THE “PHANTOM” OF THE CENTRE
The ‘Grand’ opened as the Warner in 1931, but in the early 1970s before it was divided in two, it was known as the Centre, and it was then that there were reports by the audience of noises of someone moving about in the ceiling above the under-balcony seats (thus inside the huge balcony) and that a ghostly voice was heard calling out strange things to the audience below. These complaints led the manager of the theatre to determine that someone was walking about the theatre’s private areas unseen, and obviously uninvited. A night janitor later confirmed strange noises of movement within the attics high above. The police were called along with local TV station cameras and revealed the makeshift bed and toiletries of someone sleeping in the lobby’s attic space. It was the beginning of the modern homeless phenomenon and a ticket to a movie, if it were ever paid, was cheaper than even a flop house, and a lot safer, after all. The toiletries suggested to the police that the man had little opportunity to bathe since the theatre’s bathrooms were not really equipped for bathing. It is hard to believe that there were no locks on the access doors to such spaces, but the Warner was built in a more innocent day and age. Though the man was never found, the areas were now locked and no further reports of the “Phantom” were made.
Paradise it may have been for the audience at one time, but that was never the case for projectionists. What little air conditioning this theater had was not much, but none of it was in the projection room, and few guys alive today know of the heat that those old carbon arc film projectors gave off. In summer time the temperature in the room often exceeded 120 degrees! The guy running the two machines in the 80s got to the point that he stripped naked but for his shoes and ran the machines that way. One day the manager’s girlfriend had to bring a message up there from the office (the old intercom phone had expired long ago) and she walks in on the guy as he sits on the room’s toilet, there being no stall or curtain – it was all just guys when they designed the building. He said that she was the ‘modern’ type and just stood there in front of him taking in the sign while asking him if there was a reply. He gave her an unprintable ‘reply’ and told her to get out. She just laughed and pointed and slowly walked away. He told me that after that she always smirked at him when they saw one another, but he kept at least his jockey shorts on from then on regardless of how hot it got! Still want to be a projectionist?
Had a memorable experience here in the 70s when the projectionist invited me into the lower cinema’s projection room carved out of the last rows of seats on the main floor. While watching him start the film on the platters, an alarm went off in the room signaling trouble with the show in the upper cinema in the old balcony. So, up six flights of stairs and the balcony and then three flights up to the old projection room we raced, all out of breath. We came in to find the film piled in heaps on the floor, but the computer had stopped the platters before too much damage was done. The audience was all black for a black exploitation film and they were hollering something fierce and pounding on the projection room’s locked door. The projectionist said that he head better get the film fixed quick or the audience would start demolishing the theater (they had actually ripped seat frames from the floor bolts the last time, he said). He managed to splice the film and rethread it and pushed the ‘start’ button and the computer then dimmed the house lights, started the platters spinning and then the xenon light of the projector, and then opened the curtains. It ran for about ten seconds when an alarm sounded, the film stopped, the house lights came on slowly, and the curtains closed. The crowd shouted louder than before. He saw something wrong and adjusted the film and again pushed the start button, and the platters started spinning, the house lights dimmed, and the curtains started opening again. This time it ran well for about ten minutes when an alarm sounded from the lower booth and we raced downstairs while the upper audience glowered at us. It was the same thing there, but there were only about a dozen people in there for this matinee, so we didn’t panic as much. Then the alarm sounded for the upper theater again, and he cursed and started to SLOWLY go upstairs again. I decided that I didn’t want to see the spectacle again, and wished him good luck and left. He stayed on there for a while, so I guess he got it all fixed, without getting himself ‘fixed’.
One more note: the film I remember the most there was the 1956 “Forbidden Planet” with the flaming Id Monster over 50-feet high! I had nightmares for days. Also recall “The Thing” also in flames, and the flames of the burning mansion in “Elephant Walk” will always be with me as I recall the elephants as enormous on that giant screen as they pushed over the stone walls and then walked right through the mansion in flames. The small megaplex screens are no comparison today, and kids don’t know what they are missing. The outdoors didn’t have the grandeur of the Movie Palaces, but they had an atmosphere all their own! There was even a spacial fragrance of the surrounding country fields melding with gasoline vapors and cotton candy and popcorn form the concession stand, an unforgettable mix! I also know a former projectionist from there who one night during a thunderstorm saw BALL LIGHTNING jump from the incoming conduit from the speaker poles and bounce across the floor in the darkened room until it hit the water pipe on the sink and exploded into sparks as it grounded out on it, as he described it. I doubt that ever happened in an indoor theater!
a P.S. to the previous: I recall many summer evenings at the 41-Twin where my folks took us to usually the South screen (which meant that one faced north, of course) and recall the great times at the ‘Kiddie Land’ amusement area in front of the screen (which was the ‘drive under’ type as one entered past the ticket booth and drove inside (under) the spread base of the double sided screen and spiraled out to the western border as illuminated arrows showed where to turn as they directed one to the back of the lot.) The kiddie land had a merry go round, a slide, a small gasoline train that only ran if an attendant was there to take us on its four cars on a track looping the kiddie land inside its multi-color fence. I remember the refreshments ‘Timer’ that appeared on the screen with a cloying melody on the speakers (so many were left ‘on’ at full volume on the poles that you could hear the show from anywhere outside) and how I raced with my brother to the refreshments stand back in the middle of the lot to get something before the movie started again. When I was younger, I would fall asleep by the end of the first of the always double feature, but as I got older I managed to stay awake through both films, often sitting down at the base of a vacant speaker pole and watching the movies from there. It was difficult to see much of the screen from the back seat, looking between my parents' heads. It was mosquito time, but lots of stinky bug repellent helped for a while. It was the Fourth of July with fireworks there after dark and before the film which I especially enjoyed, this in the early 50s when the then village of Franklin and the town of Greenfield where I then lived, had no fireworks; had to go to Milwaukee parks to see them at the time. Still remember the smell of those summer evenings!
The AVALON was indeed called the GARDEN cinema in the 1960s and into the early ‘70s. The principal evidence of this, beyond the white plywood panels reading GARDEN affixed over the neon AVALON letters on the marquee, was the replacement of the blue horizon lights in the auditorium with black light fluorescent tubes atop the parapets to make glow the flowers newly painted on the walls – done in fluorescent 'day-glo’ colors. The effect was at least memorable, if not garish, as I recall. That was the Hippie era, after all. No doubt this was occasioned by the building inspector ordering the removal of the glycerin-preserved shrubbery since it could no longer be fireproofed after so many years of drying out up there. Thank goodness the glowing flowers and their black lights were removed, but unfortunately, the shrubbery was never replaced.
As of Oct. 2002, the owner of the theater since 1990, Avalon Investments, has sued the holders of the land contract since last April, Avalon Theatre and Apartments LLC, to void the contract and permit the theater to be sold at auction, saying the land contract’s would-be purchasers had not made monthly payments since July nor paid the utility bills. Anyone want to buy a theatre with six store fronts, and 19 small apartments?
The full story of these three theatres, all by noted architect Thomas Lamb, in 1912, is told in the issue of MARQUEE magazine of the Theatre Historical Soc., of Vol. 6, #2, Second Qtr., 1974. (www.HistoricTheatres.org) Many back issues are at the Avery library at Columbia University, as well as the Library of Congress and many others. The cover and three-page article contain five photos of the theatres. This entry should be cataloged under JAPANESE GARDENS THEATRE. The article is entitled: “The Hidden Garden Of Broadway” by the late Michael Miller.
The THEATRE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA (www.HistoricTheatres.org) has in its ARCHIVE (see the link by that name on their sidebar) many photos and much other information from the late Ben M. Hall’s collection. The ROXY was also notable for many interior innovations not mentioned in Mr. Gabel’s fine capsule description/history, such as the Carrillon or cathedral chimes, the triple stage elevators topped with a turntable allowing great stage dynamics, a full cyclorama, the ‘Silouhette Light,’ and much else to its claim to fame including a small Hospital room and nursery room for the kiddies in addition to a huge basement space of floors devoted to producing, as well as the Rehearsal Hall and Music Library rooms. It may not have been the most lavish (some say the San Francisco FOX took that honor) nor even as famous as the still-open CHINESE THEATRE in Los Angeles, but its record of innovation is secure and a found memory to those old enough to have seen it in life. Those young enough in spirit will see it recreated in their imaginations, from the springboards provided in the photos and materials at the THEATRE HISTORICAL SOCIETY in Elmhurst, Illinois, about 15 miles west of Chicago. Their MARQUEE magazine has had several articles pertaining to the ROXY.
The venerable, designated National Landmark theater, the PABST, will from now on be referred to by only that name.
Further aiding the usefulness of the Pabst, is the fact that it has one of the most versatile rigging systems on its stage still found in the United States and is truly state-of-the-art. Not only does it contain the modern electronically controlled motorized rigging, but it is probably the last theatre to feature the historic but little known “Kniclelbein Rigging System.” This is the story of that system:
THE KNICLELBEIN PARADIGM
The Pabst may not have been the equal of the London HIPPODROME, but it along with a few other theatres around the nation it did benefit from an invention of a Milwaukee man by the name of Gustav E. Knickelbein, (1867 – 1941). Born in Chicago, he was brought to Milwaukee in infancy and grew up around the old Academy of Music where he became acquainted with the stage crew there and learned the craft. After years of experience, he noticed that the hemp rope system of rigging to lift scenery were so cumbersome that it was often dangerous to the flymen and others on the stage crews, so he devised a way to eliminate the sand bag counterweights then common to newer theatres which had supplanted the old ‘sliding slots’ method of scenery movement. This invention garnered him a patent for “Scene Shifting Apparatus,” patent No. 1,241,637, dated October 2, 1917, over a year after he applied for it. It consisted of a way of attaching the increasingly popular ‘permanent counterweight systems’ that used steel cables attached to sliding frames (arbors) holding lead weights to counter the weight of the scenery or whatever was on the opposite ends of the steel cables. Such systems enabled the lifting of much more weight faster than the old rope system, but it was a fixed system too rigid for the flexibility of positioning needed in modern stagecraft. Enter ‘Gus’ with his new way of connecting the permanent counterweights to the ropes positioned anywhere on the gridiron, and the resulting patent was issued while he was in charge at the Palace. He earlier perfected his ideas at other Milwaukee theatres such as the Academy, the Bijou, the Majestic, and the Pabst, but his employers, the Orpheum Vaudeville circuit, saw his genius and made him “boss man” in regard to rigging their new theatres in such cities as New York, Chicago, St. Louis, and Winnipeg, but he always loved his home town and returned here where he last worked at the Davidson, which ended its days in 1954. His legacy lives on only at the Pabst, as far as is known, where it provides that National Historic Landmark theater one more claim to fame and history.
The Brooklyn FOX is an example of the adaptation of the GOTHIC style of decor, which was little used in theatres. The identical theatres that Mr. McQuade refers to are not Gothic, by “Siamese-Byzantine” if one is to accept the description of them by the late author of that seminal book: “The Best Remaining Seats: The Story of the Golden Age of the Movie Palace” (1961). This is an example of why CinemaTreasures should allow a write-in box that works for the many styles/types not listed in the drop down box. The Theatre Historical Soc. of America did an entire ANNUAL on this theatre with dozens of sharp photos and story. Order it from their web site at www.HistoricTheatres.org
The South County (or CINEMA South County as the generic sign was supposed to read) CINEMA was one of a series of such cinemas designed by Maurice D. Sornick of Massapequa Park, NY in the early ‘60s. The others known were the BIG TOWN CINEMA, Mesquite Texas, the CINEMA WESTLANE (which ended its days as the SOUTHTOWN 5&6) in West Allis (Milwaukee), Wis., and the NORTHLAND CINEMA, Jennings, MO., as mentioned above. A unique item of decor ties all these together aside from their structural duplication: the use of the then new abstract plastic grillework called “Sculpta-Grille”, a design by sculptor Richard Harvey, of the Harvey Design Workshop, Lynbrook, LI, NY. The pattern of the 40-ft. wide by 10-ft high wall of grillework on the lobby mezzanine was called “#C-10 Contemporary” and resembled nothing so much as “dinosaur bones” as they were called in the Milwaukee area CINEMA. Further information may be had about such grillework from the Theatre Historical Society of America (www.HistoricTheatres.org), in Elmhurst, ILL.
The story of the fabulous, but long-lost Chicago PARADISE THEATRE is correctly told in the ANNUAL of 1977 of the Theatre Historical Society of America, titled: “The PARADISE THEATRE, Crawford near Washington, Chicago, Illinois” by Joseph DuciBella, past president of the Society. The 38-page, 8-1/2x11 long format booklet features dozens of black and white photos plus drawings of the theatre, one of John Eberson’s very best. It opened the same month as the equally famous PARADISE in the Bronx, NY, but that house still stands. The Annual can be purchased for $12.50 plus shipping from the Society under the sidebar: PUBLICATIONS: ANNUALS > Ordering Information, at: www.HistoricTheatres.org. There was even an ad in “Signs of the Times” magazine of November 1928, page 59 that shows the front facade in a photo describing its 4,692 light bulbs on one of the vary largest marquees in the world, the 10,772 total light bulbs on the marquee being animated by ‘Hotchkiss Silent Flasher’ made jus north of Chicago in Milwaukee by the Cramblet Engineering Corp. The used a strip of mercury switches riding on a series of cams turned by a motor to spell out the PARADIS*E letters and to sequence the rise of the sunrise design of colored lights to light from bottom to top in order. Such sequencing is now done electronically, but in those days, the mercury switch was new in this application. Such devices plus contactors and transformers were what was contained in those large boxes often seen built on the top of the marquee out of sight of the ground.
There is a wealth of information on the fabulous PARADISE in the Bronx in the Annual of 1975 of the Theatre Histrorical Society of America, titled: “Loew’s PARADISE In The Bronx” by the late Michael Miller, past president of the Society. It is 32 pages in length, 8-1/2x11 long format, with 16 black and white photos of the theatre plus many drawings and a portrait photo of its architect: John Eberson. It can be had for $12.50 plus shipping from the society. Details under their sidebar: PUBLICATIONS: ANNUALS> Ordering Information, at: www.HistoricTheatres.org. There is also a nice color rendering of its auditorium in that seminal work in the field: “The Best Remaining Seats: The Story of the Golden Age of the Movie Palace” by the late Ben M. Hall. Out of print, but www.Amazon.com may be able to locate a copy for you. Only the FIRST edition of the book has that color plate, but it is also in another collectable: the hardbound issue of defunct “American Heritage” magazine of October 1961, still to be found at many collector’s and old books stores. The PARADISE is a fabulous super movie palace still standing, and was (along with the Chicago PARADISE THEATRE), the cause of the spread of that name to many structures of lesser stature. Do order the Annual while it is still available, for it may not be reprinted again.
Last friday, April 26, 2002, the mayor of Milwaukee took the stage of the PABST and signed the Common Council resolution transmitting the theater to the Michael Cudahy Foundation. So the sale is official now, with the city scheduled to relinquish payments and control by November when it will become fully privately owned for the first time since 1960. The ‘wedding feast’ was wonderful and all went away happy for the new ‘couple’ and toasting their successful future.
Of course, if the name here were properly spelled it would be: ‘Kingdom Hall of Jehovah’s Witnesses’ (the name is a plural possessive). The Witnesses have remodeled many theatres around the country, including the former BLISS in Greenpoint (Woodside, Long Island) NY and the former STANLEY in Jersey City, NJ., among others. This entry should really be under its theatre name: ALBERMARLE since that is how those interested in it will look for it, or at least cross-index it under that name.
Interestingly, the photo here shows the upper facade of the white terra cotta MAJESTIC office building, and also the brown building to the left is the adjacent MERRILL office building (razed in 1935) which was like the MAJESTIC: the box office/lobby portion of the MERRILL theatre was through it, with the auditorium behind it, the shell of which still stands as a bank building as part of the Grand Avenue mall. If one gets permission, he can go to the attic and see the original steel gridiron and the rigging sheaves and blocks still up there.
The MAJESTIC theater was a 1908 vaudeville house with its auditorium at right angle behind its 14-story MAJESTIC office building. The box office and lobby occupied the center bay of the office building and one proceeded through it to the white marble foyer of the auditorium behind, unless one went to the gallery in which case he had to use the declasse gallery box office and staircase off the alley. The center of the gallery rail was occupied by a half circle projection on which was placed the incandescent follow spotlight with its six-color revolving light filters. In the auditorium one found 1900 some seats in a wide house with six boxes on each side of the stage with curving fronts enriched with gilded fruit festoon moldings. Bentwood chairs with padded seats filled each box, each of which was draped in a simple rectangle of a fringed lambrequin. Three levels of leather seats faced a spacious stage the arch of which was adorned with molded festoons and Greek key designs. The switchboard backstage was the old marble-faced type, but the double row of footlights and other abundant lighting was adequately served, and the fully rigged wood-covered concrete stage saw use for much Vaudeville until 1930.The 20 dressing rooms served by a back stage elevator were complemented by the cellar under the alley for keeping the animal acts.
Orpheum vaudeville made frequent use of this theatre until they commissioned the architects who designed it, Kirchoff & Rose of Milwaukee, to create a much larger and fancier venue just a block eastward in 1928: the RIVERSIDE theatre. The MAJESTIC may have been glamorous 20 years earlier, but the movie palaces coming upon the scene with their elaborate decors and stages suitable also for vaudeville, made the MAJESTIC look like an unadorned old dowager. It struggled with hastily installed movies for two more years before it was demolished to become a parking lot for the very office building in front of it! That office building still stands as part of the Grand Avenue mall, but the theatre is long forgotten but for an old timer I met on the street one day who had a tear in his eye as he recalled the many years of his youth when he had enjoyed shows in the once MAJESTIC.
I became interested in the name TIVOLI when I worked at a Milwaukee area hotel which had a restaurant with this name; they had no idea where the name came from, so I did some research, especially since it had also become the name of a number of theatres. It was popularized in the 19th century by the famous Tivoli amusement park and gardens in Copenhagen, Denmark founded in 1843 in imitation of the famous gardens and palaces of the Italian ruling princes of the 16th century, the Estes, who built the famed Villa d'Este palace in the region of Tivoli, a popular tourist attraction to this day. Thus, the pleasure-assuring name was thought auspicious by the developers of theatres, theatres being the pleasure palaces of the masses of their day.
This is akin to the common theatre name: RIALTO, for the famous enclosed Rialto bridge of 1591 in Venice, Italy over the Grand Canal, which to this day contains many amusing boutiques and is at the heart of an entertainment district. The distinctive architecture of the Rialto bridge also inspired many latter day architects, and perhaps found its forms reproduced in some movie palaces. A monograph on the origin of theatre names was presented at the 1981 Conclave of the Theatre Historical Society of America then meeting at the PABST theater in Milwaukee, but the origins of the above names and others were not known by the author of that paper. Perhaps this will add a little bit to that quest.
I became interested in the name TIVOLI when I worked at a Milwaukee area hotel which had a restaurant with this name; they had no idea where the name came from, so I did some research, especially since it had also become the name of a number of theatres. It was popularized in the 19th century by the famous Tivoli amusement park and gardens in Copenhagen, Denmark founded in 1843 in imitation of the famous gardens and palaces of the Italian ruling princes of the 16th century, the Estes, who built the famed Villa d'Este palace in the region of Tivoli, a popular tourist attraction to this day. Thus, the pleasure-assuring name was thought auspicious by the developers of theatres, theatres being the pleasure palaces of the masses of their day.
This is akin to the common theatre name: RIALTO, for the famous enclosed Rialto bridge of 1591 in Venice, Italy over the Grand Canal, which to this day contains many amusing boutiques and is at the heart of an entertainment district. The distinctive architecture of the Rialto bridge also inspired many latter day architects, and perhaps found its forms reproduced in some movie palaces. A monograph on the origin of theatre names was presented at the 1981 Conclave of the Theatre Historical Society of America then meeting at the PABST theater in Milwaukee, but the origins of the above names and others were not known by the author of that paper. Perhaps this will add a little bit to that quest.
I became interested in the name TIVOLI when I worked at a Milwaukee area hotel which had a restaurant with this name; they had no idea where the name came from, so I did some research, especially since it had also become the name of a number of theatres. It was popularized in the 19th century by the famous Tivoli amusement park and gardens in Copenhagen, Denmark founded in 1843 in imitation of the famous gardens and palaces of the Italian ruling princes of the 16th century, the Estes, who built the famed Villa d'Este palace in the region of Tivoli, a popular tourist attraction to this day. Thus, the pleasure-assuring name was thought auspicious by the developers of theatres, theatres being the pleasure palaces of the masses of their day.
This is akin to the common theatre name: RIALTO, for the famous enclosed Rialto bridge of 1591 in Venice, Italy over the Grand Canal, which to this day contains many amusing boutiques and is at the heart of an entertainment district. The distinctive architecture of the Rialto bridge also inspired many latter day architects, and perhaps found its forms reproduced in some movie palaces. A monograph on the origin of theatre names was presented at the 1981 Conclave of the Theatre Historical Society of America then meeting at the PABST theater in Milwaukee, but the origins of the above names and others were not known by the author of that paper. Perhaps this will add a little bit to that quest.
Some additional notes: The odd name is the result of being on the border between two suburbs: Fox Point and Whitefish Bay. The reference to the VARSITY in the previous comment can be verified by going to th issue of Sept. 1938 of the “Architectural Record” pages 51-54., and the “Theatre Catalog” mentioned can be seen at the Archive of the THEATRE HISTORICAL SOCIETY in Elmhurst, Ill. (www.historictheatres.org). The CRYSTAL mentioned can be seen in a photo in “Milwaukee Movie Palaces” a 1986 book by Larry Widen. The future of the Fox-Bay is the more in doubt because it is in a swank neighborhood and in a classy limestone building with curved glass block corners with eight stores, and offices on the second floor above them, so it is quite possible for the local real estate investor who owns the building to convert it to other uses, such as the foretold Barnes & Noble book store which was interested in the space, so let’s hope as a multiplex it will prove profitable. The architects were Ebling, Plunkett & Keymar of Milwaukee.
This is an unusual Streamlined style of cinema with a one line stage having a 6-point suspension contour curtain in red velvet, possibly the only such left in town. When this 988-seater opened in 1951 it was the first of its style in the metro area at 334 E. Silver Spring Dr., Whitefish Bay (this is a northern suburb of Milwaukee). The VARSITY in central Milwaukee had some of the flavor of this design, but not the sculpted, stylized nautical theme projections from the upper walls, nor the stadium-style balcony where one can enter it from the auditorium floor as well as the lobby. One exits the auditorium through light traps with no doors, so sound control can be a problem. The lobby, however, is a gracious curving design with giant showcases a la the adjacent store fronts to hold the posters, etc. The 1952 issue of “Theatre Catalog” had a 2-page photo story on the opening of this then unusual suburban design. Milwaukee’s Pobocki sign company made their patented ‘Inside Service’ marquee where one goes above the lobby, above the upswept canopy and opens a door into the interior of the sign to change the letters on the boards from behind: a real blessing in our snowy, icy winters. The theatre was divided into three screens a few years ago, and a newspaper item on Aug. 22 of ‘99 said that it was the first dinner theatre in the area; how little research was done for that story! In the 30s the CRYSTAL was converted to dinner seating and the tradition of the German Beer Gardens here meant that some form of entertainment with food was as old as the city. A limited menu is served today, and this is one of the few theatres in the city with a liquor license. Two of the three screening rooms are up in the old balcony, while the main floor remains essentially as it has been. The eight 'chandeliers’ there are flattened bowl up-lights suspended up in the attic by clothes line (!) to lower each fixture manually. Theatres were often a mixture of high and low tech to keep costs down, and this is a prime example!
About those “dozen life-size Buddahs”: there were and are only six such gilded larger-than-life seated Buddahs, three on each auditorium side wall in niches with multifoil arched tops. Each one has a light inside the turbaned head which illuminates a red jewel diadem in the forehead and the slits of the downcast eyes in nile green. In front of each is a simulated incense burner which actually contains a hidden up-light cast upon the Buddah above. There is also a hidden row of floodlights in the three house lights colors (red, blue and yellow) which is supposed to light the figures and their background behind the dark red drapery, but they are very inaccessible and rarely work. The lighting effects are one of the prime features in such a themed theatre, and it even extends to the green glass eyes of the “eeahlees” (Hindustani for “baboon monsters”), 26 of which line the upper cove rim on all four sides, and it would be nice if this long-failed feature were to be restored, but since 1950s air conditioning ducts were placed in the attic behind their access ports, it is very difficult to relamp them. I offered a detailed method to use modern low voltage discs of L.E.D.s to be mounted upon each eye since they would never ‘burn out’, but costs apparently sunk that idea. These days it is enough to keep the general lights on, much less have money for improvements.
It should be noted that even though the theatre has been split into three screens, two of them are in the old seating space under the balcony, so the center aisle of the original seating is preserved, and the two new screening rooms are decorated so as to blend into the exotic decor, and not too much was lost. Architect Joseph Valerio of Chicago designed the two spaces to be easily removable in case the ORIENTAL is ever restored. And while the theatre is certainly one of the “most exotic and ornate” in the nation, it was not the only such in Milw.; from 1927 through the 1960s their EGYPTIAN featured a wonderful design recently recreated on the cover of “MARQUEE” magazine of the Theatre Historical Society of America, and had the planned ARABIA theatre ever been built, the ORIENTAL would certainly have had more competition to the title of most exotic in Milw.
The description and facts listed for the ORIENTAL contain a number of errors, so much so that it may seem as though I am speaking of another theatre, but, no, there is only one ORIENTAL in Milw. but it is not and never was an ‘Atmospheric’. That term is not used in a general sense in writings such as this, but in the specialized jargon of the Movie Palace where they were originally either “Standard” (‘hard top’) in emulating a regular theatre but usually to a theme decor, or they were “Atmospheric” which meant that the ceiling of at least the auditorium was fashioned as a sky vault complete with twinkling stars (tiny light bulbs). The giant ornamented, red and gold ventilator grille smack in the middle of the ceiling clearly shows that it was not a sky vault, but merely the blue painted dome above the two levels of ornamental cove lights below it. Neither were there “a dozen life-size Buddahs” nor “100 lions”. There were just eight unique porcelain lions-of-the-temple glazed in black with metallic gold, red and blue accents. There were nearly 100 elephants if one counts all their sculpted and painted occurances, but the theatre was no menagerie unlike certain other oriental theatres in the nation. And contrary to the writer’s description of the theatre as: “Chinese-meets-East Indian”, the ORIENTAL in Milw. was unique in being the only solely East Indian decor in the nation, there not being a hint of Chinese or Japanese, the two themes usually characterized as ‘oriental’. There is indeed a trio of chandeliers in the exotic lobby, but they are NOT inspired by Tiffany, even though he probably would have approved of them had he ever seen them. To have stained glass in a fixture does not mean it is ‘Tiffany’, and these three do contain slumped glass in marbled honey gold as well as cobalt blue. The elaborate and unique design was done in Milw. by Gezelschap & Co. and are in polished brass over a steel frame with candoliers supported by brass elephants painted in white with accenting colors.
THE “PHANTOM” OF THE CENTRE
The ‘Grand’ opened as the Warner in 1931, but in the early 1970s before it was divided in two, it was known as the Centre, and it was then that there were reports by the audience of noises of someone moving about in the ceiling above the under-balcony seats (thus inside the huge balcony) and that a ghostly voice was heard calling out strange things to the audience below. These complaints led the manager of the theatre to determine that someone was walking about the theatre’s private areas unseen, and obviously uninvited. A night janitor later confirmed strange noises of movement within the attics high above. The police were called along with local TV station cameras and revealed the makeshift bed and toiletries of someone sleeping in the lobby’s attic space. It was the beginning of the modern homeless phenomenon and a ticket to a movie, if it were ever paid, was cheaper than even a flop house, and a lot safer, after all. The toiletries suggested to the police that the man had little opportunity to bathe since the theatre’s bathrooms were not really equipped for bathing. It is hard to believe that there were no locks on the access doors to such spaces, but the Warner was built in a more innocent day and age. Though the man was never found, the areas were now locked and no further reports of the “Phantom” were made.
Paradise it may have been for the audience at one time, but that was never the case for projectionists. What little air conditioning this theater had was not much, but none of it was in the projection room, and few guys alive today know of the heat that those old carbon arc film projectors gave off. In summer time the temperature in the room often exceeded 120 degrees! The guy running the two machines in the 80s got to the point that he stripped naked but for his shoes and ran the machines that way. One day the manager’s girlfriend had to bring a message up there from the office (the old intercom phone had expired long ago) and she walks in on the guy as he sits on the room’s toilet, there being no stall or curtain – it was all just guys when they designed the building. He said that she was the ‘modern’ type and just stood there in front of him taking in the sign while asking him if there was a reply. He gave her an unprintable ‘reply’ and told her to get out. She just laughed and pointed and slowly walked away. He told me that after that she always smirked at him when they saw one another, but he kept at least his jockey shorts on from then on regardless of how hot it got! Still want to be a projectionist?
Had a memorable experience here in the 70s when the projectionist invited me into the lower cinema’s projection room carved out of the last rows of seats on the main floor. While watching him start the film on the platters, an alarm went off in the room signaling trouble with the show in the upper cinema in the old balcony. So, up six flights of stairs and the balcony and then three flights up to the old projection room we raced, all out of breath. We came in to find the film piled in heaps on the floor, but the computer had stopped the platters before too much damage was done. The audience was all black for a black exploitation film and they were hollering something fierce and pounding on the projection room’s locked door. The projectionist said that he head better get the film fixed quick or the audience would start demolishing the theater (they had actually ripped seat frames from the floor bolts the last time, he said). He managed to splice the film and rethread it and pushed the ‘start’ button and the computer then dimmed the house lights, started the platters spinning and then the xenon light of the projector, and then opened the curtains. It ran for about ten seconds when an alarm sounded, the film stopped, the house lights came on slowly, and the curtains closed. The crowd shouted louder than before. He saw something wrong and adjusted the film and again pushed the start button, and the platters started spinning, the house lights dimmed, and the curtains started opening again. This time it ran well for about ten minutes when an alarm sounded from the lower booth and we raced downstairs while the upper audience glowered at us. It was the same thing there, but there were only about a dozen people in there for this matinee, so we didn’t panic as much. Then the alarm sounded for the upper theater again, and he cursed and started to SLOWLY go upstairs again. I decided that I didn’t want to see the spectacle again, and wished him good luck and left. He stayed on there for a while, so I guess he got it all fixed, without getting himself ‘fixed’.
One more note: the film I remember the most there was the 1956 “Forbidden Planet” with the flaming Id Monster over 50-feet high! I had nightmares for days. Also recall “The Thing” also in flames, and the flames of the burning mansion in “Elephant Walk” will always be with me as I recall the elephants as enormous on that giant screen as they pushed over the stone walls and then walked right through the mansion in flames. The small megaplex screens are no comparison today, and kids don’t know what they are missing. The outdoors didn’t have the grandeur of the Movie Palaces, but they had an atmosphere all their own! There was even a spacial fragrance of the surrounding country fields melding with gasoline vapors and cotton candy and popcorn form the concession stand, an unforgettable mix! I also know a former projectionist from there who one night during a thunderstorm saw BALL LIGHTNING jump from the incoming conduit from the speaker poles and bounce across the floor in the darkened room until it hit the water pipe on the sink and exploded into sparks as it grounded out on it, as he described it. I doubt that ever happened in an indoor theater!
a P.S. to the previous: I recall many summer evenings at the 41-Twin where my folks took us to usually the South screen (which meant that one faced north, of course) and recall the great times at the ‘Kiddie Land’ amusement area in front of the screen (which was the ‘drive under’ type as one entered past the ticket booth and drove inside (under) the spread base of the double sided screen and spiraled out to the western border as illuminated arrows showed where to turn as they directed one to the back of the lot.) The kiddie land had a merry go round, a slide, a small gasoline train that only ran if an attendant was there to take us on its four cars on a track looping the kiddie land inside its multi-color fence. I remember the refreshments ‘Timer’ that appeared on the screen with a cloying melody on the speakers (so many were left ‘on’ at full volume on the poles that you could hear the show from anywhere outside) and how I raced with my brother to the refreshments stand back in the middle of the lot to get something before the movie started again. When I was younger, I would fall asleep by the end of the first of the always double feature, but as I got older I managed to stay awake through both films, often sitting down at the base of a vacant speaker pole and watching the movies from there. It was difficult to see much of the screen from the back seat, looking between my parents' heads. It was mosquito time, but lots of stinky bug repellent helped for a while. It was the Fourth of July with fireworks there after dark and before the film which I especially enjoyed, this in the early 50s when the then village of Franklin and the town of Greenfield where I then lived, had no fireworks; had to go to Milwaukee parks to see them at the time. Still remember the smell of those summer evenings!
This was the last outdoor in the Milwaukee area (Franklin is a southern suburb on Milwaukee’s border).
The AVALON was indeed called the GARDEN cinema in the 1960s and into the early ‘70s. The principal evidence of this, beyond the white plywood panels reading GARDEN affixed over the neon AVALON letters on the marquee, was the replacement of the blue horizon lights in the auditorium with black light fluorescent tubes atop the parapets to make glow the flowers newly painted on the walls – done in fluorescent 'day-glo’ colors. The effect was at least memorable, if not garish, as I recall. That was the Hippie era, after all. No doubt this was occasioned by the building inspector ordering the removal of the glycerin-preserved shrubbery since it could no longer be fireproofed after so many years of drying out up there. Thank goodness the glowing flowers and their black lights were removed, but unfortunately, the shrubbery was never replaced.
As of Oct. 2002, the owner of the theater since 1990, Avalon Investments, has sued the holders of the land contract since last April, Avalon Theatre and Apartments LLC, to void the contract and permit the theater to be sold at auction, saying the land contract’s would-be purchasers had not made monthly payments since July nor paid the utility bills. Anyone want to buy a theatre with six store fronts, and 19 small apartments?
The full story of these three theatres, all by noted architect Thomas Lamb, in 1912, is told in the issue of MARQUEE magazine of the Theatre Historical Soc., of Vol. 6, #2, Second Qtr., 1974. (www.HistoricTheatres.org) Many back issues are at the Avery library at Columbia University, as well as the Library of Congress and many others. The cover and three-page article contain five photos of the theatres. This entry should be cataloged under JAPANESE GARDENS THEATRE. The article is entitled: “The Hidden Garden Of Broadway” by the late Michael Miller.
The THEATRE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA (www.HistoricTheatres.org) has in its ARCHIVE (see the link by that name on their sidebar) many photos and much other information from the late Ben M. Hall’s collection. The ROXY was also notable for many interior innovations not mentioned in Mr. Gabel’s fine capsule description/history, such as the Carrillon or cathedral chimes, the triple stage elevators topped with a turntable allowing great stage dynamics, a full cyclorama, the ‘Silouhette Light,’ and much else to its claim to fame including a small Hospital room and nursery room for the kiddies in addition to a huge basement space of floors devoted to producing, as well as the Rehearsal Hall and Music Library rooms. It may not have been the most lavish (some say the San Francisco FOX took that honor) nor even as famous as the still-open CHINESE THEATRE in Los Angeles, but its record of innovation is secure and a found memory to those old enough to have seen it in life. Those young enough in spirit will see it recreated in their imaginations, from the springboards provided in the photos and materials at the THEATRE HISTORICAL SOCIETY in Elmhurst, Illinois, about 15 miles west of Chicago. Their MARQUEE magazine has had several articles pertaining to the ROXY.
The venerable, designated National Landmark theater, the PABST, will from now on be referred to by only that name.
Further aiding the usefulness of the Pabst, is the fact that it has one of the most versatile rigging systems on its stage still found in the United States and is truly state-of-the-art. Not only does it contain the modern electronically controlled motorized rigging, but it is probably the last theatre to feature the historic but little known “Kniclelbein Rigging System.” This is the story of that system:
THE KNICLELBEIN PARADIGM
The Pabst may not have been the equal of the London HIPPODROME, but it along with a few other theatres around the nation it did benefit from an invention of a Milwaukee man by the name of Gustav E. Knickelbein, (1867 – 1941). Born in Chicago, he was brought to Milwaukee in infancy and grew up around the old Academy of Music where he became acquainted with the stage crew there and learned the craft. After years of experience, he noticed that the hemp rope system of rigging to lift scenery were so cumbersome that it was often dangerous to the flymen and others on the stage crews, so he devised a way to eliminate the sand bag counterweights then common to newer theatres which had supplanted the old ‘sliding slots’ method of scenery movement. This invention garnered him a patent for “Scene Shifting Apparatus,” patent No. 1,241,637, dated October 2, 1917, over a year after he applied for it. It consisted of a way of attaching the increasingly popular ‘permanent counterweight systems’ that used steel cables attached to sliding frames (arbors) holding lead weights to counter the weight of the scenery or whatever was on the opposite ends of the steel cables. Such systems enabled the lifting of much more weight faster than the old rope system, but it was a fixed system too rigid for the flexibility of positioning needed in modern stagecraft. Enter ‘Gus’ with his new way of connecting the permanent counterweights to the ropes positioned anywhere on the gridiron, and the resulting patent was issued while he was in charge at the Palace. He earlier perfected his ideas at other Milwaukee theatres such as the Academy, the Bijou, the Majestic, and the Pabst, but his employers, the Orpheum Vaudeville circuit, saw his genius and made him “boss man” in regard to rigging their new theatres in such cities as New York, Chicago, St. Louis, and Winnipeg, but he always loved his home town and returned here where he last worked at the Davidson, which ended its days in 1954. His legacy lives on only at the Pabst, as far as is known, where it provides that National Historic Landmark theater one more claim to fame and history.
The Brooklyn FOX is an example of the adaptation of the GOTHIC style of decor, which was little used in theatres. The identical theatres that Mr. McQuade refers to are not Gothic, by “Siamese-Byzantine” if one is to accept the description of them by the late author of that seminal book: “The Best Remaining Seats: The Story of the Golden Age of the Movie Palace” (1961). This is an example of why CinemaTreasures should allow a write-in box that works for the many styles/types not listed in the drop down box. The Theatre Historical Soc. of America did an entire ANNUAL on this theatre with dozens of sharp photos and story. Order it from their web site at www.HistoricTheatres.org
The South County (or CINEMA South County as the generic sign was supposed to read) CINEMA was one of a series of such cinemas designed by Maurice D. Sornick of Massapequa Park, NY in the early ‘60s. The others known were the BIG TOWN CINEMA, Mesquite Texas, the CINEMA WESTLANE (which ended its days as the SOUTHTOWN 5&6) in West Allis (Milwaukee), Wis., and the NORTHLAND CINEMA, Jennings, MO., as mentioned above. A unique item of decor ties all these together aside from their structural duplication: the use of the then new abstract plastic grillework called “Sculpta-Grille”, a design by sculptor Richard Harvey, of the Harvey Design Workshop, Lynbrook, LI, NY. The pattern of the 40-ft. wide by 10-ft high wall of grillework on the lobby mezzanine was called “#C-10 Contemporary” and resembled nothing so much as “dinosaur bones” as they were called in the Milwaukee area CINEMA. Further information may be had about such grillework from the Theatre Historical Society of America (www.HistoricTheatres.org), in Elmhurst, ILL.
The story of the fabulous, but long-lost Chicago PARADISE THEATRE is correctly told in the ANNUAL of 1977 of the Theatre Historical Society of America, titled: “The PARADISE THEATRE, Crawford near Washington, Chicago, Illinois” by Joseph DuciBella, past president of the Society. The 38-page, 8-1/2x11 long format booklet features dozens of black and white photos plus drawings of the theatre, one of John Eberson’s very best. It opened the same month as the equally famous PARADISE in the Bronx, NY, but that house still stands. The Annual can be purchased for $12.50 plus shipping from the Society under the sidebar: PUBLICATIONS: ANNUALS > Ordering Information, at: www.HistoricTheatres.org. There was even an ad in “Signs of the Times” magazine of November 1928, page 59 that shows the front facade in a photo describing its 4,692 light bulbs on one of the vary largest marquees in the world, the 10,772 total light bulbs on the marquee being animated by ‘Hotchkiss Silent Flasher’ made jus north of Chicago in Milwaukee by the Cramblet Engineering Corp. The used a strip of mercury switches riding on a series of cams turned by a motor to spell out the PARADIS*E letters and to sequence the rise of the sunrise design of colored lights to light from bottom to top in order. Such sequencing is now done electronically, but in those days, the mercury switch was new in this application. Such devices plus contactors and transformers were what was contained in those large boxes often seen built on the top of the marquee out of sight of the ground.
There is a wealth of information on the fabulous PARADISE in the Bronx in the Annual of 1975 of the Theatre Histrorical Society of America, titled: “Loew’s PARADISE In The Bronx” by the late Michael Miller, past president of the Society. It is 32 pages in length, 8-1/2x11 long format, with 16 black and white photos of the theatre plus many drawings and a portrait photo of its architect: John Eberson. It can be had for $12.50 plus shipping from the society. Details under their sidebar: PUBLICATIONS: ANNUALS> Ordering Information, at: www.HistoricTheatres.org. There is also a nice color rendering of its auditorium in that seminal work in the field: “The Best Remaining Seats: The Story of the Golden Age of the Movie Palace” by the late Ben M. Hall. Out of print, but www.Amazon.com may be able to locate a copy for you. Only the FIRST edition of the book has that color plate, but it is also in another collectable: the hardbound issue of defunct “American Heritage” magazine of October 1961, still to be found at many collector’s and old books stores. The PARADISE is a fabulous super movie palace still standing, and was (along with the Chicago PARADISE THEATRE), the cause of the spread of that name to many structures of lesser stature. Do order the Annual while it is still available, for it may not be reprinted again.
Last friday, April 26, 2002, the mayor of Milwaukee took the stage of the PABST and signed the Common Council resolution transmitting the theater to the Michael Cudahy Foundation. So the sale is official now, with the city scheduled to relinquish payments and control by November when it will become fully privately owned for the first time since 1960. The ‘wedding feast’ was wonderful and all went away happy for the new ‘couple’ and toasting their successful future.
Of course, if the name here were properly spelled it would be: ‘Kingdom Hall of Jehovah’s Witnesses’ (the name is a plural possessive). The Witnesses have remodeled many theatres around the country, including the former BLISS in Greenpoint (Woodside, Long Island) NY and the former STANLEY in Jersey City, NJ., among others. This entry should really be under its theatre name: ALBERMARLE since that is how those interested in it will look for it, or at least cross-index it under that name.
Interestingly, the photo here shows the upper facade of the white terra cotta MAJESTIC office building, and also the brown building to the left is the adjacent MERRILL office building (razed in 1935) which was like the MAJESTIC: the box office/lobby portion of the MERRILL theatre was through it, with the auditorium behind it, the shell of which still stands as a bank building as part of the Grand Avenue mall. If one gets permission, he can go to the attic and see the original steel gridiron and the rigging sheaves and blocks still up there.
The MAJESTIC theater was a 1908 vaudeville house with its auditorium at right angle behind its 14-story MAJESTIC office building. The box office and lobby occupied the center bay of the office building and one proceeded through it to the white marble foyer of the auditorium behind, unless one went to the gallery in which case he had to use the declasse gallery box office and staircase off the alley. The center of the gallery rail was occupied by a half circle projection on which was placed the incandescent follow spotlight with its six-color revolving light filters. In the auditorium one found 1900 some seats in a wide house with six boxes on each side of the stage with curving fronts enriched with gilded fruit festoon moldings. Bentwood chairs with padded seats filled each box, each of which was draped in a simple rectangle of a fringed lambrequin. Three levels of leather seats faced a spacious stage the arch of which was adorned with molded festoons and Greek key designs. The switchboard backstage was the old marble-faced type, but the double row of footlights and other abundant lighting was adequately served, and the fully rigged wood-covered concrete stage saw use for much Vaudeville until 1930.The 20 dressing rooms served by a back stage elevator were complemented by the cellar under the alley for keeping the animal acts.
Orpheum vaudeville made frequent use of this theatre until they commissioned the architects who designed it, Kirchoff & Rose of Milwaukee, to create a much larger and fancier venue just a block eastward in 1928: the RIVERSIDE theatre. The MAJESTIC may have been glamorous 20 years earlier, but the movie palaces coming upon the scene with their elaborate decors and stages suitable also for vaudeville, made the MAJESTIC look like an unadorned old dowager. It struggled with hastily installed movies for two more years before it was demolished to become a parking lot for the very office building in front of it! That office building still stands as part of the Grand Avenue mall, but the theatre is long forgotten but for an old timer I met on the street one day who had a tear in his eye as he recalled the many years of his youth when he had enjoyed shows in the once MAJESTIC.
I became interested in the name TIVOLI when I worked at a Milwaukee area hotel which had a restaurant with this name; they had no idea where the name came from, so I did some research, especially since it had also become the name of a number of theatres. It was popularized in the 19th century by the famous Tivoli amusement park and gardens in Copenhagen, Denmark founded in 1843 in imitation of the famous gardens and palaces of the Italian ruling princes of the 16th century, the Estes, who built the famed Villa d'Este palace in the region of Tivoli, a popular tourist attraction to this day. Thus, the pleasure-assuring name was thought auspicious by the developers of theatres, theatres being the pleasure palaces of the masses of their day.
This is akin to the common theatre name: RIALTO, for the famous enclosed Rialto bridge of 1591 in Venice, Italy over the Grand Canal, which to this day contains many amusing boutiques and is at the heart of an entertainment district. The distinctive architecture of the Rialto bridge also inspired many latter day architects, and perhaps found its forms reproduced in some movie palaces. A monograph on the origin of theatre names was presented at the 1981 Conclave of the Theatre Historical Society of America then meeting at the PABST theater in Milwaukee, but the origins of the above names and others were not known by the author of that paper. Perhaps this will add a little bit to that quest.
I became interested in the name TIVOLI when I worked at a Milwaukee area hotel which had a restaurant with this name; they had no idea where the name came from, so I did some research, especially since it had also become the name of a number of theatres. It was popularized in the 19th century by the famous Tivoli amusement park and gardens in Copenhagen, Denmark founded in 1843 in imitation of the famous gardens and palaces of the Italian ruling princes of the 16th century, the Estes, who built the famed Villa d'Este palace in the region of Tivoli, a popular tourist attraction to this day. Thus, the pleasure-assuring name was thought auspicious by the developers of theatres, theatres being the pleasure palaces of the masses of their day.
This is akin to the common theatre name: RIALTO, for the famous enclosed Rialto bridge of 1591 in Venice, Italy over the Grand Canal, which to this day contains many amusing boutiques and is at the heart of an entertainment district. The distinctive architecture of the Rialto bridge also inspired many latter day architects, and perhaps found its forms reproduced in some movie palaces. A monograph on the origin of theatre names was presented at the 1981 Conclave of the Theatre Historical Society of America then meeting at the PABST theater in Milwaukee, but the origins of the above names and others were not known by the author of that paper. Perhaps this will add a little bit to that quest.
I became interested in the name TIVOLI when I worked at a Milwaukee area hotel which had a restaurant with this name; they had no idea where the name came from, so I did some research, especially since it had also become the name of a number of theatres. It was popularized in the 19th century by the famous Tivoli amusement park and gardens in Copenhagen, Denmark founded in 1843 in imitation of the famous gardens and palaces of the Italian ruling princes of the 16th century, the Estes, who built the famed Villa d'Este palace in the region of Tivoli, a popular tourist attraction to this day. Thus, the pleasure-assuring name was thought auspicious by the developers of theatres, theatres being the pleasure palaces of the masses of their day.
This is akin to the common theatre name: RIALTO, for the famous enclosed Rialto bridge of 1591 in Venice, Italy over the Grand Canal, which to this day contains many amusing boutiques and is at the heart of an entertainment district. The distinctive architecture of the Rialto bridge also inspired many latter day architects, and perhaps found its forms reproduced in some movie palaces. A monograph on the origin of theatre names was presented at the 1981 Conclave of the Theatre Historical Society of America then meeting at the PABST theater in Milwaukee, but the origins of the above names and others were not known by the author of that paper. Perhaps this will add a little bit to that quest.
Some additional notes: The odd name is the result of being on the border between two suburbs: Fox Point and Whitefish Bay. The reference to the VARSITY in the previous comment can be verified by going to th issue of Sept. 1938 of the “Architectural Record” pages 51-54., and the “Theatre Catalog” mentioned can be seen at the Archive of the THEATRE HISTORICAL SOCIETY in Elmhurst, Ill. (www.historictheatres.org). The CRYSTAL mentioned can be seen in a photo in “Milwaukee Movie Palaces” a 1986 book by Larry Widen. The future of the Fox-Bay is the more in doubt because it is in a swank neighborhood and in a classy limestone building with curved glass block corners with eight stores, and offices on the second floor above them, so it is quite possible for the local real estate investor who owns the building to convert it to other uses, such as the foretold Barnes & Noble book store which was interested in the space, so let’s hope as a multiplex it will prove profitable. The architects were Ebling, Plunkett & Keymar of Milwaukee.
This is an unusual Streamlined style of cinema with a one line stage having a 6-point suspension contour curtain in red velvet, possibly the only such left in town. When this 988-seater opened in 1951 it was the first of its style in the metro area at 334 E. Silver Spring Dr., Whitefish Bay (this is a northern suburb of Milwaukee). The VARSITY in central Milwaukee had some of the flavor of this design, but not the sculpted, stylized nautical theme projections from the upper walls, nor the stadium-style balcony where one can enter it from the auditorium floor as well as the lobby. One exits the auditorium through light traps with no doors, so sound control can be a problem. The lobby, however, is a gracious curving design with giant showcases a la the adjacent store fronts to hold the posters, etc. The 1952 issue of “Theatre Catalog” had a 2-page photo story on the opening of this then unusual suburban design. Milwaukee’s Pobocki sign company made their patented ‘Inside Service’ marquee where one goes above the lobby, above the upswept canopy and opens a door into the interior of the sign to change the letters on the boards from behind: a real blessing in our snowy, icy winters. The theatre was divided into three screens a few years ago, and a newspaper item on Aug. 22 of ‘99 said that it was the first dinner theatre in the area; how little research was done for that story! In the 30s the CRYSTAL was converted to dinner seating and the tradition of the German Beer Gardens here meant that some form of entertainment with food was as old as the city. A limited menu is served today, and this is one of the few theatres in the city with a liquor license. Two of the three screening rooms are up in the old balcony, while the main floor remains essentially as it has been. The eight 'chandeliers’ there are flattened bowl up-lights suspended up in the attic by clothes line (!) to lower each fixture manually. Theatres were often a mixture of high and low tech to keep costs down, and this is a prime example!
About those “dozen life-size Buddahs”: there were and are only six such gilded larger-than-life seated Buddahs, three on each auditorium side wall in niches with multifoil arched tops. Each one has a light inside the turbaned head which illuminates a red jewel diadem in the forehead and the slits of the downcast eyes in nile green. In front of each is a simulated incense burner which actually contains a hidden up-light cast upon the Buddah above. There is also a hidden row of floodlights in the three house lights colors (red, blue and yellow) which is supposed to light the figures and their background behind the dark red drapery, but they are very inaccessible and rarely work. The lighting effects are one of the prime features in such a themed theatre, and it even extends to the green glass eyes of the “eeahlees” (Hindustani for “baboon monsters”), 26 of which line the upper cove rim on all four sides, and it would be nice if this long-failed feature were to be restored, but since 1950s air conditioning ducts were placed in the attic behind their access ports, it is very difficult to relamp them. I offered a detailed method to use modern low voltage discs of L.E.D.s to be mounted upon each eye since they would never ‘burn out’, but costs apparently sunk that idea. These days it is enough to keep the general lights on, much less have money for improvements.
It should be noted that even though the theatre has been split into three screens, two of them are in the old seating space under the balcony, so the center aisle of the original seating is preserved, and the two new screening rooms are decorated so as to blend into the exotic decor, and not too much was lost. Architect Joseph Valerio of Chicago designed the two spaces to be easily removable in case the ORIENTAL is ever restored. And while the theatre is certainly one of the “most exotic and ornate” in the nation, it was not the only such in Milw.; from 1927 through the 1960s their EGYPTIAN featured a wonderful design recently recreated on the cover of “MARQUEE” magazine of the Theatre Historical Society of America, and had the planned ARABIA theatre ever been built, the ORIENTAL would certainly have had more competition to the title of most exotic in Milw.
The description and facts listed for the ORIENTAL contain a number of errors, so much so that it may seem as though I am speaking of another theatre, but, no, there is only one ORIENTAL in Milw. but it is not and never was an ‘Atmospheric’. That term is not used in a general sense in writings such as this, but in the specialized jargon of the Movie Palace where they were originally either “Standard” (‘hard top’) in emulating a regular theatre but usually to a theme decor, or they were “Atmospheric” which meant that the ceiling of at least the auditorium was fashioned as a sky vault complete with twinkling stars (tiny light bulbs). The giant ornamented, red and gold ventilator grille smack in the middle of the ceiling clearly shows that it was not a sky vault, but merely the blue painted dome above the two levels of ornamental cove lights below it. Neither were there “a dozen life-size Buddahs” nor “100 lions”. There were just eight unique porcelain lions-of-the-temple glazed in black with metallic gold, red and blue accents. There were nearly 100 elephants if one counts all their sculpted and painted occurances, but the theatre was no menagerie unlike certain other oriental theatres in the nation. And contrary to the writer’s description of the theatre as: “Chinese-meets-East Indian”, the ORIENTAL in Milw. was unique in being the only solely East Indian decor in the nation, there not being a hint of Chinese or Japanese, the two themes usually characterized as ‘oriental’. There is indeed a trio of chandeliers in the exotic lobby, but they are NOT inspired by Tiffany, even though he probably would have approved of them had he ever seen them. To have stained glass in a fixture does not mean it is ‘Tiffany’, and these three do contain slumped glass in marbled honey gold as well as cobalt blue. The elaborate and unique design was done in Milw. by Gezelschap & Co. and are in polished brass over a steel frame with candoliers supported by brass elephants painted in white with accenting colors.