The (Fox) Madrid’s final day as a movie theater—with 10c admission—was Friday, January 16, 1942 (the day of Carole Lombard’s plane crash), with a one-day-only-marquee of Janet Gaynor & Fredric March in the 1937 version of A STAR IS BORN, and Randolph Scott & former silent-film star Hope Hampton (in her last-ever screen role) in 1938’s THE ROAD TO RENO. There are no listings for it as an active movie theater in the city newspaper after that. [Kansas City Star]
National General had reduced the Uptown’s admission price to 50 cents (their other KC theaters were sold to Mann Theaters by summer; its sister theatre, the Brookside, then took over as a 50-cent-house by summer) before what appears to be its final day as an all-out movie theater on Sunday, April 15, 1973, with a Disney double feature of SNOWBALL EXPRESS and $1,000,000 DUCK.
According to a story in the Kansas City Star on Friday, August 1, 1975, pp.6A (“Council Rejects Ban On X-Rated Theater”), the owners were planning to open another adult theater on the same block called the New Brighton. They’d spent $200,000 on purchase of a building but the city council announced a moratorium on any new amusement-/liquor-business proposals for the River Quay (now the River Market) district, and the New Brighton was never completed. The local Market Area Businessmen’s Association had tried to block its opening before the moratorium.
Listed as the Fox Warwick, last day as a movie theater was Sunday, May 24, 1953 with CALL ME MADAME (sic) starring Ethel Merman, and Van Johnson & Janet Leigh in CONFIDENTIALLY CONNIE. [Kansas City Star]
Closed for good by Commonwealth on the evening of Tuesday, November 7, 1972/Election Day, with 50-cent admission to Francis Ford Coppola’s THE GODFATHER (Kansas City Star)
Saw WAIT UNTIL DARK here one Saturday afternoon around 1971, they allowed the young viewers at an separately-programmed morning matinee to stay over and watch it. At the climax when Alan Arkin leaped out of the shadows to grab Audrey Hepburn about 300 kids & teenagers screamed and literally jumped out of their chairs.
On Wednesday, November 3, 1971, the Oklahoma Journal ad began stating: “FAREWELL PROGRAM! Sooner Closes Tuesday & Moves to Redskin with 1st Run Adult Films.” The final program for this theater was EXECUTIVE WIVES, directed by (according to IMDB) Albert Dinglehoofer, and “4 daring featurettes” re-printing the ad to its final day, Tuesday the 9th. (For some reason the Redskin began calling itself the “Sooner at Redskin,” although neither the theater’s size nor the number of films increased at all.)
Caporal closed this theater for good on Sunday, December 17, 1961 with an eight-year old Paramount classic, SHANE, Bert I Gordon’s TORMENTED from Allied Artists, and Universal’s dubbed import THE PHARAOH’S WOMAN.
The last ever active listing for this theater was Tuesday, September 7, 1971, when it was showing MGM’s screen adaptation of John Herbert’s prison-set play FORTUNE AND MEN’S EYES. The next two day’s ads state “Temporarily Closed due to Storm Damage—OPEN SOON.” It never reopened. [Oklahoma Journal]
Closed for good on Tuesday, June 13, 1972 with the Warner Bros. documentary MALCOLM X. But even after the closing the owners kept a Criterion space-saver ad going in the Oklahoma Journal for another two days emphasizing the Willard sequel BEN would soon show at the Centre and Edmond Plaza Theaters.
Gulf States commenced their succeeding ownership of this theater on May 3, 1972 with Dimension Pictures' new film TWILIGHT PEOPLE, 1968’s MAD DOCTOR OF BLOOD ISLAND, and 1969’s THE WITCHMAKER. And for what its worth, the exact day of permanent closing was Tuesday, September 2, 1975 featuring $1 admission for adults. (Oklahoma Journal for both sources)
Not sure where the page creator got their information about a 1980 closing. The last ad ever for this theater (with an “Ends Tonite!” by-line) in either OKC newspaper was Friday, April 30, 1976, with a double feature of Ossie Davis' film COUNTDOWN AT KUSINI (aka COOL RED) and Yul Brynner in THE ULTIMATE WARRIOR.
Closed for good on Tuesday, September 2, 1975 (ad states “Ends Today!”) with a new film that hadn’t even entered general US release yet, Fred Williamson and Lee Van Cleef in TAKE A HARD RIDE (Opened in Oklahoma City on Wednesday, August 27 here and also the Tower and South Park Theaters. Official 20th Century Fox release according to IMDB was over two months later on October 29.) and the 2nd feature GORDON’S WAR (1973). [Source: Oklahoma Journal]
The last marquee under this theater’s original Oklahoma Cinema Theaters/Farris Shanbour ownership was Thursday, August 2, 1979, featuring Philip Kaufman’s film THE WANDERERS and Bill Murray in MEATBALLS in either auditorium, transferring to its new owners the next day with identical programming. It was able to survive as a full-price house until the mid-80s, becoming a dollar theater. The West Park closed for good on Sunday, June 29, 1986 showing Arnold Schwarzenegger in RAW DEAL and the debut feature of Jean-Claude Van Damme, NO RETREAT, NO SURRENDER.
I’ve posted some on this theater and was finally able to view its presence in the local newspapers of the time.
In searching through the Kimo’s ads during the 1980s in the Kansas City Star, you can see the evaporation not only of adult theaters themselves but also any individually owned single screen houses. KCS movie ad pages of the late 1970s can not only take over 3 entire pages (on an average non-premiere weekday with dozens of films) but there’s perhaps only 1 chain in control of 15-20 total screens out of perhaps 80 to 90 total theaters and a couple mini-chains taking another 10-15 screens combined of their own, dozens of individual businesses and their film product wrestling for attention. At the bottom of barrel by then was of course the Kimo.
But starting in 1981 the picture changes drastically. Not only did the Star itself shrink for several years but the 500-lb gorillas literally take over the page —Dickinson, AMC, Commonwealth—the effect is ominously startling. By the mid 80s on a weekday the entire Kansas City range of movie marquees has dropped to a martially-designed, corporate-banner-controlled single page, with plenty of room at the top for some page filler. (There’s some recovery later in the decade.)
I write this to explain what happened to the Kimo’s advertising. The latest I can see this theater still labeled the Kimo was October 1972 when they were showing Bill Diehl’s THE SECRETARY, then they stop advertising for at least two months. I’m guessing this is when they take a rest break before becoming an X-rated operation called the Dove but wasn’t able to get to the next issues advertising it.
The Dove alternated porn with live shows through 1990. Originally in the early 1980s they advertised every day, and their ads include pictures and graphics . Then as the Star began losing pages the adult theater ads become simple tiny squarish paid blurbs each, scrunched into the bottom of the movie page, banished by themselves a couple pages away from the conventional ads around 1984, and by 1985 relegated to the sports section or a Friday entertainment supplement. By the late 80s the remaining three adult theaters including the Dove advertise only on weekends—you had to buy the paper four separate times to catch any of them—and somewhere around 1990 the Dove admits surrender to the VHS/home-video revolution and ceases even mentioning movies, only live porn vixen performances.
It would literally take at least a week poring through the Star’s archives to get a much better idea about the Kimo’s final years—including about its reported raid by authorities—but wanted to try to get a better idea of what happened to it.
Announced for several months, but didn’t see it on CT yet—2nd annual THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW screening here this month, benefiting additional restoration work: http://www.wibw.com/home/headlines/Rocky-Horror-Picture-Show-event-at-Jayhawk-Theater-330125471.html; official re-opening was supposed to be this year but don’t see indications confirming it.
There’s been so much redevelopment in the area of the Kimo that hardly any very old businesses from that time operate there now. But I’m hearing from locals the Kimo is where the Verizon Wireless is in the street view, that it was a pretty big theater taking up most of the block, couldn’t have been open later than 1981, and it was raided for pornography immediately before demolishing.
It appears the newly-released DEEP THROAT was the opening feature when this theater went hard-core as the Dove around 1972, and Kansas City press were invited to the premiere.
Closing date was Monday, September 1, 1997 with John Travolta and Nicolas Cage in John Woo’s FACE-OFF. Owner Hollywood Theaters also locally closed the Cinema Twin (currently unlisted on CT) that day at 3110 Iowa, which had become a dollar house and was featuring George Clooney and Arnold Schwarzenegger in BATMAN & ROBIN and Nicolas Cage in CON-AIR. Info courtesy that day’s Lawrence KS Journal-World, pp 6B.
Last day of operation as a movie theater was Thursday, November 16, 1989—a week before Thanksgiving—showing Woody Allen’s CRIMES AND MISDEMEANORS. There had been major property tax hikes just before the closing—as much as 100% local increases on businesses—which probably didn’t help. Granada’s Lawrence KS Journal-World final ads were listed under a United Artists Theaters banner (and beforehand the previous year as Commonwealth and then UA-Commonwealth).
Correction: Please note there were two (2) separate Las Vegas Cinema theaters operating in Wichita, one on N. Amidon and another on S. Seneca, both ordered closed at the same time almost immediately after the Nomar was shut down. Sheriff Darr again performed the honors. Boxoffice Magazine article: https://www.yumpu.com/en/document/view/31854970/boxoffice-april021973/35
Addendum: CT'ers will note in the street view a parking lot next to the Nomar. This lot was completely unpaved for the life of the theater; the city ordered its paving approximately ten years ago.
Talked with a couple of people who work near this theater and also read up on it using archives of the Wichita Eagle (particularly the story reporting the most notorious event regarding the Nomar, printed Saturday, March 10, 1973 buried deep in the paper on page 20C). Here, based upon these sources is additional information regarding the Nomar.
The theater stopped advertising completely with the Eagle on Sunday, June 2, 1968. Its final listed double feature was FANTASTIC VOYAGE and NONE BUT THE BRAVE, both of which were already two years old at least. There are listings before then showing alternating English or Spanish marquees.
The Nomar’s prime appears to have been the 1950s, when there were live musicians appearing alongside the movies, and they were able to show the 1959 BEN-HUR with Charlton Heston.
Sometime after it stopped advertising the theater went blue. Wichita already had at least 2 working adult theaters when the Nomar turned over, and a twin-screen called the Las Vegas 1 & 2 appeared some 2 miles west of it on N. Amidon (this particular theater at this writing doesn’t seem to be listed on CT). This metropolitan cluster of seamy cinema would soon draw the attention of the law.
In January 1973 the Nomar (which posted a warning sign on its admittance doors regarding “sexual candor”) was showing its regular X-rated programming: 1971’s HOTTER THAN HELL aka HORNY DEVILS (66 minutes-possibly referring to an edited version/not to be confused with a similarly-titled adult film that appeared 4 years later by legendary exploitation director Doris Wishman), and THE APARTMENTS. In the audience somewhere during this showing were official representatives of local law enforcement.
On Thursday, March 8, 1973, Judge David Calvert—stating that the films could not be protected by so-called national community standards since they could not legally exist—ordered the Nomar’s closing for 2 years and seizing of the films in question from Jerwin Service Inc. This was the first ever closing of a Wichita movie theater based on a film’s content. Sheriff Johnnie Darr used $17 dollars worth of padlocks to physically shut its doors. The Kansas Supreme Court, as seen in the link provided on an earlier post, upheld the closing.
The final owner—as allowed in his lease—of the Nomar as a working theater was apparently a Mexican/Hispanic gentleman, who may have defaulted. It closed circa 1983.
The most recent attempt to revive the theater collapsed around 2011, purportedly because the city could or would not provide enough support to the proposal. Therefore, the Nomar’s status can probably be changed back to “Closed,” and the “Renovating” notation removed.
Following info courtesy the Wichita Eagle, advance opening story, Sunday, June 9, 1968, pp 1F.
-Owned by Commonwealth Frontier (later Commonwealth).
-Theater opened Wednesday, June 12, 1968 with THE ODD COUPLE (as noted above) in Theater 1, and the 1968 Best Foreign Language Academy Award winner, Jiri Menzel’s CLOSELY WATCHED TRAINS (1966, released in the US by Sigma III Corp.) in Theater 2. Miss America Debra Dene Barnes (later Snodgrass) of Moran, KS, attended.
-Seating Capacities: 630 seats in Theater 1, 306 in Theater 2.
-Cinemeccanica projectors (both 70mm capable) and six-track stereo systems in both auditoriums.
-Single box office for both theaters capable of handling either regular or reserved seating.
-Architects: Feagins & Kirsch. Contractor: Law Construction Co.
The (Fox) Madrid’s final day as a movie theater—with 10c admission—was Friday, January 16, 1942 (the day of Carole Lombard’s plane crash), with a one-day-only-marquee of Janet Gaynor & Fredric March in the 1937 version of A STAR IS BORN, and Randolph Scott & former silent-film star Hope Hampton (in her last-ever screen role) in 1938’s THE ROAD TO RENO. There are no listings for it as an active movie theater in the city newspaper after that. [Kansas City Star]
National General had reduced the Uptown’s admission price to 50 cents (their other KC theaters were sold to Mann Theaters by summer; its sister theatre, the Brookside, then took over as a 50-cent-house by summer) before what appears to be its final day as an all-out movie theater on Sunday, April 15, 1973, with a Disney double feature of SNOWBALL EXPRESS and $1,000,000 DUCK.
Closed for good as a movie theater on Sunday, July 20, 1975, with three showings that day of Peter Bogdanovich’s WHAT’S UP, DOC. [Kansas City Star]
According to a story in the Kansas City Star on Friday, August 1, 1975, pp.6A (“Council Rejects Ban On X-Rated Theater”), the owners were planning to open another adult theater on the same block called the New Brighton. They’d spent $200,000 on purchase of a building but the city council announced a moratorium on any new amusement-/liquor-business proposals for the River Quay (now the River Market) district, and the New Brighton was never completed. The local Market Area Businessmen’s Association had tried to block its opening before the moratorium.
Listed as the Fox Warwick, last day as a movie theater was Sunday, May 24, 1953 with CALL ME MADAME (sic) starring Ethel Merman, and Van Johnson & Janet Leigh in CONFIDENTIALLY CONNIE. [Kansas City Star]
Closed for good by Commonwealth on the evening of Tuesday, November 7, 1972/Election Day, with 50-cent admission to Francis Ford Coppola’s THE GODFATHER (Kansas City Star)
Saw WAIT UNTIL DARK here one Saturday afternoon around 1971, they allowed the young viewers at an separately-programmed morning matinee to stay over and watch it. At the climax when Alan Arkin leaped out of the shadows to grab Audrey Hepburn about 300 kids & teenagers screamed and literally jumped out of their chairs.
On Wednesday, November 3, 1971, the Oklahoma Journal ad began stating: “FAREWELL PROGRAM! Sooner Closes Tuesday & Moves to Redskin with 1st Run Adult Films.” The final program for this theater was EXECUTIVE WIVES, directed by (according to IMDB) Albert Dinglehoofer, and “4 daring featurettes” re-printing the ad to its final day, Tuesday the 9th. (For some reason the Redskin began calling itself the “Sooner at Redskin,” although neither the theater’s size nor the number of films increased at all.)
Caporal closed this theater for good on Sunday, December 17, 1961 with an eight-year old Paramount classic, SHANE, Bert I Gordon’s TORMENTED from Allied Artists, and Universal’s dubbed import THE PHARAOH’S WOMAN.
The last ever active listing for this theater was Tuesday, September 7, 1971, when it was showing MGM’s screen adaptation of John Herbert’s prison-set play FORTUNE AND MEN’S EYES. The next two day’s ads state “Temporarily Closed due to Storm Damage—OPEN SOON.” It never reopened. [Oklahoma Journal]
Closed for good on Tuesday, June 13, 1972 with the Warner Bros. documentary MALCOLM X. But even after the closing the owners kept a Criterion space-saver ad going in the Oklahoma Journal for another two days emphasizing the Willard sequel BEN would soon show at the Centre and Edmond Plaza Theaters.
Gulf States commenced their succeeding ownership of this theater on May 3, 1972 with Dimension Pictures' new film TWILIGHT PEOPLE, 1968’s MAD DOCTOR OF BLOOD ISLAND, and 1969’s THE WITCHMAKER. And for what its worth, the exact day of permanent closing was Tuesday, September 2, 1975 featuring $1 admission for adults. (Oklahoma Journal for both sources)
Not sure where the page creator got their information about a 1980 closing. The last ad ever for this theater (with an “Ends Tonite!” by-line) in either OKC newspaper was Friday, April 30, 1976, with a double feature of Ossie Davis' film COUNTDOWN AT KUSINI (aka COOL RED) and Yul Brynner in THE ULTIMATE WARRIOR.
Closed for good on Tuesday, September 2, 1975 (ad states “Ends Today!”) with a new film that hadn’t even entered general US release yet, Fred Williamson and Lee Van Cleef in TAKE A HARD RIDE (Opened in Oklahoma City on Wednesday, August 27 here and also the Tower and South Park Theaters. Official 20th Century Fox release according to IMDB was over two months later on October 29.) and the 2nd feature GORDON’S WAR (1973). [Source: Oklahoma Journal]
The last marquee under this theater’s original Oklahoma Cinema Theaters/Farris Shanbour ownership was Thursday, August 2, 1979, featuring Philip Kaufman’s film THE WANDERERS and Bill Murray in MEATBALLS in either auditorium, transferring to its new owners the next day with identical programming. It was able to survive as a full-price house until the mid-80s, becoming a dollar theater. The West Park closed for good on Sunday, June 29, 1986 showing Arnold Schwarzenegger in RAW DEAL and the debut feature of Jean-Claude Van Damme, NO RETREAT, NO SURRENDER.
I’ve posted some on this theater and was finally able to view its presence in the local newspapers of the time.
In searching through the Kimo’s ads during the 1980s in the Kansas City Star, you can see the evaporation not only of adult theaters themselves but also any individually owned single screen houses. KCS movie ad pages of the late 1970s can not only take over 3 entire pages (on an average non-premiere weekday with dozens of films) but there’s perhaps only 1 chain in control of 15-20 total screens out of perhaps 80 to 90 total theaters and a couple mini-chains taking another 10-15 screens combined of their own, dozens of individual businesses and their film product wrestling for attention. At the bottom of barrel by then was of course the Kimo.
But starting in 1981 the picture changes drastically. Not only did the Star itself shrink for several years but the 500-lb gorillas literally take over the page —Dickinson, AMC, Commonwealth—the effect is ominously startling. By the mid 80s on a weekday the entire Kansas City range of movie marquees has dropped to a martially-designed, corporate-banner-controlled single page, with plenty of room at the top for some page filler. (There’s some recovery later in the decade.)
I write this to explain what happened to the Kimo’s advertising. The latest I can see this theater still labeled the Kimo was October 1972 when they were showing Bill Diehl’s THE SECRETARY, then they stop advertising for at least two months. I’m guessing this is when they take a rest break before becoming an X-rated operation called the Dove but wasn’t able to get to the next issues advertising it.
The Dove alternated porn with live shows through 1990. Originally in the early 1980s they advertised every day, and their ads include pictures and graphics . Then as the Star began losing pages the adult theater ads become simple tiny squarish paid blurbs each, scrunched into the bottom of the movie page, banished by themselves a couple pages away from the conventional ads around 1984, and by 1985 relegated to the sports section or a Friday entertainment supplement. By the late 80s the remaining three adult theaters including the Dove advertise only on weekends—you had to buy the paper four separate times to catch any of them—and somewhere around 1990 the Dove admits surrender to the VHS/home-video revolution and ceases even mentioning movies, only live porn vixen performances.
It would literally take at least a week poring through the Star’s archives to get a much better idea about the Kimo’s final years—including about its reported raid by authorities—but wanted to try to get a better idea of what happened to it.
Announced for several months, but didn’t see it on CT yet—2nd annual THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW screening here this month, benefiting additional restoration work: http://www.wibw.com/home/headlines/Rocky-Horror-Picture-Show-event-at-Jayhawk-Theater-330125471.html; official re-opening was supposed to be this year but don’t see indications confirming it.
There’s been so much redevelopment in the area of the Kimo that hardly any very old businesses from that time operate there now. But I’m hearing from locals the Kimo is where the Verizon Wireless is in the street view, that it was a pretty big theater taking up most of the block, couldn’t have been open later than 1981, and it was raided for pornography immediately before demolishing.
It appears the newly-released DEEP THROAT was the opening feature when this theater went hard-core as the Dove around 1972, and Kansas City press were invited to the premiere.
Closing date was Monday, September 1, 1997 with John Travolta and Nicolas Cage in John Woo’s FACE-OFF. Owner Hollywood Theaters also locally closed the Cinema Twin (currently unlisted on CT) that day at 3110 Iowa, which had become a dollar house and was featuring George Clooney and Arnold Schwarzenegger in BATMAN & ROBIN and Nicolas Cage in CON-AIR. Info courtesy that day’s Lawrence KS Journal-World, pp 6B.
Last day of operation as a movie theater was Thursday, November 16, 1989—a week before Thanksgiving—showing Woody Allen’s CRIMES AND MISDEMEANORS. There had been major property tax hikes just before the closing—as much as 100% local increases on businesses—which probably didn’t help. Granada’s Lawrence KS Journal-World final ads were listed under a United Artists Theaters banner (and beforehand the previous year as Commonwealth and then UA-Commonwealth).
Correction: Please note there were two (2) separate Las Vegas Cinema theaters operating in Wichita, one on N. Amidon and another on S. Seneca, both ordered closed at the same time almost immediately after the Nomar was shut down. Sheriff Darr again performed the honors. Boxoffice Magazine article: https://www.yumpu.com/en/document/view/31854970/boxoffice-april021973/35
Addendum: CT'ers will note in the street view a parking lot next to the Nomar. This lot was completely unpaved for the life of the theater; the city ordered its paving approximately ten years ago.
Talked with a couple of people who work near this theater and also read up on it using archives of the Wichita Eagle (particularly the story reporting the most notorious event regarding the Nomar, printed Saturday, March 10, 1973 buried deep in the paper on page 20C). Here, based upon these sources is additional information regarding the Nomar.
The theater stopped advertising completely with the Eagle on Sunday, June 2, 1968. Its final listed double feature was FANTASTIC VOYAGE and NONE BUT THE BRAVE, both of which were already two years old at least. There are listings before then showing alternating English or Spanish marquees.
The Nomar’s prime appears to have been the 1950s, when there were live musicians appearing alongside the movies, and they were able to show the 1959 BEN-HUR with Charlton Heston.
Sometime after it stopped advertising the theater went blue. Wichita already had at least 2 working adult theaters when the Nomar turned over, and a twin-screen called the Las Vegas 1 & 2 appeared some 2 miles west of it on N. Amidon (this particular theater at this writing doesn’t seem to be listed on CT). This metropolitan cluster of seamy cinema would soon draw the attention of the law.
In January 1973 the Nomar (which posted a warning sign on its admittance doors regarding “sexual candor”) was showing its regular X-rated programming: 1971’s HOTTER THAN HELL aka HORNY DEVILS (66 minutes-possibly referring to an edited version/not to be confused with a similarly-titled adult film that appeared 4 years later by legendary exploitation director Doris Wishman), and THE APARTMENTS. In the audience somewhere during this showing were official representatives of local law enforcement.
On Thursday, March 8, 1973, Judge David Calvert—stating that the films could not be protected by so-called national community standards since they could not legally exist—ordered the Nomar’s closing for 2 years and seizing of the films in question from Jerwin Service Inc. This was the first ever closing of a Wichita movie theater based on a film’s content. Sheriff Johnnie Darr used $17 dollars worth of padlocks to physically shut its doors. The Kansas Supreme Court, as seen in the link provided on an earlier post, upheld the closing.
The final owner—as allowed in his lease—of the Nomar as a working theater was apparently a Mexican/Hispanic gentleman, who may have defaulted. It closed circa 1983.
The most recent attempt to revive the theater collapsed around 2011, purportedly because the city could or would not provide enough support to the proposal. Therefore, the Nomar’s status can probably be changed back to “Closed,” and the “Renovating” notation removed.
Following info courtesy the Wichita Eagle, advance opening story, Sunday, June 9, 1968, pp 1F.
-Owned by Commonwealth Frontier (later Commonwealth).
-Theater opened Wednesday, June 12, 1968 with THE ODD COUPLE (as noted above) in Theater 1, and the 1968 Best Foreign Language Academy Award winner, Jiri Menzel’s CLOSELY WATCHED TRAINS (1966, released in the US by Sigma III Corp.) in Theater 2. Miss America Debra Dene Barnes (later Snodgrass) of Moran, KS, attended.
-Seating Capacities: 630 seats in Theater 1, 306 in Theater 2.
-Cinemeccanica projectors (both 70mm capable) and six-track stereo systems in both auditoriums.
-Single box office for both theaters capable of handling either regular or reserved seating.
-Architects: Feagins & Kirsch. Contractor: Law Construction Co.