Someone has posted on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWmCwcbcQmA a Washington State Department of Transportation video of a drive on Highway 99 shot on June 7th of 1983. The massive free standing marquis of the Lewis and Clark comes into view at 23:24. This was shot soon after the addition with 4 new screens was added to the original 3 screen and bowling alley complex.
Someone has posted on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWmCwcbcQmA a Washington State Department of Transportation video of a drive on Highway 99 shot on June 7th of 1983. The Midway comes into view at 11:21. Showing a double bill of “Chained Heat” & “Vice Squad”. The video shows a good idea of what the neighborhood around the theater was like in 1983.
The State of Washington (owner) is presently doing a minor remodel to the theater. Fire safety system upgrades, electrical upgrades, and a badly needed new roof. Theater is set to reopen in Spring of 2022. I’ll get some pictures of the interior when it does. Columbia Basin Allied Arts is the local non-profit that books most events in the venue.
Got a chance to tour the interior with the owner. No longer recognizable as as a theater inside. A second level has been built in a portion of the auditorium. Windows and doorways have been cut into the auditorium wall on the sidewalk side to create office spaces.
I am wondering if in 1924 an error was made in the above mentioned news item. I think the location is actually Seattle, WA. John Danz owned many theaters in the Seattle area, starting in the nickelodeon years and continuing under the same family ownership until a sale to Cineplex in 1986. In the 1960’s, his company, Sterling Recreation Organization, expanded to the Los Angeles area but I am unaware of any operations in the San Francisco area. John Danz lived until the mid 1950’s, the John Danz Theater in Bellevue, WA is named after him. His son, Fred Danz assumed control of the company at the senior Danz death. John Danz operated Seattle theaters under both the “Class A” and “Capitol” names at different times. They had adjacent addresses on 3rd Avenue in downtown Seattle.
I agree 100% with the comment above about the marque. Interstate 5 was built some years after the theatre, the view of the marque from the Southbound lanes of I-5 was impressive. If you look carefully in this picture, you can see the little “cable car” used to change the marque. The teenage staff would have to load it up with the letters needed, climb in and hoist themselves up the level needed and push or pull it from side to side across the face of the sign while standing inside the car. I am sure that OSHA would not approve of this practice today.
In the mid 1980’s, I was the chief projectionist at GCC’s Renton Village Cinema. The Division Manager’s office was directly below the Cinema II/III projection booth and sometimes you could hear loud conversations in the office from the booth. Linda Danisher, the Division Manager did not seem to care for the trips to the Sparks Cinema which had been added to the theaters under her supervision. All of her other theaters were less than an hours drive from her home. She spoke about her Sparks trips to her secretary more than once. I don’t blame her for not liking the trip.
Randy Finley, owner of the original Guild tried but was unable to purchase the adjacent property in order to expand. It was a pizza restaurant at the time. He instead purchased and demolished the building two doors down the street to build Guild II. Guild II opened in 1984.
The Liberty was destroyed by fire on February 9, 1968. Fire had started in the hotel next door and spread to the theatre. The Sunnyside High School class of 1965 has a website with pictures of the two buildings on fire. Sunnysidehigh65.com is the website. Pictures can be found in “Pictorial History of Sunnyside Volume 2”
In the photograph, you can see the name of Oliver Wallace advertised as the organist. The Dream is thought to have been the first theatre to install a pipe organ to accompany silent films. Oliver Wallace went on to become the music director for Walt Disney. He composed the music for more than 130 of the Disney shorts from the 1930’s – 1950’s. He also composed music for many full length Disney films.
Found this: https://www.pugetsound.media/2020/05/07/radio-went-to-the-movies-kbfw-sro-theaters/ about the radio station that shared the building with the Samish Drive In. I worked for SRO theater Division for some time in the 1980’s. They were a great company to work for. Pictures of the Drive In included.
I can answer some of the Eprad Sabre/Sword systems. I worked in the late 70’s at a drive in that had a Sabre and in the early 80’s at a XXX house with a Sword.
The Sabre was the simpler of the two systems, the projector and lamphouse were mounted on top of the Sabre, eliminating the traditional base. The entire film was mounted on a single large reel that was underneath the lamphouse, feed reel was on the left, takeup on the right. The reel was large enough to hold most double features.
Film went through a series of rollers and twists from the underslung reel up to above the projector/soundhead which were of standard design and threaded normally. A few more rollers to the takeup reel. With this system, the projector had to to be threaded for each show and rewound after. Rewind could take place on the Sabre, no need to move the reels. It worked reasonably well. Both takeup and feed reels were fitted with reversable torque motors so that tension on the film remained low and constant throughout the reel. A single projector booth was possible.
The Sword was more complex and used two specially modified projectors. The Sword looked much like the Sabre in that both reels were underneath the projector/soundhead. The difference was that each machine could run in reverse at 10% faster than normal projection speed. At the XXX house, I was working there when the equipment was purchased and installed. The two brand new Century projectors and soundheads had to be shipped to the Eprad factory for modification. This consisted of a modified film gate with a dashpot attached that would open the gate for reverse operation and reversable, multispeed motors. Film was cued with tape in the normal manner. We always ran double features at the XXX house, Feature A would be on the #1 projector with the second feature on #2. At the end of the first feature, we cued the film to make a changeover to the #2 machine. As soon as the changeover happened, the #1 machine would stop and the dashpot would open the gate partially and it would run backwards through the projector at 10% faster than the normal 24FPS. When rewind was complete, the projector would stop with the film already threaded and ready to go.
We were an XXX grindhouse, open for 16 hours a day, 7 days a week. If we had a brand new print, it would last about a week before we would start to have film breaks at the splices. This was prior to the change to Polyester based film, everything was still acetate at the time. Film is like a rope in that it doesn’t push well, trying to have the intermittent sprocket push the film up through the partially open gate did not work well at all. We eventually gave up on the reverse operation and used it like a Sabre.
From the April 2nd, 1956 “Motion Picture Daily” the following news:
“Texas Rancher Adds Nine Theatres to His Farms, Motel, Hotel, Store, Model School
Special to THE DAILY
SEATTLE, April 1.— Peter Barnes, a Texas rancher who also operates six
theatres in this area, has expanded his holdings with the purchase of nine
theatres of the Columbia Basin circuit in Eastern Washington. His 15 theatres
now comprise the largest independent circuit in that area.
The newly purchased theatres are the Lake, Ritz and Basin Drive-in at
Moses Lake; the Lee and Marjo, Ephrata; Park-in Drive-in, near Soap Lake;
the Lake, Soap Lake; Basin, Othello, and the Warden at Warden.
Barnes made his first investment in Washington 10 years ago when he bought six theatres in Oroville, Chelan, Manson and Okanogan.
Besides his theatre interests, Barnes owns a motel at Chelan, Wash.; a date
farm near Palm Springs, Cal.; a 1,400-acre farm in Canada; the Wasaga Beach
Hotel on the coast of British Columbia; a department store in Ontario; a new
home development in Vancouver, an interest in a modeling school in Seattle,
a few Canadian theatres, as well as a large ranch near San Angelo, Tex.
People here wonder what he does with so much spare time."
The above theatres were owned by the Lee family prior to this. Moses Lake and the nearby towns mentioned above are served by the TV stations located in Spokane which went on the air in the early 1950’s. I wonder about the wisdom of buying theatres just after Television hit the same market.
SRO Theaters owned this D. I. The company also owned a number of bowling alleys and several radio stations on the west coast. In the 1970’s, KBFW (930 AM) had it’s studios and offices on the second floor of the snack bar building.
A very late response to Gilbert Carney’s comment from 2006 about the 35/70 Norelco projectors. Yes, they (and the Ascraft lamps) did go to the King Theater in Seattle which was also a Walter Reade house. They were serial numbers 713 and 714. The King did not last long as a Walter Reade house, after the bankruptcy it sat empty for a time then was operated by General Cinema until 1992. I was projectionist at the King during mid 1980’s
Correcting my error above, A corner of the field was taken for the widening of I-90, not I-405. It can be seen at the lower center portion of the picture.
When this drive in was built, the two freeways shown were two lane roads. The theater was out in the country. U.S. Highway 10 became Interstate 90 running east and west, across the bridge shown at the top of the picture. What became Interstate 405 was State Highway 2A, running north and south. I was told by the projectionist working there at the time that when the two highways were rebuilt and enlarged in the late 1960’s, SRO theaters sued the State of Washington claiming that the lighting installed along the highways washed out the image on the screen. The State of Washington lost the case and was forced to pay for the installation of new brighter Xenon lamphouses to replace the original carbon arc lamps. A corner of the drive in field was taken for the widening of I-405.
I will also add the comment that SRO was a class act. I worked as a projectionist for them and for their competition as well. SRO ran the cleanest, nicest and best equipped theaters in the Seattle area in the 1970’s and into the 80’s. Things changed not too long after the sale to Cineplex.
Mostly in answer to Bob Jenson, Factoria was an unincorporated area just to the South of the City of Bellevue, WA. Mailing address for the drive in would have been Bellevue. It was owned and operated by SRO (Sterling Recreation Organization) until it was demolished and replaced by Factoria Cinemas. Locally owned SRO Theaters was sold to Cineplex/Odeon in December of 1986. SRO owned and operated theaters, bowling alleys, and radio stations throughout the Northwest. The company remains in business today as the “Sterling REALTY Organization” as a commercial property firm. Strip malls and business parks sit on the sites of some of the former theaters. Some sites were sold, SRO remains as the landlord of the others.
Dennis: Was that female DM’s name Linda D. by any chance? I worked for GCC from 1980 – 1995 and Linda was the one who hired me. Her office was in a converted windowless former storeroom beneath the projection booth for Cinema II-III.
Status should be changed to “Demolished”. The site is apartments now, no trace of the theater remains.
Someone has posted on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWmCwcbcQmA a Washington State Department of Transportation video of a drive on Highway 99 shot on June 7th of 1983. The massive free standing marquis of the Lewis and Clark comes into view at 23:24. This was shot soon after the addition with 4 new screens was added to the original 3 screen and bowling alley complex.
Someone has posted on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWmCwcbcQmA a Washington State Department of Transportation video of a drive on Highway 99 shot on June 7th of 1983. The Midway comes into view at 11:21. Showing a double bill of “Chained Heat” & “Vice Squad”. The video shows a good idea of what the neighborhood around the theater was like in 1983.
The State of Washington (owner) is presently doing a minor remodel to the theater. Fire safety system upgrades, electrical upgrades, and a badly needed new roof. Theater is set to reopen in Spring of 2022. I’ll get some pictures of the interior when it does. Columbia Basin Allied Arts is the local non-profit that books most events in the venue.
Got a chance to tour the interior with the owner. No longer recognizable as as a theater inside. A second level has been built in a portion of the auditorium. Windows and doorways have been cut into the auditorium wall on the sidewalk side to create office spaces.
I am wondering if in 1924 an error was made in the above mentioned news item. I think the location is actually Seattle, WA. John Danz owned many theaters in the Seattle area, starting in the nickelodeon years and continuing under the same family ownership until a sale to Cineplex in 1986. In the 1960’s, his company, Sterling Recreation Organization, expanded to the Los Angeles area but I am unaware of any operations in the San Francisco area. John Danz lived until the mid 1950’s, the John Danz Theater in Bellevue, WA is named after him. His son, Fred Danz assumed control of the company at the senior Danz death. John Danz operated Seattle theaters under both the “Class A” and “Capitol” names at different times. They had adjacent addresses on 3rd Avenue in downtown Seattle.
I agree 100% with the comment above about the marque. Interstate 5 was built some years after the theatre, the view of the marque from the Southbound lanes of I-5 was impressive. If you look carefully in this picture, you can see the little “cable car” used to change the marque. The teenage staff would have to load it up with the letters needed, climb in and hoist themselves up the level needed and push or pull it from side to side across the face of the sign while standing inside the car. I am sure that OSHA would not approve of this practice today.
In the mid 1980’s, I was the chief projectionist at GCC’s Renton Village Cinema. The Division Manager’s office was directly below the Cinema II/III projection booth and sometimes you could hear loud conversations in the office from the booth. Linda Danisher, the Division Manager did not seem to care for the trips to the Sparks Cinema which had been added to the theaters under her supervision. All of her other theaters were less than an hours drive from her home. She spoke about her Sparks trips to her secretary more than once. I don’t blame her for not liking the trip.
Randy Finley, owner of the original Guild tried but was unable to purchase the adjacent property in order to expand. It was a pizza restaurant at the time. He instead purchased and demolished the building two doors down the street to build Guild II. Guild II opened in 1984.
Only the lobby section remains, auditorium and the bowling alley both demolished.
“The Sand Pebbles” was being shown at the time of the fire.
The Liberty was destroyed by fire on February 9, 1968. Fire had started in the hotel next door and spread to the theatre. The Sunnyside High School class of 1965 has a website with pictures of the two buildings on fire. Sunnysidehigh65.com is the website. Pictures can be found in “Pictorial History of Sunnyside Volume 2”
In the photograph, you can see the name of Oliver Wallace advertised as the organist. The Dream is thought to have been the first theatre to install a pipe organ to accompany silent films. Oliver Wallace went on to become the music director for Walt Disney. He composed the music for more than 130 of the Disney shorts from the 1930’s – 1950’s. He also composed music for many full length Disney films.
Found this: https://www.pugetsound.media/2020/05/07/radio-went-to-the-movies-kbfw-sro-theaters/ about the radio station that shared the building with the Samish Drive In. I worked for SRO theater Division for some time in the 1980’s. They were a great company to work for. Pictures of the Drive In included.
I can answer some of the Eprad Sabre/Sword systems. I worked in the late 70’s at a drive in that had a Sabre and in the early 80’s at a XXX house with a Sword.
The Sabre was the simpler of the two systems, the projector and lamphouse were mounted on top of the Sabre, eliminating the traditional base. The entire film was mounted on a single large reel that was underneath the lamphouse, feed reel was on the left, takeup on the right. The reel was large enough to hold most double features. Film went through a series of rollers and twists from the underslung reel up to above the projector/soundhead which were of standard design and threaded normally. A few more rollers to the takeup reel. With this system, the projector had to to be threaded for each show and rewound after. Rewind could take place on the Sabre, no need to move the reels. It worked reasonably well. Both takeup and feed reels were fitted with reversable torque motors so that tension on the film remained low and constant throughout the reel. A single projector booth was possible.
The Sword was more complex and used two specially modified projectors. The Sword looked much like the Sabre in that both reels were underneath the projector/soundhead. The difference was that each machine could run in reverse at 10% faster than normal projection speed. At the XXX house, I was working there when the equipment was purchased and installed. The two brand new Century projectors and soundheads had to be shipped to the Eprad factory for modification. This consisted of a modified film gate with a dashpot attached that would open the gate for reverse operation and reversable, multispeed motors. Film was cued with tape in the normal manner. We always ran double features at the XXX house, Feature A would be on the #1 projector with the second feature on #2. At the end of the first feature, we cued the film to make a changeover to the #2 machine. As soon as the changeover happened, the #1 machine would stop and the dashpot would open the gate partially and it would run backwards through the projector at 10% faster than the normal 24FPS. When rewind was complete, the projector would stop with the film already threaded and ready to go.
We were an XXX grindhouse, open for 16 hours a day, 7 days a week. If we had a brand new print, it would last about a week before we would start to have film breaks at the splices. This was prior to the change to Polyester based film, everything was still acetate at the time. Film is like a rope in that it doesn’t push well, trying to have the intermittent sprocket push the film up through the partially open gate did not work well at all. We eventually gave up on the reverse operation and used it like a Sabre.
From the April 2nd, 1956 “Motion Picture Daily” the following news:
“Texas Rancher Adds Nine Theatres to His
Farms, Motel, Hotel, Store, Model School
Special to THE DAILY SEATTLE, April 1.— Peter Barnes, a Texas rancher who also operates six theatres in this area, has expanded his holdings with the purchase of nine theatres of the Columbia Basin circuit in Eastern Washington. His 15 theatres now comprise the largest independent circuit in that area.
The newly purchased theatres are the Lake, Ritz and Basin Drive-in at Moses Lake; the Lee and Marjo, Ephrata; Park-in Drive-in, near Soap Lake; the Lake, Soap Lake; Basin, Othello, and the Warden at Warden.
Barnes made his first investment in Washington 10 years ago when he
bought six theatres in Oroville, Chelan, Manson and Okanogan.
Besides his theatre interests, Barnes owns a motel at Chelan, Wash.; a date farm near Palm Springs, Cal.; a 1,400-acre farm in Canada; the Wasaga Beach Hotel on the coast of British Columbia; a department store in Ontario; a new home development in Vancouver, an interest in a modeling school in Seattle, a few Canadian theatres, as well as a large ranch near San Angelo, Tex.
People here wonder what he does with so much spare time."
The above theatres were owned by the Lee family prior to this. Moses Lake and the nearby towns mentioned above are served by the TV stations located in Spokane which went on the air in the early 1950’s. I wonder about the wisdom of buying theatres just after Television hit the same market.
SRO Theaters owned this D. I. The company also owned a number of bowling alleys and several radio stations on the west coast. In the 1970’s, KBFW (930 AM) had it’s studios and offices on the second floor of the snack bar building.
Sorry, Dennis. I don’t have any contact info for Doug.
A very late response to Gilbert Carney’s comment from 2006 about the 35/70 Norelco projectors. Yes, they (and the Ascraft lamps) did go to the King Theater in Seattle which was also a Walter Reade house. They were serial numbers 713 and 714. The King did not last long as a Walter Reade house, after the bankruptcy it sat empty for a time then was operated by General Cinema until 1992. I was projectionist at the King during mid 1980’s
Correcting my error above, A corner of the field was taken for the widening of I-90, not I-405. It can be seen at the lower center portion of the picture.
When this drive in was built, the two freeways shown were two lane roads. The theater was out in the country. U.S. Highway 10 became Interstate 90 running east and west, across the bridge shown at the top of the picture. What became Interstate 405 was State Highway 2A, running north and south. I was told by the projectionist working there at the time that when the two highways were rebuilt and enlarged in the late 1960’s, SRO theaters sued the State of Washington claiming that the lighting installed along the highways washed out the image on the screen. The State of Washington lost the case and was forced to pay for the installation of new brighter Xenon lamphouses to replace the original carbon arc lamps. A corner of the drive in field was taken for the widening of I-405.
I will also add the comment that SRO was a class act. I worked as a projectionist for them and for their competition as well. SRO ran the cleanest, nicest and best equipped theaters in the Seattle area in the 1970’s and into the 80’s. Things changed not too long after the sale to Cineplex.
Mostly in answer to Bob Jenson, Factoria was an unincorporated area just to the South of the City of Bellevue, WA. Mailing address for the drive in would have been Bellevue. It was owned and operated by SRO (Sterling Recreation Organization) until it was demolished and replaced by Factoria Cinemas. Locally owned SRO Theaters was sold to Cineplex/Odeon in December of 1986. SRO owned and operated theaters, bowling alleys, and radio stations throughout the Northwest. The company remains in business today as the “Sterling REALTY Organization” as a commercial property firm. Strip malls and business parks sit on the sites of some of the former theaters. Some sites were sold, SRO remains as the landlord of the others.
Was this GCC Unit #898? I worked as projectionist at #896, the King Cinema in Seattle, WA.
Dennis: Was that female DM’s name Linda D. by any chance? I worked for GCC from 1980 – 1995 and Linda was the one who hired me. Her office was in a converted windowless former storeroom beneath the projection booth for Cinema II-III.