If this house is located in the Muscatine Shopping Center, then it was probably the twin opened as the 850-seat Plaza Cinema I & II by the L&M Circuit in 1971. It was listed among the new theaters opened the previous year, in Boxoffice Magazine’s issue of May 15, 1972.
Muscatine had two Palace Theatres. An item in the May 5, 1945, issue of Boxoffice Magazine said that Fox Midwest had announced that the opening of the new Palace Theatre was scheduled for May 8. The item said that the new house replaced a theater of the same name which had burned the previous year. It didn’t say if the new theater was on the same site as the original Palace.
An article about Ludy Bosten, a long-time Muscatine exhibitor, published in Boxoffice Magazine on April 9, 1962, said that he had operated the Palace Theatre for a time, but didn’t specify the period. It did say that the Palace had closed two years earlier, though, suggesting that he had taken over the second Palace, perhaps in the early 1950s when various Fox operating companies were required by the courts to divest themselves of many of their theaters.
The 1940s were a bad time for Muscatine’s historic theaters. The Grand burned down the same year the new Palace opened.
Muscatine’s Grand and Palace Theatres were sold by Midland Theatres to Fox West Coast Theatres in 1929, according to an item in Movie Age, November 2 that year. Both were among the Muscatine theaters operated at one time by Ludy Bosten, an exhibitor in the town from 1912 into the 1960s, according to an article about his career in the April 9, 1962, issue of Boxoffice Magazine.
The Grand Theatre’s demise was recorded by a brief item in the March 17, 1945, issue of Boxoffice, which said that the house had been destroyed by a fire the previous week.
Forgot to mention this: The October 16, 1948, issue of Boxoffice said the A-Muse-U had been completely remodeled and redecorated, with a new facade and marquee, new screen and alterations to the stage, an expanded balcony and new stairway, and new carpets.
An article about long-time Muscatine exhibitor Ludy Bosten, published in the April 9, 1962, issue of Boxoffice Magazine, says that he opened his first theater in Muscatine, a nickelodeon called the Princess (later renamed the Gayety) in 1912, and that “several years later” he opened the A-Muse-U Theater.
Bosten was interviewed for the article, and reminisced about the early days of the A-Muse-U, telling the interviewer of the ten-piece orchestra, and how on Sundays people would come from as far away as Cedar Rapids to attend the shows, and all the theater’s 543 seats would be filled.
Maybe when Bosten said he opened the A-Muse-U several years after opening the Princess in 1912, he meant that he took over the existing theater, as I’m sure Mr. Richman was not a time traveller, and could not have written, in a book published in 1911, about a theater not yet built.
That Bosten performed some alteration of the building and then reopened it is a possibility, of course, as Richman says the house was given over to moving pictures exclusively, and Bosten said he presented live acts as well as movies at his A-Muse-U. Richman also gives a bigger seating capacity (600) than Bosten does (543), suggesting that some of the seats might have been removed to make room for a stage.
Boxoffice Magazine has mentions of the A-Muse-U in various issues, the last as late as November 20, 1954, when it said that the house had been reopened after having been closed for some unspecified length of time.
A biographical sketch of the original owner of the Uptown, Ludy Bosten, appeared in the April 9, 1962, issue of Boxoffice Magazine, on the occasion of his fiftieth anniversary in the theater business.
The Uptown opened in 1929, and was located in a former National Guard armory. An 11-inch concrete floor had to be ripped out in order to convert the building into a theater.
Bosten opened his first theater in Muscatine, a nickelodeon called the Princess, in 1912. Later, the Princess was known as the Gayety. A few years later he opened the A-Muse-U Theatre, and at one time operated the Family Theatre in partnership with Carl Laemmle Jr., who would later found Universal Pictures.
Other Muscatine theaters operated by Bosten included the Grand and the Palace, which had closed two years before the article was published. In 1962, he was still operating the Uptown Theatre and the Hilltop Drive-In in Muscatine, and the Wapello Theatre in Wapello, Iowa.
A little bit more information turned up in the February 20, 1967, issue of Boxoffice. An item said that Deb Coble, who had recently taken over the Jewell Theatre in Valentine, was also taking over the Valentine Drive-In that had been owned by Roy Metzger of Winner, South Dakota.
The June 11, 1955, issue of Boxoffice said that the Valentine Drive-In had opened for its second year, and that over the winter CinemaScope equipment had been installed. The drive-in was then operated by a Mr. and Mrs. Robert Sharp.
From at least early 1938, the Jewell Theatre was owned and operated by a Mr. and Mrs. Harold Dunn (Mrs. Dunn’s name was Hazel.) They are mentioned in several issues of Boxoffice Magazine from that period. The February 26, 1938, issue said that Harold Dunn had begin remodeling the theater, and intended to redecorate the lobby, enlarge the foyer, install a new box office, and build lounges on the lower floor.
The April 2, 1938, issue said that Mrs. Dunn had been in Omaha to pick out some “…snappy blue and black leather and chromium furniture at Quality Theatre Supply for the remodel job on the Jewel Theatre.” (Boxoffice sometimes spelled the name Jewel and sometimes Jewell.)
There are various other mentions of the Dunns into the 1950s, but the December 18, 1961, issue of Boxoffice says that Mrs. Hazel Dunn, owner of the Jewel Theatre, had been visiting old friends in Omaha, so I guess that Harold was gone by then.
Finally, the June 30, 1969, issue of Boxoffice says that Deb Coble, operator of the Jewell Theatre, was closing the house for the summer and would operate only the drive-in. That’s the last mention of the Jewell I’ve found.
LawMann, do you know the general period in which the Belasco ran movies? They surely would have been advertised in the L.A. Times, and somebody who has access to the Times archives at the L.A. Library could probably find some of those ads if they knew where to look.
If the place did run movies for a couple of years, or even a few months, then it certainly deserves a page here. Somehow, the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium got a page, and all they ever did was four-wall an occasional surf or ski movie, and a few of the Hollywood beach movies of the 1960s, long after they’d had their theatrical runs. (By those standards, practically every civic auditorium in the country should qualify.)
I think the photo Ken linked to in the first comment above might depict the Hiland Theatre in Des Moines, Iowa. There’s a night shot of it on this weblog. The marquee is the same. Also, the architectural style is very similar to other theaters by architects Wetherell & Harrison, who designed the Des Moines Hiland.
This theater replaced an earlier Hiland Theatre which was at 3602 Sixth Avenue. The second Hiland was expected to open by September, 1939, according to an item in Boxoffice Magazine’s issue of April 9 that year. The plans for the new house were being drawn by the architectural firm of Wetherell & Harrison.
The Rocket Theatre was featured in an article by theater decorator Hanns Teichert in the March 2, 1940, issue of Boxoffice Magazine. The new Tri-States Theatres house was designed by the Des Moines architectural firm Wetherell & Harrison.
This appears to have been a replacement for an earlier Rialto Theatre. The February 1, 1939, issue of Boxoffice magazine said that Jack Bouma, operator of the Rialto Theatre in Pocahontas, planned to begin construction on a new theater there that spring. The plans for the new house were being drawn by the Des Moines architectural firm Wetherell & Harrison.
The November 3, 1940, issue of Boxoffice Magazine ran an item saying that excavation had begun for a theater on Church Street in Ottumwa. Although the name of the theater was not given, the photos match the description of the facade of the proposed house, which was to be a brick building faced with glazed tile and glass blocks. The theater was designed by the Des Moines firm Wetherell & Harrison, and was to have 525 seats.
The Collegian Theatre was designed by the Des Moines architectural firm Wetherell & Harrison, according to this page about the Varsity Theatre at the Ames Historical Society web site.
Here’s an illustrated web page about the Varsity Theatre</a>, courtesy of the Ames Historical Society. It says that the Varsity was designed by the Des Moines architectural firm Wetherell & Harrison, and that the same firm also designed the Collegian Theatre in Ames.
The Capitol Theatre was extensively altered in 1942, removing shops from the building front, extending the balcony, and increasing its original seating capacity by 300. An article with photos appeared in the July 18, 1942, issue of Boxoffice Magazine. The renovated interior was in the Art Moderne style. The project was designed by the Des Moines architecture firm Wetherell & Harrison.
An article about the Esquire Theatre appeared in the December 9, 1939, issue of Boxoffice Magazine. The article includes some information about the Columbia as well.
The Columbia opened on Christmas Day, 1913, with 1000 seats. The article says that the Esquire was built “within the walls” of the Columbia, as a single-floor theater. The Columbia had seated only about 600 in the orchestra and 400 in the balcony, so getting the Esquire’s 835 seats onto one floor necessitated the removal of most of the Columbia’s stage. The roof was lowered as well, but the auditorium still had a fairly high ceiling.
The new theater was thoroughly Moderne in style, with just a lingering hint of Art Deco in some of the details. The Esquire was designed by the Des Moines architectural firm Wetherell & Harrison.
I think we’ve gt an ID problem here. Note the location of the Mirror next door to the Capitol in the postcard view Lost Memory linked to on February 14, 2008. Then note the position of the Telenews in the later postcard view ken mc linked to on December 24, 2008. The Telenews and the Mirror were not in the same location. The Mirror is gone in the second view, and its building either replaced or chopped down to one floor. The Telenews was in a building adjacent to the Mirror’s location.
The Telenews opened late in 1941, and an article about it was published in the July 18, 1942, issue of Boxoffice Magazine. There were quotes from the architect, Jack Corgan, and the impression I got from the article was that the Telenews was entirely new construction.
The photo would confirm that the La Shell was built as a theater, though.
I really don’t see how the Oriental could have been at the address the library gives. If they’d said 4321, where there is now a building built in 1948, it would be plausible, but the spot they say it was in there’s only that 1924 building that couldn’t possibly have been a theater. If there had been a theater there, and it had been demolished and the stores in front preserved and reduced to one story, then the Assessor’s office would have given an effectively-built date for it.
The stage house of the La Shell was apparently removed in the 1933 rebuilding, after the earthquake. The Southwest Builder & Contractor article said that the back of the building and stage house were to be rebuilt, but the La Shells must have decided to leave the stage house off. I still think it’s most likely that the library got the address wrong. Their photo collection is full of such errors.
The buildings actually look remarkably similar to me. The four wide second floor windows of the old building could have easily been narrowed into the eight windows of the La Shell, and the La Shell’s tower was undoubtedly part of the 3828 sq. ft. 1939 addition. That’s probably when the building got its Art Deco look.
Yes, the Boxoffice article confirms 1948 as the year the Nevada became the Crest. It was apparently called the Nevada for less than six full years, as the 1942 article said it had been the Wigwam before that year’s remodeling. I can’t find any earlier references to the Wigwam, so I don’t know how old it was when it became the Nevada.
One 1948 Boxoffice issue included an architects rendering of the remodeled Crest, but didn’t give the architect’s name. It was most likely done in-house by Fox, which means the lead architect would almost certainly have been Carl G. Moeller, who handled most of Fox’s designs during the Skouras era. In the pictures it certainly looks like his work.
The library also has this 1920’s photo, unearthed by ken mc, which depicts an Oriental Theatre, identified by the library as being at 5341 Long Beach Boulevard, which would have been across the street and down a block from the La Shell. Could the library have gotten the address wrong? Is it possible that Oriental was an earlier name of the La Shell?
The L.A. County Assessor’s office gives the construction date of the building on the parcel where the Oriental should have been as 1924, but that building bears no resemblance to a theater.
If this house is located in the Muscatine Shopping Center, then it was probably the twin opened as the 850-seat Plaza Cinema I & II by the L&M Circuit in 1971. It was listed among the new theaters opened the previous year, in Boxoffice Magazine’s issue of May 15, 1972.
Muscatine had two Palace Theatres. An item in the May 5, 1945, issue of Boxoffice Magazine said that Fox Midwest had announced that the opening of the new Palace Theatre was scheduled for May 8. The item said that the new house replaced a theater of the same name which had burned the previous year. It didn’t say if the new theater was on the same site as the original Palace.
An article about Ludy Bosten, a long-time Muscatine exhibitor, published in Boxoffice Magazine on April 9, 1962, said that he had operated the Palace Theatre for a time, but didn’t specify the period. It did say that the Palace had closed two years earlier, though, suggesting that he had taken over the second Palace, perhaps in the early 1950s when various Fox operating companies were required by the courts to divest themselves of many of their theaters.
The 1940s were a bad time for Muscatine’s historic theaters. The Grand burned down the same year the new Palace opened.
Muscatine’s Grand and Palace Theatres were sold by Midland Theatres to Fox West Coast Theatres in 1929, according to an item in Movie Age, November 2 that year. Both were among the Muscatine theaters operated at one time by Ludy Bosten, an exhibitor in the town from 1912 into the 1960s, according to an article about his career in the April 9, 1962, issue of Boxoffice Magazine.
The Grand Theatre’s demise was recorded by a brief item in the March 17, 1945, issue of Boxoffice, which said that the house had been destroyed by a fire the previous week.
Forgot to mention this: The October 16, 1948, issue of Boxoffice said the A-Muse-U had been completely remodeled and redecorated, with a new facade and marquee, new screen and alterations to the stage, an expanded balcony and new stairway, and new carpets.
An article about long-time Muscatine exhibitor Ludy Bosten, published in the April 9, 1962, issue of Boxoffice Magazine, says that he opened his first theater in Muscatine, a nickelodeon called the Princess (later renamed the Gayety) in 1912, and that “several years later” he opened the A-Muse-U Theater.
Bosten was interviewed for the article, and reminisced about the early days of the A-Muse-U, telling the interviewer of the ten-piece orchestra, and how on Sundays people would come from as far away as Cedar Rapids to attend the shows, and all the theater’s 543 seats would be filled.
Maybe when Bosten said he opened the A-Muse-U several years after opening the Princess in 1912, he meant that he took over the existing theater, as I’m sure Mr. Richman was not a time traveller, and could not have written, in a book published in 1911, about a theater not yet built.
That Bosten performed some alteration of the building and then reopened it is a possibility, of course, as Richman says the house was given over to moving pictures exclusively, and Bosten said he presented live acts as well as movies at his A-Muse-U. Richman also gives a bigger seating capacity (600) than Bosten does (543), suggesting that some of the seats might have been removed to make room for a stage.
Boxoffice Magazine has mentions of the A-Muse-U in various issues, the last as late as November 20, 1954, when it said that the house had been reopened after having been closed for some unspecified length of time.
A biographical sketch of the original owner of the Uptown, Ludy Bosten, appeared in the April 9, 1962, issue of Boxoffice Magazine, on the occasion of his fiftieth anniversary in the theater business.
The Uptown opened in 1929, and was located in a former National Guard armory. An 11-inch concrete floor had to be ripped out in order to convert the building into a theater.
Bosten opened his first theater in Muscatine, a nickelodeon called the Princess, in 1912. Later, the Princess was known as the Gayety. A few years later he opened the A-Muse-U Theatre, and at one time operated the Family Theatre in partnership with Carl Laemmle Jr., who would later found Universal Pictures.
Other Muscatine theaters operated by Bosten included the Grand and the Palace, which had closed two years before the article was published. In 1962, he was still operating the Uptown Theatre and the Hilltop Drive-In in Muscatine, and the Wapello Theatre in Wapello, Iowa.
A little bit more information turned up in the February 20, 1967, issue of Boxoffice. An item said that Deb Coble, who had recently taken over the Jewell Theatre in Valentine, was also taking over the Valentine Drive-In that had been owned by Roy Metzger of Winner, South Dakota.
The June 11, 1955, issue of Boxoffice said that the Valentine Drive-In had opened for its second year, and that over the winter CinemaScope equipment had been installed. The drive-in was then operated by a Mr. and Mrs. Robert Sharp.
From at least early 1938, the Jewell Theatre was owned and operated by a Mr. and Mrs. Harold Dunn (Mrs. Dunn’s name was Hazel.) They are mentioned in several issues of Boxoffice Magazine from that period. The February 26, 1938, issue said that Harold Dunn had begin remodeling the theater, and intended to redecorate the lobby, enlarge the foyer, install a new box office, and build lounges on the lower floor.
The April 2, 1938, issue said that Mrs. Dunn had been in Omaha to pick out some “…snappy blue and black leather and chromium furniture at Quality Theatre Supply for the remodel job on the Jewel Theatre.” (Boxoffice sometimes spelled the name Jewel and sometimes Jewell.)
There are various other mentions of the Dunns into the 1950s, but the December 18, 1961, issue of Boxoffice says that Mrs. Hazel Dunn, owner of the Jewel Theatre, had been visiting old friends in Omaha, so I guess that Harold was gone by then.
Finally, the June 30, 1969, issue of Boxoffice says that Deb Coble, operator of the Jewell Theatre, was closing the house for the summer and would operate only the drive-in. That’s the last mention of the Jewell I’ve found.
LawMann, do you know the general period in which the Belasco ran movies? They surely would have been advertised in the L.A. Times, and somebody who has access to the Times archives at the L.A. Library could probably find some of those ads if they knew where to look.
If the place did run movies for a couple of years, or even a few months, then it certainly deserves a page here. Somehow, the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium got a page, and all they ever did was four-wall an occasional surf or ski movie, and a few of the Hollywood beach movies of the 1960s, long after they’d had their theatrical runs. (By those standards, practically every civic auditorium in the country should qualify.)
I think the photo Ken linked to in the first comment above might depict the Hiland Theatre in Des Moines, Iowa. There’s a night shot of it on this weblog. The marquee is the same. Also, the architectural style is very similar to other theaters by architects Wetherell & Harrison, who designed the Des Moines Hiland.
The Charles Theatre was designed by the Des Moines architectural firm Wetherell & Harrison.
This theater replaced an earlier Hiland Theatre which was at 3602 Sixth Avenue. The second Hiland was expected to open by September, 1939, according to an item in Boxoffice Magazine’s issue of April 9 that year. The plans for the new house were being drawn by the architectural firm of Wetherell & Harrison.
The Rocket Theatre was featured in an article by theater decorator Hanns Teichert in the March 2, 1940, issue of Boxoffice Magazine. The new Tri-States Theatres house was designed by the Des Moines architectural firm Wetherell & Harrison.
This appears to have been a replacement for an earlier Rialto Theatre. The February 1, 1939, issue of Boxoffice magazine said that Jack Bouma, operator of the Rialto Theatre in Pocahontas, planned to begin construction on a new theater there that spring. The plans for the new house were being drawn by the Des Moines architectural firm Wetherell & Harrison.
The November 3, 1940, issue of Boxoffice Magazine ran an item saying that excavation had begun for a theater on Church Street in Ottumwa. Although the name of the theater was not given, the photos match the description of the facade of the proposed house, which was to be a brick building faced with glazed tile and glass blocks. The theater was designed by the Des Moines firm Wetherell & Harrison, and was to have 525 seats.
The Collegian Theatre was designed by the Des Moines architectural firm Wetherell & Harrison, according to this page about the Varsity Theatre at the Ames Historical Society web site.
Here’s an illustrated web page about the Varsity Theatre</a>, courtesy of the Ames Historical Society. It says that the Varsity was designed by the Des Moines architectural firm Wetherell & Harrison, and that the same firm also designed the Collegian Theatre in Ames.
The Capitol Theatre was extensively altered in 1942, removing shops from the building front, extending the balcony, and increasing its original seating capacity by 300. An article with photos appeared in the July 18, 1942, issue of Boxoffice Magazine. The renovated interior was in the Art Moderne style. The project was designed by the Des Moines architecture firm Wetherell & Harrison.
An article about the Esquire Theatre appeared in the December 9, 1939, issue of Boxoffice Magazine. The article includes some information about the Columbia as well.
The Columbia opened on Christmas Day, 1913, with 1000 seats. The article says that the Esquire was built “within the walls” of the Columbia, as a single-floor theater. The Columbia had seated only about 600 in the orchestra and 400 in the balcony, so getting the Esquire’s 835 seats onto one floor necessitated the removal of most of the Columbia’s stage. The roof was lowered as well, but the auditorium still had a fairly high ceiling.
The new theater was thoroughly Moderne in style, with just a lingering hint of Art Deco in some of the details. The Esquire was designed by the Des Moines architectural firm Wetherell & Harrison.
I think we’ve gt an ID problem here. Note the location of the Mirror next door to the Capitol in the postcard view Lost Memory linked to on February 14, 2008. Then note the position of the Telenews in the later postcard view ken mc linked to on December 24, 2008. The Telenews and the Mirror were not in the same location. The Mirror is gone in the second view, and its building either replaced or chopped down to one floor. The Telenews was in a building adjacent to the Mirror’s location.
The Telenews opened late in 1941, and an article about it was published in the July 18, 1942, issue of Boxoffice Magazine. There were quotes from the architect, Jack Corgan, and the impression I got from the article was that the Telenews was entirely new construction.
The photo would confirm that the La Shell was built as a theater, though.
I really don’t see how the Oriental could have been at the address the library gives. If they’d said 4321, where there is now a building built in 1948, it would be plausible, but the spot they say it was in there’s only that 1924 building that couldn’t possibly have been a theater. If there had been a theater there, and it had been demolished and the stores in front preserved and reduced to one story, then the Assessor’s office would have given an effectively-built date for it.
The California Index has a card for a book that mentions the Alhambra Theatre in San Pedro. Card.
The stage house of the La Shell was apparently removed in the 1933 rebuilding, after the earthquake. The Southwest Builder & Contractor article said that the back of the building and stage house were to be rebuilt, but the La Shells must have decided to leave the stage house off. I still think it’s most likely that the library got the address wrong. Their photo collection is full of such errors.
The buildings actually look remarkably similar to me. The four wide second floor windows of the old building could have easily been narrowed into the eight windows of the La Shell, and the La Shell’s tower was undoubtedly part of the 3828 sq. ft. 1939 addition. That’s probably when the building got its Art Deco look.
Yes, the Boxoffice article confirms 1948 as the year the Nevada became the Crest. It was apparently called the Nevada for less than six full years, as the 1942 article said it had been the Wigwam before that year’s remodeling. I can’t find any earlier references to the Wigwam, so I don’t know how old it was when it became the Nevada.
One 1948 Boxoffice issue included an architects rendering of the remodeled Crest, but didn’t give the architect’s name. It was most likely done in-house by Fox, which means the lead architect would almost certainly have been Carl G. Moeller, who handled most of Fox’s designs during the Skouras era. In the pictures it certainly looks like his work.
The L.A. Library has this view of the La Shell, dated 1947.
The library also has this 1920’s photo, unearthed by ken mc, which depicts an Oriental Theatre, identified by the library as being at 5341 Long Beach Boulevard, which would have been across the street and down a block from the La Shell. Could the library have gotten the address wrong? Is it possible that Oriental was an earlier name of the La Shell?
The L.A. County Assessor’s office gives the construction date of the building on the parcel where the Oriental should have been as 1924, but that building bears no resemblance to a theater.