible place…ratty….fetid and “air-cooled” in the summer by fans pushing air over chunks of ice, making it feel as if you were sitting in a SWAMP. All the horror films played there. I saw MIGHTY JOE YOUNG sitting in its horribly deteriorated interior. The KEITH’S (where many years earlier a great-uncle vaudevillian of mine had played), which became the lovely RANDOLPH,was also in the late 40’s very ugly and ratty and creaky. I was scared to go in it for fear the balcony would give way.

But…by the early 50’s William Goldman had transformed the Midtown into a nice, if smallish, theatre and the KEITH’S became the really GORGEOUS (for its day) RANDOLPH…which housed many of the VERY BEST features of the 50’s from GUYS AND DOLLS to THE CAINE MUTINY to KISS ME KATE….and in the mid-60’s the loooooooong and very successful reserved seat run of the revival of GONE WITH THE WIND.

I suspect Renel-fan must have loved the old Renel on Ogontz Avenue. It was a VERY lovely little art-moderne/deco theatre…..neighborhood sized and a bit small by the standards of the day…but nice. It was always a theatre that generally had subsequent runs after the bigger theatres in the area like the KESWICK or the ERLEN or the YORKTOWN. I remember at about 7 or 8 standing at the back of the Renel with my mom to see YANKEE DOODLE DANDY. The number 6 Trolley serviced Ogontz Avenue and ran all the way to Willow Grove and the end of the line at the Park. I lived in Cedarbrook, just sounth of Glenside and so the KESWICK and the RENEL were the everyday theatres for me during the war years, since we had no gasoline. You just hopped on the number 6 and got off at the RENEL on Ogontz….or the Keswick on Glenside Avenue.

In ‘46 or '47 I remember seeing DUEL IN THE SUN at the RENEL in its saturation booking (a HORRRIBLE practice that helped to destroy center city theatres)…as well as films like GIANT and BRIGADOON and I think the Susan Hayward GWTW ripoff TAP ROOTS.

My favorite in that area, though, was the ERLEN on Cheltenham Avenue. It was an atmospheric….but it was very art moderne also…..with a HUGE sweeping arched and curved sunrise proscenium of gold…similar to the one at RADIO CITY….with blue velvet skies above….and a kind of Mexican or Southwestern Spanish garden look of white stucco walls with vines and flowers above the overhanging light protusions around the perimeter of the auditorium. It was quite modern in a strange kind of amalgam of art deco AND atmospheric.

The YORKTOWN on Old York Road in Elkins Park was VERY severe art deco/moderne…and was so successful during the 40’s that they even enlarged it by extending the length of the theatre.

We all took ALL those theatres too much for granted….just assuming that since we had grown up WITH them….that they were there forever…..and how horribly sad to learn that they, like we, were only momentary visitors on this planet.

Ah…but the Mastbaum….one of two TRULY magnificent theatres in Philly. (The Fox being the other!) It was ALMOST as large as the Roxy and Radio City….elevators and 8 levels all….and was even run by Roxy Rothapfel for a little while after he left Radio City and just before his death.

So sad…so sad….so sad. I just saw the new Cameron Macintosh production of LES MISERABLES, which is on its way to Broadway for a six month return engagement, at the magnificent 3,000 seat restored PALACE in Waterbury, CT. It was PACKED for EVERY performance…as is every single show there. Theatre is BOOMING….last year was the best year in Broadway history. What a shame that the Mastbaum was not saved. It would have been a PERFECT venue for THIS century with its newly rediscovered love of LIVE theater as the awful tiny plastic movie theatres of today see their attendance fade into the sunset. So…again…hats off to the BRILLIANT men who have saved the Boyd. It may not be as magnificent as the Mastbaum….but it will be a TREASURE and they are TRUE heroes of Philadelphia for saving it. It will make a FORTUNE!

teegee on March 26, 2006 at 4:06 pm

The antitrust lawsuit that caused the Hollywood studios to sell their theaters, like the Mastbaum, was brought by independent Philadelphia exhibitor William Goldman. The studios always showed their best films in their own theaters, leaving the independents to show second-rate or second-run features. After winning the lawsuit Goldman went on to build his own chain of Philadelphia theaters. William Goldman Theaters were eventually sold to Budco Quality Theaters in the mid to late 1970s.

The Duke/Duchess and Regency Twin were not the only theaters to be demolished for the Liberty Place Towers. Two small theaters on Market St. near 17th were also demolished. They were the Studio and the Center. The Studio was an independent theater that adopted an XXX policy by the time it closed.

The Center was, at one time, a Stanley-Warner theater, and was one of four downtown theaters that was open all night. (Palace, Family, and News were the others.) I attended the Center frequently in the late sixties while on a 4 to midnight shift. They changed the double feature bill three times a week (Sun, Wed, Thur) and showed every kind of film, from Polanski’s Repulsion and Sartre’s No Exit to Night of Bloody Horror and Man From Laramie. In addition to a double feature there was always a cartoon, usually a two-reel short, and lots of previews. It was just like a Saturday matinee. All you had to do was learn to ignore the snoring drunks.

HowardBHaas on March 16, 2006 at 3:07 pm

The Milgram family, owner of Fox, Milgram, and assuming the Stage Door was the auditorium created from the Fox stage, sold. I don’t know if PNB was the developer or merely the tenant, but if not them, somebody else would have leased the office building that arose in its place.

The late Willard Rouse was the developer of Liberty Place. From what I hear, the Duke and Duchess were no great loss. The Regency wasn’t a single screen past half a decade. I was in it as a twin, and in that capacity, it, too, was no great loss.

I believe that it was in 1953 that the original Stanley Warner company, which belonged to Warner Bros, was divested from Warner Bros due to antitrust law. So, it wasn’t the Hollywood studio that demolished the Mastbaum, which was a “white elephant” from the start. The Mastbaum was closed more often than opened, and cost more to keep it closed than to open it. It was too huge, and too costly to staff, heat, etc. Regardless, it was one of the greatest movie palaces ever built, and those who recall it speak of it with awe, a “cathedral” or “opera house” setting that was glorious.

iobdennis on March 16, 2006 at 7:33 am

A truly breathtaking theater! I recall seeing “Forbidden Planet” there when I was a kid. I think I sat in one of the small alcoves along the side. I cried when I heard they were tearing it down.

mediagy on November 9, 2005 at 9:30 am

Andy…

You are right…the Academy was/is horrible for shows. I saw both THE KING AND I and FIDDLER ON THE ROOF there in the 70’s and a worse venue for a Broadway show I could not envision. Yes…the doggone poles….AND….as bad…if you sat in the orchestra…it was SO far below stage level that you felt you were in a valley looking UP at a mountain. Just HORRENDOUS. As a child in the 40’s my school took us on field trips to Young People’s Concerts there…and as an orchestral venue it was perfect…but it was a TERRIBLE choice for Broadway shows. What a great idea you had….LION KING at the BOYD. Heck…I’d almost make a return to Philly to see it there. It is coming to the gigantic BUSHNELL in Hartford April thru June of 2006. Tickets went on sale this past Saturday and there was a line of 1,000 people who had camped out all night. They sold over 25,000 seats the first day…even though Hartford is no further away from NYC than Philadelphia is and so many theatre-lovers see shows first on Broadway and later at one of the now MANY converted former movie palaces scattered all over Connecticut today. The BOYD would make a GLORIOUS legit theater…on the order of the magnificent ERLANGER (which housed MY FAIR LADY in its pre-Broadway tryout)…which was torn down so long ago. The SHUBERT was quite ratty when I was growing up in the 40’s and 50’s…(though they DID refurbish it in the late 50’s or early 60’s)….and the only theater in those days besides the ERLANGER that was in ANY way attractive was the Forrest. It was the condition of THOSE theaters that prompted my mother’s comments about the lack of REAL commitment to the performing arts on the part of the millionaires on the Main Line. She said that obviously they felt they had done their job with the ACADEMY OF MUSIC and needn’t bother with a nice theatrical house for the city. A restored BOYD is EXACTLY what Philadelphia needed fifty years ago for legitimate theater. HOORAY to all those WONDERFUL people who saved it at the last moment from the jaws of the wreckers.

And Warren…..yes I know of the MARK HELLINGER….saw a number of shows there…including MY FAIR LADY and A JOYFUL NOISE. A magnificent theater quite similar to the ERLANGER. You are quite right in mentioning it as first a movie theater, which it was under the HOLLYWOOD name. Oddly…in a strange way….it was one of the FIRST movie theaters to be “saved” and converted for theatrical use….as was the now-named BROADWAY…which had to have its stage extended back when IT was converted.

I feel SOOOOO sad for those under 35 or 40 who missed the magnificence of these great motion picture theaters. I almost cry when I think of the incredibly beautiful atmospheric ERLEN on Cheltenham Avenue, the demarcation line to a SUBURB…now gone. In SO many ways…technology IS more exciting today than ever…and I thank the gods for HOME THEATER and the ability to recreate the past in one’s living room (complete with dimmers on your lights)….BUT…..those today have NO idea of what the TRUE palaces were like. NONE. The ONLY glimpse one can REALLY get…in the NYC/Philly/Boston area…is Radio City Music Hall…even though it VERY rarely shows any films. I used to take my students on field trips to it….touring the backstage area also….and their mouths would fall open. They couldn’t conceive of a theater that size that showed movies and stage shows.Yet I used to stand in line for the Christmas and Easter shows for sometimes as much as four hours to get inside. Even in ordinary months….one would often have to wait for an hour to get into one of their then 6,200 seats. I have a salute to it at: View link
And the crowds STAYED…all through the decline of Hollywood in the 50’s and 60’s…until FINALLY thining out in the 70’s due to the lackluster films being made and the now ubiquitous habit of BLANKET distribution on opening day.

There was a breath-holding moment in the early 50’s in Philadelphia, before they tore down the BREATHTAKING and magnificent MASTBAUM…which action was almost a signal of the end of Hollywood – much like the infamous shot of Gloria Swanson in the rubble of the magnificent Roxy (famous cartoon of the era: small boy saying to his mom as they stand in awe inside the ROXY – “Mother…Does God live here?” It WAS aptly called “The Cathredral of the Motion Picture”)…..when it looked as if movies MIGHT be “better than ever” (the advertising slogan of the day). The gigantic KEITH’s was beautifully transformed into the stunningly modern RANDOLPH, the ugly KARLTON (where I held my nose from the fetid smell of “water cooled” air as I saw MIGHTY JOE YOUNG) was remade into the smallish, if nicer MIDTOWN, and the beautiful BOYD became the 10 year Philadelphia home of CINERAMA, (with a few breaks for showing BEN-HUR and EXODUS, etc) before Cinerma itself was destroyed by films that CALLED themselves Cinerama after 1962 and the end of TRUE Cinerama…but were no more Cinerama than an apple is an orange.

The early 50’s in Philly were exciting because they WERE redoing the theaters and doing a good job of it.

Today….this fella who once went to the movies three times a week in his youth, year after year..as WWII raged on and the world was on fire……goes perhaps once or twice a year and grumbles every time because of the HORRRRRRIBLE prints (too blue or green or brown)….the AWFUL curtainless auditoriums (part of the MAGIC was seeing the curtains part)….the removal of anciliary entertainment such as the WB cartoons and Pete Smith Specialties..the removal of ushers with flashlights to “show you to your seat, Sir”..the end of continuous showings with the ebb and flow of LIFE around you. Now they are cold, empty, mauseleums offering NO warmth, no mystery, no magic….just plastic halls of boredom…that look much as the early 1900 Nickelodeons must have…bare screens. If you want a HOME version of the magic that once occurred you have to do it yourself. I have a mini-Egyptian theater in my living room and 1,500 DVDs…many from the golden age I loved so much. The image is INFINITELY better than ANY projection in movie theaters today….as it is on MOST TV sets.You can see a photo of mine at the bottom of my home page: http://hometown.aol.com/ctrobert8/MainPage.html

The day of the theaters is just about gone. In 2006, according to NEWSWEEK and ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY they will begin releasing the DVD and the movie in theaters, as well as on Pay TV on the same day. Guess which one will be the big winner?

Hollywood ate itself…by what it did to the theaters. Legitimate Theatre almost disappeared in the 80’s with too many shows geared to the intellectuals instead of providing downright, toe-tapping FUN. (And yeah…I DO like Sondheim..even if only A FUNNY THING HAPPENED ON THE WAY TO THE FORUM is the only show of his to make money.) MOST producers tried to emulate the destructive path blazed by Hollywood in doing mostly ADULT and THOUGHTFUL shows. Today…thank Heavens….they have swung back to ENTERTAINMENT…and joy (and PACKED HOUSES) is once again heard throughout the land. WICKED opens in December in Hartford…..and I tried to get a ticket the other day. EVERY SINGLE SEAT is gone for the ENTIRE engagement. It hasn’t been since the days of TITANIC and ET that movies have had SRO signs up for EVERY performance for MONTHS at a time.Broadway shows regularly do now. And bravo to them for realizing their errors as well as in allowing people to come in blue jeans and shorts as well as tuxes, democratizing the audience and expanding the experience to the ordinary guy who HATES dressing up.

So very, very, very sad…..to watch movies commit suicide.

BUT…..THE BOYD….has been SAVED. BRAVO….BRAVO…..BRAVO!!!!

mediagy on November 8, 2005 at 10:32 pm

Born in 1935 I grew up at the movies in the in the suburbs of northwest Philly and spent my youth at the Erlen, Renel, Lane, Yorktown and Keswick…all reachable by trolley and/or bus during the war years of WWII. What a time that was despite the horrors of the war! The films were glorious and the theaters were also. In those days films opened at a center city theater….ran for as long as the crowds held up and then spread out to many neighborhood theaters.

Of ALL of the center city theaters….the MASTBAUm was the most magnificent, rivaling the Roxy and Radio City Music Hall and the Capitol in NYC.

I live in Connecticut now…and have seen the demise in Philly of the great palaces of the past. Thank God that the Friends of the Boyd apparently have saved it. NO NYC center city Broadway movie theater exists from the golden age, except Radio City which is not strictly speaking a movie theater today. (And the Ziegfeld wasn’t even built until the late 60’s and is SMALLER than many of the neighborhood Philadelphia movie theaters from my youth.) SOOOOOOOOOO sad…..

Here in Connecticut many of the great palaces and atmospherics like the Erlen…HAVE been saved…..like the Keswick in Glenside was…..by turning them into legitimate theaters. As the sun seems to be setting on movies because of the poor prints, lousy projection, end of continuous showings, elimination of short subjects, cartoons or ANY sense of LIFE and community….and the addition of ENDLESS ads and previews in ugly curtainless auditoriums from hell….theater seems to be booming. The 3,000 seat Palace in Waterbury, CT, which, like the Erlen, was closed for decades and rotting away, roof collapsing, etc….was restored last year TOTALLY….and today is a SMASH with touring Broadway shows, concerts, ballet, singing groups. WHY were the great theaters in Center City Philadelphia, as well as its suburbs, allowed to die?

Philadelphians for many years….most of my life…..had NO appreciation for theaters and even as other cities began to save them, renovate them, and use them…Phildelphians just let them rot until they were torn down. To have lost the Keith/Randolph, the Fox, the Stanley, Stanton, Arcadia, Earle, Aldine, and Karlton/Midtown as well as the Goldman is just heartbreaking. And the MASTBAUM…operated for awhile by Roxy Rothafel himself (for which the ROXY in NYC was named and who was a guiding force behind the building of Radio City Music Hall)….the loss of that INCREDIBLE structure was a CRTME of UNBEARABLE proportions.

My mother used to say that the rich in Philadelphia…those on the Main Line….and elsewhere….were the least supportive people in America of the arts. Yes…yes…the Art Museum….but WHAT ELSE from the golden age survives besides that and the Academy of Music. Even the GORGEOUS Erlanger legitimate theater is gone….as is the Locust. How sad….when other cities preserved their heritage by adapting it to new forms.

The Fox was a beautiful theater in its day…..and home to SO many of the great films from 20th Century Fox….THE ROBE (first film in Cinemascope), Captain From Castile, Letter To Three Wizes, The Day the Earth Stood Still, Viva Zapata, Love Is A Many Splendored Thing, An Affair to Remember, There’s No Business Like Show Business, Call Me Madam….those and SO many more I saw at that wonderful place.

The Mastbaum was first run to many of the great Warner’s films and MGM as well. I saw MGM’s QUO VADIS at the Mastbaum….as well as many other Warners films…including HOUSE OF WAX. It was STUNNING beyond belief. Elevators whisked you to the upper reaches of the balcony and one believed one was TRULY in a palace. Yes…Judy Garland, Danny Kaye, and many others had shows there that ran for a time….and THAT should have given SOMEBODY with intelligence the clue that these magnificent theaters COULD be saved by turning them into performing arts venues. If money alone is the criteria by which we live, then we are condemning ourselves to the dustbin of history.

In Asian countries they have curtains in THEIR movie palaces. Are we sooooo far along toward third worldism…that we cannot?

What a sad ending for a great American industry.

uniteire on October 23, 2005 at 7:37 pm

Back in the late 1980’s, my daughter was a student at Emery University in Atlanta Ga.,and while on a vist to see her, she took us to the Spagetti Wasehouse. Much to my suprise, they had the chandelier from the Mastbaum on display. I have fond memeries of the Mastbaum, it was where my brother and I saw Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis in person and where I saw the worse movie John Wayne ever made, “The Conqueror”. In fact, I think this was one of the last films shown at the theater. Philadelphia lost a treasure when they tore it down