Round Up Theater

It was renamed the (New) Dale when it reopened November 20, 1936. It adopted a western policy under H&E Balaban in 1949 as the Round Up, like the Julian. By 1957 it had become a furniture store. A photo of it just after becoming the Dale is posted at http://www.chicagotheatrehistory.com/

In the 1940s, the Round-Up Theater used a gimmick as a promotion for its western B films: any child (including me) dressed in a cowboy outfit—boots, chaps, bandana, vest, capguns shoved into holsters on a belt—was admitted at a discount. Once passed the usher at the doorway, a kid was required to check his guns at the candy counter. The outer lobby was seperated from the theater proper by saloon-type swinging doors. I recall swaggering past the ticket window, muscling my way through the swinging doors, and hoisting my gunbelt to the candy counter’s glass top, where a smiling clerk hung it on a peg on the back wall, and handed me a receipt. Then followed the ritual purchase of a box of popcorn before joining Hopalong Cassidy inside in his two-gun quest for justice in the Old West. Not a bad day’s work for a kid from Chicago’s Polonia.