Capri Theater
22 Huntington Avenue,
Boston,
MA
02116
22 Huntington Avenue,
Boston,
MA
02116
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No, there are lots of adult theaters listed.
Is there another Capri still? From a 1973 Phoenix article:
“Although their names do not appear on any available public records, the Venius Brothers are reported to control the Two O’Clock Lounge 642 Washington St.; the Picc-A-Dilly 657 Washington St.; the Twin-X Cinema 669-675 Washington St.; the Capri Theatre 701 Washington St.; Jerome’s Lounge 666 Washington St.; and a “live model†studio over the Twin-X.”
I think the site’s also missing the Twin-X Cinema (although it’s visible next to the Publix/Gaiety in some photos posted there)… though maybe theaters that never showed anything but porn are missing for a reason.
This 1928 map shows the Copley Theatre at its new location on Stuart Street. There is not yet an entrance on Huntington Avenue; that apparently came later.
This 1917 map shows the Copley Theatre in its original Dartmouth Street location, before it was moved to Stuart Street.
To find it, look at the top of the map, in the middle of the bottom (west) side of Dartmouth Street, between Huntington Avenue and the railroad tracks.
Right above it, on the other side of Dartmouth, you’ll see a small unmarked street. That is Stuart Street. When this street was later extended west to Huntington Avenue, the Copley Theatre was right in the way. That is why it had to be moved.
The architects were Putnam and Cox and it opened Dec. 1914. I knew it in the late-1940s and early 1950s as a Shubert house which was dark most of the time. When a play opened there in October 1953, I jumped at the chance to see the theatre. I attended the Sat. matinee of “Anna Lucasta” on stage on Oct. 10, 1953. This was a rare, for those days, non-union non-Equity production, so there was a picket line in front of the entrance on Huntington Ave, just up from the SS Pierce Bldg, and across from the side of the BPL. I timed my movements carefully and managed to get thru the line and into the lobby. I had a balcony seat, but was told to sit downstairs. The theater was situated so that after coming in from Huntington Ave., you turned right into the back of the house. It had one balcony. I don’t recall any other stage attractions there in the 1950s, but occasionally movies were presented. Then Sack took it and renamed it Capri, and put on a new marquee. I saw at least one movie there some time circa 1960 or 1961. The auditorium and stage were within the block. I never did understand the story about cutting the Toy Th. up and turning it around, etc. After the land was taken for the Mass. Turnpike extension, Sack moved the Capri name over to the old Strand down Huntington Avenue, on the opposite side of the street. In recent years, the New England Life Hall on Clarendon St. near Boylston St. was renamed “Copley Theatre”.
From the Boston Public Library’s photo collection:
Toy Theatre, Later the Copley Theatre. Photo taken some time between 1914 and 1922.
King’s book says this theatre had several different street addresses over time, as its entrance moved from one street to another. It opened at 188 Dartmouth Street. Then, when it was turned around and expanded, the address became 461 Stuart Street. Finally, a new entrance was added at 22 Huntington Avenue.
He had a screening room in his home. Here’s a link to a photo
of a projector. View link
Thanks to Ron for pointing out the error of my previous message. Guess the mystery of the Capri is solved!
I don’t know if any of you had a chance to visit Ben Sack’s former home this past weekend. Here is a link to a few of the photos I took. View link
Thanks. The ad says July 30, 1962 — not 1961.
Here’s a link to the ad in the newspaper.
http://img41.echo.cx/my.php?image=capri4ii.jpg
According to Donald C. King’s new book The Theatres of Boston: A Stage and Screen History, the Toy Theatre opened in 1914. William Morris took it over in 1916 and renamed it Copley, opening with Harry Lauder’s play The Night Before. King says that “Morris tried films, then a stock company, but nothing worked.”
It originally had 600 seats, but after it was disassembled and rotated onto Stuart Street in 1922, it gained 400 more seats.
The Shuberts took over the Copley in the 1930s. At one point it hosted productions of the Works Progress Administration’s Federal Theatre Project for unemployed theatre workers.
On January 31, 1958, Ben Sack reopened the Copley as a first-run movie house called the Capri. King says that Sack’s second Capri (formerly the Strand) opened on July 6, 1962, but that conflicts with the Herald ad that dwodeyla reported above.
I lived in Boston from Sept. 1959 to July 1960. I recall the Capri running the movie version of Swan Lake for the duration.
This photo (described here) shows Stuart Street in the 1930s, looking east from Huntington Avenue towards Dartmouth Street. The Copley Theatre is on the left side.
On July 31, 1959, according to my diary entry, I saw a revival of Chaplin’s “Modern Times” at the Capri (formerly Copley) Theatre. It was the only time I ever went there.
I rememmber both entrances still in existance in the early 60s. You could go in the doors on Huntington walk through and exit on to Stuart. I don’t think there was a marquee on the Stuart Street entry. It was sort of a pie-shaped arrangement.
According to an unpublished 1968 draft manuscript by Douglas Shand-Tucci entitled The Puritan Muse (available in the Fine Arts room of the Boston Public Library), the Toy Theatre was built in 1914, becoming the Copley in 1916. It was on Dartmouth Street, facing the side of the Copley Plaza Hotel.
In 1922, the Copley Theatre was cut into two pieces, turned 90 degrees, and reassembled so that its entrance faced Stuart Street! Its proprietors felt (probably wrongly) that Stuart Street would become a major thoroughfare and therefore it would be to the theatre’s advantage to have a marquee facing that street.
In 1955, the entrance was moved once again, to Huntington Avenue. That is the entrance and marquee that you see in Walter Muir Whitehill’s book.
In 1958, Ben Sack acquired this theatre for his movie chain and changed its name to the Capri. When the state took it for the Massachusetts Turnpike extension in the early 1960s, Sack moved its marquee a few blocks down Huntington Avenue to the former Strand Theatre, which then became the second Capri.
At the end of July 1961, the Boston Herald Traveler lists “The New Capri” at 175 Huntington Ave, playing Lolita.
I am now looking at a copy of Walter Muir Whitehill’s book Boston: A Topographical History, second edition, published 1968.
On page 196 is a photograph of the S.S. Pierce building in Copley Square, at the southwest corner of Huntington Avenue and Dartmouth Street, where today’s Westin Copley Place hotel stands. Two buildings further down Huntington, on the same side as the S.S. Pierce building, is a marquee labelled “COPLEY”. The marquee appers to be blank; perhaps the theatre is not being used. The photo is dated 1958.
On the next page is another photograph of the same scene, also dated 1958. The S.S. Pierce building has been torn down and replaced by a parking lot. The marquee now says “CAPRI” and features the movie Stage Struck. The names of the actors on the marquee are too small to read in this photo, but I presume they are Henry Fonda and Susan Strasberg.
Several stories above the marquee, a banner announces “WORLD PREMIERE STAGE STRUCK”. Since the movie is set in NYC, and some movie databases say it came out in 1957, the “WORLD PREMIERE” banner seems quite odd.
The entrance shown is quite clearly on Huntington Avenue, not Stuart Street. Perhaps there was another entrance on Stuart, but you can’t see it from these photos.
According to a friend who worked there, when Sack took over the building near the Mass Pike entrance, now a hotel, he named the theatre The Capri. It played Bridge on the River Kwai, and Breakfast at Tiffaneys. The film La Dolce Vita played the Saxon.
When the Capri was sold, Sack took over an E,M.Loews building and named the theatre The Copley. This is now a Christian Science building. Both the Capri and Copley were on Huntington Ave, but not in the same location.
Some have suggested that the Capri was also known at the Copley Theatre. I have the impression they’re two different buildings. The Copley was in a renovated hotel building, next door to The Stage Lounge on Stuart St. It was originally owned by E.M. Loew.
Where was the Capri?
Thist is listed as “Triplex” but I don’t think that can be correct. The Cheri was the first multiplex in Boston, and I’m not sure it was even open yet when this was torn down.
The ‘Toy’ theater was built in 1914, architects Putnam and Cox.
I had an after-school job in the library ‘58-'62, and remember some of the staff used to congregate at the Stage Lounge adjacent. Some of my co-workers remembered it as the Copley theater which housed a stock company, but that was probably before WWII. Rosilind Russell was supposed to have been a member of the stock company. My guess is it was closed sometime before WWII, and became a movie theater when Sack got it. The stairs apparently got jettisoned with the demolition.
What happened to that stairway when the theater was demolished?
You mention that it was ’re-opened' in the 60s. For how long had it been closed? Was it used only as a stage house before the re-opening?