Here is the Acme Theatre’s page at DocSouth’s Going to the Show collection. It operated from about 1914 to about 1928, and must have always been called the Acme.
vbridgers is correct. Now that we have a photo of the Wayne Theatre, it clearly was not in the old Acme building at all, but in the building that housed the Center Theatre and later the Variety Theatre.
A Three Stooges movie party hosted at the Circle Theatre by a local television personality rated an article with photo in the November 11, 1963, issue of Boxoffice.
Linkrot repair: A brief item about the opening of E.M. Loew’s West End Cinema appeared in Boxoffice of November 11, 1963 (lower right). The architect for the remodeling of the old Lancaster Theatre into the West End Cinema was William Riseman.
Williamson County, Illinois, Sesquicentennial History, edited by Stan J. Hale, says that the Plaza Theatre was originally a silent era movie house called the Family Theatre.
The Family Theatre was in operation by 1914, when the June 20 issue of The American Contractor ran this item about a remodeling job:
“Marion, O.—Motion Picture Theater (rem.): 2 sty. Archt. J. J. Sloan, 120 Jefferson St. Owner Family Theater, Hanley & Van Aspeck. Working drawings in progress.”
The Family Theatre was open only two nights a week when it was damaged by a fire in 1926. In 1928, Sunday services of a church burned in another fire were held at the Family Theatre for several months. I don’t know of the Family was closed for any length of time before being reborn as the Plaza, but I haven’t found any mention of it dating from later than 1928.
Vaudeville, Old and New by Frank Cullen lists the Orpheum Theatre at Marion as a Gus Sun House. Sun liked the name Orpheum and had several theaters of that name in his regional circuit, and was free to do so because nobody connected with the actual Orpheum circuit had ever trademarked the name.
I don’t think that the Marion Orpheum was ever part of Martin Beck’s Orpheum circuit. Most of that circuit’s houses were west of the Mississippi, and those that were east of it were in large cities such as Chicago and New York.
The 1909-1910 edition of Cahn’s guide lists the New Roland Theatre with 1,034 seats, but fails to mention if it is a ground floor house. It had a stage 65x25 feet with a 32x20 foot opening. C.F. Roland was the owner and manager.
bigjoe59: I don’t know of any other reserved seat engagements at the Wiltern, but it seems likely that there could have been a few. It is a big, palatial theater in a district that, until the late 1950s, still had a number of fairly posh neighborhoods nearby.
It’s likely that quite a few roadshows were hosted at theaters in downtown Los Angeles as well, but not in recent memory. The last hard ticket movie downtown that I know of was in the mid-1950s, when Todd-AO was installed in the United Artists Theatre and the house shared the reserved seat engagement of Oklahoma with the Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood. It ran five weeks exclusively at the Egyptian, then ran in both houses for 46 weeks, then an additional six weeks exclusively at the United Artists.
Blurry Google street view makes the signs unreadable, so I don’t know what is in the theater’s building now, but I don’t think the Ben Franklin store has been gone for too many years. This web page, probably outdated, still lists Clausen’s Ben Franklin Store at 411 E. La Salle Avenue. The Majestic’s address might have been a bit lower as it occupied only one of the two buildings that became the Ben Franklin store.
A newer postcard (link, probably unreliable) with cars from around 1960 shows that by then the Majestic and its neighboring building had been combined to house a Ben Franklin 5&10 Cent store. The theater must have closed in the 1950s.
A vintage postcard for sale on eBay (link, probably unreliable) shows the Majestic’s barely readable sign on the north side of La Salle Avenue just east of 4th Street.
Google’s Street View of the location shows a wide, single story building with a modern front, but satellite view shows that the facade covers two separate buildings. I suspect that the Majestic was in the left one, closer to 4th Street. From the postcard, it looks like this building once had a second floor and the building covered by the other half of the modern facade once had three floors. The entire space was probably gutted when the upper floors were removed.
This theater’s exact location on E. Main Street can never be known, as there is no Main Street in Barron. The town’s commercial district lies along E. La Salle Avenue. Google Maps, confused, has chosen to put the pin icon on East Main Street in Cameron, a town several miles east of Barron.
The photo on this web page shows damage suffered by the Jewel Theatre in The April 19. 1947, Texas City disaster.
The web site of the antique shop that now occupies the building says that it was built in 1948, but I’d guess that parts of the original structure were saved. I’m sure that the auditorium side wall and roof had to be rebuilt, but the front of the theater is pretty much the same as it was before.
Texas City, by Albert Mitchell, says that the Jewel was in operation by 1915.
vastor: the Hyde Park Theatre is listed in Eric Ledell Smith’s African American Theatre Buildings. It’s mentioned in a couple of books about African American music in Memphis, too, and apparently hosted frequent live performances.
Billboard Music Week of June 9, 1962, reported that the weekly KWAM country music show “Cotton Town Jubilee” had been moved from the Rosewood Theatre to the Hollywood Theatre.
A brief item about E. M. Loew’s Mohawk Theatre in North Adams appeared in the lower right corner of this page of the April 29, 1939, issue of Boxoffice. There is a photo showing one side wall of the auditorium as seen from the top of the balcony.
The item notes Mowll & Rand as architects, but attributes the decoration of the theater to William Riseman and someone named Alec Lercari (who I can’t find mentioned anywhere on the Itnernet, so perhaps it is a typo.)
I believe that the rendering of a proposed Vogue Theatre at Santa Rosa appearing in the upper right corner of this page of Boxoffice for April 29, 1939, depicts an early version of the house that eventually opened as the Tower Theatre.
Several of the comments on this theater’s page actually pertain to the later Rialto Theatre at 546 S. State Street, which took the name sometime after this house closed.
bigjoe59: The Chinese hosted some roadshow engagements other than West Side Story over the years, but the only ones I recall offhand were Hello Dolly and Windjammer. By the late 1950s, which is as far back as my personal experience of Hollywood Boulevard goes, roadshow engagements were much more likely to be booked at the Egyptian or the Pantages or even the Paramount (now El Capitan) than at the Chinese. The Warner Hollywood got all the Cinerama roadshows of course, until the Cinerama Dome opened.
Hard ticket engagements also took place at some theaters outside Hollywood, usually at houses on or near Wilshire Boulevard. The Carthay Circle was the most notable roadshow house outside Hollywood, but there were also quite a few hard ticket engagements at the Fox Wilshire and the Warner Beverly Hills, and even at a few smaller theaters.
According to David Welling’s Cinema Houston, The Prince Theatre was located at 320 Fannin Street, on the site of the Houston Theatre (originally Sweeney & Coombs Opera House), which had been destroyed by a fire. The Prince Theatre opened on September 24, 1908, with a play. It presented plays, vaudeville, and movies at various times, was briefly a Loew’s vaudeville house in the early 1920s, and in 1922 was leased to a stock company.
In the 1930s the theater was converted into a four-level parking garage. It was eventually demolished, but Welling doesn’t give the date. The building now on the site, the Harris County Administration Building, looks to date from the 1970s, but the theater might have been long gone by the time it was built.
None of the period sources I’ve found so far give the seating capacity, but it must have been a fairly large theater. Here is the announcement of the opening that was published in the October 10, 1908, issue of The Billboard:
“Most auspicious was the opening of the New Prince Theatre at Houston. Texas, on September 24. In the Land of Nod was the opening attraction, and pleased capacity business. The season of 1908-09 may be said to have commenced for Houston theatregoers.
“On entering the new auditorium, the first effect produced is a sense of clear spaciousness, and this impression deepens with further experience. The flooring of both balconies, and the steps of all the stairways throughout the building, are of concrete. The exits are numerous, wide and easy of access. The predominating colors in the auditorium’s furnishings are of dark green and cool gray, with a lavish use, as high lights, of brass bars and gold brush work. The paintings of figures and scenes, put in as ceiling and side wall frescoes, are all fittingly artistic.
“Mr. Dave Weis. formerly manager of the Grand. Galveston, Texas, is manager of the new theatre and Mr. Charles Brian is his assistant.
“The new theatre cost over $190,000, and is said to be one of the finest in the South.”
If this house was aka the Fox Merrill Theatre, the September 10, 1930, issue of The Film Daily reported that the circuit had closed it and that the building was to be used for a store.
The September 23, 1927, issue of The Film Daily said that George Mann expected his new State Theatre, under construction at Fort Bragg, to go into operation in November.
According to this item from the September 23, 1927, issue of The Film Daily, the Granada Theatre was built by the Skouras Borthers and Harry Koplar:
“New St. Louis House Named
“St. Louis — The Granada is the name selected for the theater at Gravois and Ellenwood Sts. which will be opened by the St. Louis Amusement Co. in a few weeks. The new house will seat about 2000 and will be among the largest of the outlying theaters operated by Skouras Bros, and Harry Koplar. It is planned to use this house for subsequent runs getting pictures immediately after the Missouri and Ambassador.”
Warner Bros. took over Skouras Brothers Enterprises in 1928. I don’t know when the Arthurs took over the Saint Louis Amusement Company.
Here is the Acme Theatre’s page at DocSouth’s Going to the Show collection. It operated from about 1914 to about 1928, and must have always been called the Acme.
vbridgers is correct. Now that we have a photo of the Wayne Theatre, it clearly was not in the old Acme building at all, but in the building that housed the Center Theatre and later the Variety Theatre.
A Three Stooges movie party hosted at the Circle Theatre by a local television personality rated an article with photo in the November 11, 1963, issue of Boxoffice.
Linkrot repair: A brief item about the opening of E.M. Loew’s West End Cinema appeared in Boxoffice of November 11, 1963 (lower right). The architect for the remodeling of the old Lancaster Theatre into the West End Cinema was William Riseman.
Williamson County, Illinois, Sesquicentennial History, edited by Stan J. Hale, says that the Plaza Theatre was originally a silent era movie house called the Family Theatre.
The Family Theatre was in operation by 1914, when the June 20 issue of The American Contractor ran this item about a remodeling job:
The Family Theatre was open only two nights a week when it was damaged by a fire in 1926. In 1928, Sunday services of a church burned in another fire were held at the Family Theatre for several months. I don’t know of the Family was closed for any length of time before being reborn as the Plaza, but I haven’t found any mention of it dating from later than 1928.Vaudeville, Old and New by Frank Cullen lists the Orpheum Theatre at Marion as a Gus Sun House. Sun liked the name Orpheum and had several theaters of that name in his regional circuit, and was free to do so because nobody connected with the actual Orpheum circuit had ever trademarked the name.
I don’t think that the Marion Orpheum was ever part of Martin Beck’s Orpheum circuit. Most of that circuit’s houses were west of the Mississippi, and those that were east of it were in large cities such as Chicago and New York.
This web page has several photos of the original Orpheum Theatre.
The 1909-1910 edition of Cahn’s guide lists the New Roland Theatre with 1,034 seats, but fails to mention if it is a ground floor house. It had a stage 65x25 feet with a 32x20 foot opening. C.F. Roland was the owner and manager.
bigjoe59: I don’t know of any other reserved seat engagements at the Wiltern, but it seems likely that there could have been a few. It is a big, palatial theater in a district that, until the late 1950s, still had a number of fairly posh neighborhoods nearby.
It’s likely that quite a few roadshows were hosted at theaters in downtown Los Angeles as well, but not in recent memory. The last hard ticket movie downtown that I know of was in the mid-1950s, when Todd-AO was installed in the United Artists Theatre and the house shared the reserved seat engagement of Oklahoma with the Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood. It ran five weeks exclusively at the Egyptian, then ran in both houses for 46 weeks, then an additional six weeks exclusively at the United Artists.
Blurry Google street view makes the signs unreadable, so I don’t know what is in the theater’s building now, but I don’t think the Ben Franklin store has been gone for too many years. This web page, probably outdated, still lists Clausen’s Ben Franklin Store at 411 E. La Salle Avenue. The Majestic’s address might have been a bit lower as it occupied only one of the two buildings that became the Ben Franklin store.
A newer postcard (link, probably unreliable) with cars from around 1960 shows that by then the Majestic and its neighboring building had been combined to house a Ben Franklin 5&10 Cent store. The theater must have closed in the 1950s.
A vintage postcard for sale on eBay (link, probably unreliable) shows the Majestic’s barely readable sign on the north side of La Salle Avenue just east of 4th Street.
Google’s Street View of the location shows a wide, single story building with a modern front, but satellite view shows that the facade covers two separate buildings. I suspect that the Majestic was in the left one, closer to 4th Street. From the postcard, it looks like this building once had a second floor and the building covered by the other half of the modern facade once had three floors. The entire space was probably gutted when the upper floors were removed.
This theater’s exact location on E. Main Street can never be known, as there is no Main Street in Barron. The town’s commercial district lies along E. La Salle Avenue. Google Maps, confused, has chosen to put the pin icon on East Main Street in Cameron, a town several miles east of Barron.
The photo on this web page shows damage suffered by the Jewel Theatre in The April 19. 1947, Texas City disaster.
The web site of the antique shop that now occupies the building says that it was built in 1948, but I’d guess that parts of the original structure were saved. I’m sure that the auditorium side wall and roof had to be rebuilt, but the front of the theater is pretty much the same as it was before.
Texas City, by Albert Mitchell, says that the Jewel was in operation by 1915.
vastor: the Hyde Park Theatre is listed in Eric Ledell Smith’s African American Theatre Buildings. It’s mentioned in a couple of books about African American music in Memphis, too, and apparently hosted frequent live performances.
Billboard Music Week of June 9, 1962, reported that the weekly KWAM country music show “Cotton Town Jubilee” had been moved from the Rosewood Theatre to the Hollywood Theatre.
A brief item about E. M. Loew’s Mohawk Theatre in North Adams appeared in the lower right corner of this page of the April 29, 1939, issue of Boxoffice. There is a photo showing one side wall of the auditorium as seen from the top of the balcony.
The item notes Mowll & Rand as architects, but attributes the decoration of the theater to William Riseman and someone named Alec Lercari (who I can’t find mentioned anywhere on the Itnernet, so perhaps it is a typo.)
I believe that the rendering of a proposed Vogue Theatre at Santa Rosa appearing in the upper right corner of this page of Boxoffice for April 29, 1939, depicts an early version of the house that eventually opened as the Tower Theatre.
The Boxoffice article Tinseltoes linked to earlier says that the Cherokee Theatre was designed by Corgan & Moore.
Several of the comments on this theater’s page actually pertain to the later Rialto Theatre at 546 S. State Street, which took the name sometime after this house closed.
bigjoe59: The Chinese hosted some roadshow engagements other than West Side Story over the years, but the only ones I recall offhand were Hello Dolly and Windjammer. By the late 1950s, which is as far back as my personal experience of Hollywood Boulevard goes, roadshow engagements were much more likely to be booked at the Egyptian or the Pantages or even the Paramount (now El Capitan) than at the Chinese. The Warner Hollywood got all the Cinerama roadshows of course, until the Cinerama Dome opened.
Hard ticket engagements also took place at some theaters outside Hollywood, usually at houses on or near Wilshire Boulevard. The Carthay Circle was the most notable roadshow house outside Hollywood, but there were also quite a few hard ticket engagements at the Fox Wilshire and the Warner Beverly Hills, and even at a few smaller theaters.
According to David Welling’s Cinema Houston, The Prince Theatre was located at 320 Fannin Street, on the site of the Houston Theatre (originally Sweeney & Coombs Opera House), which had been destroyed by a fire. The Prince Theatre opened on September 24, 1908, with a play. It presented plays, vaudeville, and movies at various times, was briefly a Loew’s vaudeville house in the early 1920s, and in 1922 was leased to a stock company.
In the 1930s the theater was converted into a four-level parking garage. It was eventually demolished, but Welling doesn’t give the date. The building now on the site, the Harris County Administration Building, looks to date from the 1970s, but the theater might have been long gone by the time it was built.
None of the period sources I’ve found so far give the seating capacity, but it must have been a fairly large theater. Here is the announcement of the opening that was published in the October 10, 1908, issue of The Billboard:
If this house was aka the Fox Merrill Theatre, the September 10, 1930, issue of The Film Daily reported that the circuit had closed it and that the building was to be used for a store.
The September 23, 1927, issue of The Film Daily said that George Mann expected his new State Theatre, under construction at Fort Bragg, to go into operation in November.
According to this item from the September 23, 1927, issue of The Film Daily, the Granada Theatre was built by the Skouras Borthers and Harry Koplar:
Warner Bros. took over Skouras Brothers Enterprises in 1928. I don’t know when the Arthurs took over the Saint Louis Amusement Company.