A survey of historic buildings in Tazewell prepared for a proposed historic district in 1998 says “[a] new opera house to serve the citizens of Tazewell was provided in 1916 with the building of the Clinch Theater at the comer of Church and Main streets. This theater was demolished in the 1980s to enlarge the Methodist Church.” Another page of the survey says “[m]ovies were viewed at the Clinch Theater, the former opera house built in 1916. This theater was demolished in recent years.”
The only new theater I can find that was built at Tazewell in 1916 was the New Theatre. It is listed with 600 seats in FDYs in 1926 and 1934, but in 1935 it vanishes and the 360-seat Amusu Theatre appears. Starting in 1936 the 360-seat Clinch Theatre is listed. I’ve found no news items that would account for the drop in capacity at the time of the name change, but it’s easy to imagine something such as a fire that led to a rebuilding without a balcony, for example. In any case, it appears that New Theatre was the opening name of the house we have listed as the Clinch Theatre.
I can’t understand why anyone would have considered the Branford a “…‘big barn’ without architectural distinction.” Photos show Fred Wentworth’s restrained Adamesque interiors to have been quite lovely.
The 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory lists a house called the New Monogram Theatre at 3529 S. Halsted. Neither of the State Street Monograms are listed.
The item about the opening of the Manhattan Theatre cited in my previous comment was from the July 9, 1910 issue of Moving Picture World.
The 1970 obituary of a Mr. Roy M. Stevens says that “[f]or six years he owned and operated the Manhattan Theater in Meadville….” It doesn’t give the years, and I’ve been unable to find Stevens mentioned in theater trade journals.
The July 2, 1910 issue of Moving Picture World had a few words to say about the Bijou, recently converted to a movie house, and they were not entirely complementary:
“BROADWAY’S LATEST MISTAKE.
“We have noticed for some weeks past that the popular little Bijou Theater on Broadway at Thirtieth street has been converted into a picture house, and we have waited for a convenient opportunity to pay the theater a visit and see for ourselves whether those who are responsible for putting on the pictures have grasped the opportunities which Broadway offers, and which nobody, not a single soul, between Twenty-third and Sixtieth streets, seems to realize; that is, of giving Broadway a real picture house. We mean a house in which the picture is made the predominant feature, plus good music and the like. The Bijou has not risen to its opportunity, although it is a comfy little house, we might say an almost ideal house, for the purpose of studying the picture leisurely and amidst agreeable surroundings.
“To begin with, it seems to be felt that at the Bijou there is no necessity for excluding superfluous and extraneous light from the screen. The result was that on the occasion of our visit one afternoon last week some excellent Gaumont. Pathe and Selig pictures were almost, nay, we might say absolutely, spoilt by too much light being thrown on the picture. Then again, a little to the right of the proscenium opening there was visible all through the piece the shadow of the revolving arm of the operator, who was working in the gallery. Also the operator seemed to us to work too fast. We feel that if these little defects are seen to in future and greater care be taken to show the picture at its best, the Bijou Theater still has a chance of becoming a first-class picture house. And in order further to increase that chance, it must cut out the stupid vaudeville which we saw. Also the very indifferent singing. The vaudeville end of matters was only redeemed from absolute failure by some very clever dancing on the part of a boy and a girl.”
The Rose Supper Club closed in 2013, following a shooting incident which left several patrons dead. It reopened briefly under a new name but the building now appears to have been vacant for a long time. Satellite view shows that the roof is in terrible condition, so it wouldn’t be surprising if this building has to be demolished soon. The real estate web site xome says that it was built in 1940. The State probably opened after the 1941 FDY was compiled, but most likely did operate for at least part of that year, and maybe even for a small part of 1940.
The Digital Archive of Alabama has that photo, and says that the buildings were on the south side of Coosa Street between Bibb and North Court, so it is Montgomery after all. They date the photo August 4, 1966. The entire block has since been demolished. We have no theaters listed at this location. I’ve been unable to find anything about it on the Internet. CinemaTour has a Ritz listed in Montgomery, but has no address for it.
A Ritz Theatre was listed at Montgomery in the 1929 FDY, but I have no idea if it was this one. This is quite a puzzle.
The theater at 954 Highland is already listed at Cinema Treasures under the name State Theatre. Also, Darren Snow is right about the Ritz in the photo not being the one in Montgomery.
The Strand was up the block to the left. The Strand vertical sign was put on the Blanchard’s building to attract people passing along Main Street. If you look closely you’ll see a small arrow pointing up Elm Street at the bottom of the sign. The entrance to Blanchard’s Theatre was near the center of the Main Street side of the building, with the word “THEATRE” above it.
An Empire Theatre in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory was listed at 19 Commerce Street. The New Empire Theatre on Montgomery Street did not open until the summer of 1917. The December 1, 1917 issue of Moving Picture World devoted most of this page to an article about the new house, which it said had opened “a few weeks ago.” It had actually been a few months. This was the August 2 opening, an ad for which Mike Rivest has uploaded to the photo page. The new house was under the management of H. C. Farley, “…who for many years was in charge of the Empire theater on Commerce street.”
Much of the article is concerned with the Empire’s cooling and ventilation system, reputedly the first of its kind in any theater. A later issue of the magazine noted that a similar system had previously been installed in chambers of both the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives in Washington.
The March 11, 1917 issue of the Montgomery Advertiser ran an article which said that the plans for the new theater were being drawn by “architect Ausfeld.” This was undoubtedly Frederick Ausfeld, one of Montgomery’s leading early 20th century architects, several of whose projects are now listed on the NRHP. Too bad the Empire Theatre can’t be among them.
The May 8, 1926 issue of Moving Picture World said that Ralph Shadley had bought the Academy Theatre building at Meadville from the estate of the late A. G. Phillips. Boxoffice of April 18, 1966 reported that the booking office of Blatt Bros. Theatres had begun licensing and booking films for Ralph Shadley’s Academy Theatre.
The Manhattan Theatre opened in 1910. Here is an item from an issue of Moving Picture World for which I’ve so far been unable to find the date, but it appears to have been in July.
“Meadville, Pa. — Meadville’s new moving picture theatorium, under the name of the Manhattan Theater, conducted by Spauldlng & Balizet, in the Derickson block, opposite the new post-office, opened for the first time yesterday. The room, which is 70 by 24 feet, has been repapered and the woodwork painted, electric lights installed, and the place is all brand new. Light opera seats have been put in, and the seating capacity is 252. The canvas on which the pictures are thrown is 14 by 12 feet, so that a good view is offered for every seat in the room.”
The 1910 post office is at 296 Chestnut Street. There are several buildings in the neighborhood that were built by members of the Derickson family, but I’ve been unable to pin down the addresses of any of them. However, a 1922 Sanborn map shows that only two of the storefronts in only one of the buildings across from the post office has the dimensions of the theater, 24 x 70 feet, but as no theater is noted on either of them, the Manhattan must have been closed by that year. The map shows 297 Chestnut as a grocery store, and 299 as a news stand. Today the first is a bar and the second a restaurant, but one or the other must have been the theater. Unfortunately, a 1912 Sanborn available online stops just north of this block, but maybe the LOC will be able to add that page someday. Google street view here.
The Legion Theatre appears in some of the video footage showing damage caused by the tornado that struck Mayfield late Friday. The roof and top of the stage tower have been destroyed. The building can be briefly seen about 19 seconds in on this video, at the upper left.
An article in the August 11, 1931 issue of Motion Picture Times said that E. F. Stein planned to open a newly remodeled theater at La Feria on September 10. The article said that the house was formerly known as the Dukedun Theatre and had been operated by Brady and Omhart. I thought perhaps the odd name Dukedun was a typo, especially since the magazine used a different spelling of La Feria (LeFeria) in the headline than in the article. But Google did fetch one other instance of the name, in the March 21, 1929 issue of The Brownsville Herald, which said that Mrs. Beulah Lee Nesmith was going to take over management of the Dukedun Theatre at La Feria from Ed Brady.
The Dukedun is listed in the 1929 FDY with 600 seats. La Feria isn’t in the 1930 FDY, but in 1931 the Dukedun is listed as closed. In 1932 it is open again, but in 1933 the house at La Feria is called the Bijou, though still with 600 seats. The 600-seat Bijou then remains listed through 1938. I don’t have the 1939 yearbook, but in 1940 the only house listed at La Feria is the Rialto, with 475 seats.
The Alto Theatre was being advertised in the Brownsville Herald by November, 1940, so the name Rialto didn’t last long, and the FDY was a bit behind the times for still listing the Rialto in 1941.
The August 11, 1931 issue of Motion Picture Times said that H. N. Jorgensen had closed his East Grand Theatre in Dallas for a complete remodeling and an expansion that would almost double its seating capacity. Architect for the $25,000 project was W. Scott Dunne. Reopening was expected to take place about October 1.
An item in the April 13, 1929 issue of Motion Picture News said that “Dent Theatres, Inc., will start work on their new theatre, at Mexia, Tex., soon.” This could have been the National. It was not the Palace, as another item in the same issue of the magazine said that the Palace was then being remodeled.
Well, the second Elma Theatre was also destroyed by a fire, this one on March 16, 1948. The Fire which destroyed the Dawn Theatre in 1954 took place on March 4. The Alma Theatre Corporation rebuilt the Dawn with another Quonset structure, and rather daringly (or defiantly) named it the Flame Theatre. I’ve been unable to discover if the Flame was later destroyed by fire.
The Lyric Theatre was the only house listed at Brady in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory, but the theater had already been around for some time. A column headed “In Brady…42 Years Ago” in the July 16, 1954 Brady Standard included an item from the July 5, 1912 issue of the paper saying that an SRO crowd had attended the opening night of a week-long engagement of a stock company at the Lyric on July 3.
An ad for the Lyric in the January 1, 1924 Brady Standard showed daily changes of program (no Sunday shows) with a feature film and short subject, usually either a two-reel comedy or a Fox newsreel. There was one show a night at 7:30 pm, except Saturday when there were two shows, the first starting at 7:00 pm. Julius Levy was the proprietor and manager.
The 1940 Film Daily Yearbook lists two theaters at Brady, the 750-seat Brady and the 450-seat Palace.
CinemaTour lists the address of the Lyric as 118 S. Blackburn Street.
Downtown Brady had three movie houses in operation as late as 1954. The March 13 issue of Boxoffice reported that Kay Caywood, manager of all three houses, had changed their hours of operation. The Brady Theatre would now open at 1:00 pm daily except Saturday when it would open at 12:00 noon. The Texas Theatre and Palace Theatre would open at 5:30 pm Monday through Friday, 12:00 noon on Saturday, and 1:00 pm on Sunday.
The Palace might have closed in 1955, but the Texas and the Brady continued to operate for many years, so it isn’t true that the first movie shown in Brady since 1955 was at the re-opened Palace in 2014.
A survey of historic buildings in Tazewell prepared for a proposed historic district in 1998 says “[a] new opera house to serve the citizens of Tazewell was provided in 1916 with the building of the Clinch Theater at the comer of Church and Main streets. This theater was demolished in the 1980s to enlarge the Methodist Church.” Another page of the survey says “[m]ovies were viewed at the Clinch Theater, the former opera house built in 1916. This theater was demolished in recent years.”
The only new theater I can find that was built at Tazewell in 1916 was the New Theatre. It is listed with 600 seats in FDYs in 1926 and 1934, but in 1935 it vanishes and the 360-seat Amusu Theatre appears. Starting in 1936 the 360-seat Clinch Theatre is listed. I’ve found no news items that would account for the drop in capacity at the time of the name change, but it’s easy to imagine something such as a fire that led to a rebuilding without a balcony, for example. In any case, it appears that New Theatre was the opening name of the house we have listed as the Clinch Theatre.
I can’t understand why anyone would have considered the Branford a “…‘big barn’ without architectural distinction.” Photos show Fred Wentworth’s restrained Adamesque interiors to have been quite lovely.
The 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory lists a house called the New Monogram Theatre at 3529 S. Halsted. Neither of the State Street Monograms are listed.
The Glenwood Theatre was listed in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory.
The item about the opening of the Manhattan Theatre cited in my previous comment was from the July 9, 1910 issue of Moving Picture World.
The 1970 obituary of a Mr. Roy M. Stevens says that “[f]or six years he owned and operated the Manhattan Theater in Meadville….” It doesn’t give the years, and I’ve been unable to find Stevens mentioned in theater trade journals.
Marginal though it may have been, the Clinton Theatre was listed in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory.
The July 2, 1910 issue of Moving Picture World had a few words to say about the Bijou, recently converted to a movie house, and they were not entirely complementary:
The Rose Supper Club closed in 2013, following a shooting incident which left several patrons dead. It reopened briefly under a new name but the building now appears to have been vacant for a long time. Satellite view shows that the roof is in terrible condition, so it wouldn’t be surprising if this building has to be demolished soon. The real estate web site xome says that it was built in 1940. The State probably opened after the 1941 FDY was compiled, but most likely did operate for at least part of that year, and maybe even for a small part of 1940.
The Digital Archive of Alabama has that photo, and says that the buildings were on the south side of Coosa Street between Bibb and North Court, so it is Montgomery after all. They date the photo August 4, 1966. The entire block has since been demolished. We have no theaters listed at this location. I’ve been unable to find anything about it on the Internet. CinemaTour has a Ritz listed in Montgomery, but has no address for it.
A Ritz Theatre was listed at Montgomery in the 1929 FDY, but I have no idea if it was this one. This is quite a puzzle.
The theater at 954 Highland is already listed at Cinema Treasures under the name State Theatre. Also, Darren Snow is right about the Ritz in the photo not being the one in Montgomery.
The Grand Theatre was listed in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory.
The Strand was up the block to the left. The Strand vertical sign was put on the Blanchard’s building to attract people passing along Main Street. If you look closely you’ll see a small arrow pointing up Elm Street at the bottom of the sign. The entrance to Blanchard’s Theatre was near the center of the Main Street side of the building, with the word “THEATRE” above it.
An Empire Theatre in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory was listed at 19 Commerce Street. The New Empire Theatre on Montgomery Street did not open until the summer of 1917. The December 1, 1917 issue of Moving Picture World devoted most of this page to an article about the new house, which it said had opened “a few weeks ago.” It had actually been a few months. This was the August 2 opening, an ad for which Mike Rivest has uploaded to the photo page. The new house was under the management of H. C. Farley, “…who for many years was in charge of the Empire theater on Commerce street.”
Much of the article is concerned with the Empire’s cooling and ventilation system, reputedly the first of its kind in any theater. A later issue of the magazine noted that a similar system had previously been installed in chambers of both the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives in Washington.
The March 11, 1917 issue of the Montgomery Advertiser ran an article which said that the plans for the new theater were being drawn by “architect Ausfeld.” This was undoubtedly Frederick Ausfeld, one of Montgomery’s leading early 20th century architects, several of whose projects are now listed on the NRHP. Too bad the Empire Theatre can’t be among them.
An item in The Gadsen County Times from the week of April 12, 1934 mentions the Shaw Theater.
The May 8, 1926 issue of Moving Picture World said that Ralph Shadley had bought the Academy Theatre building at Meadville from the estate of the late A. G. Phillips. Boxoffice of April 18, 1966 reported that the booking office of Blatt Bros. Theatres had begun licensing and booking films for Ralph Shadley’s Academy Theatre.
The Manhattan Theatre opened in 1910. Here is an item from an issue of Moving Picture World for which I’ve so far been unable to find the date, but it appears to have been in July.
The 1910 post office is at 296 Chestnut Street. There are several buildings in the neighborhood that were built by members of the Derickson family, but I’ve been unable to pin down the addresses of any of them. However, a 1922 Sanborn map shows that only two of the storefronts in only one of the buildings across from the post office has the dimensions of the theater, 24 x 70 feet, but as no theater is noted on either of them, the Manhattan must have been closed by that year. The map shows 297 Chestnut as a grocery store, and 299 as a news stand. Today the first is a bar and the second a restaurant, but one or the other must have been the theater. Unfortunately, a 1912 Sanborn available online stops just north of this block, but maybe the LOC will be able to add that page someday. Google street view here.The Legion Theatre appears in some of the video footage showing damage caused by the tornado that struck Mayfield late Friday. The roof and top of the stage tower have been destroyed. The building can be briefly seen about 19 seconds in on this video, at the upper left.
An article in the August 11, 1931 issue of Motion Picture Times said that E. F. Stein planned to open a newly remodeled theater at La Feria on September 10. The article said that the house was formerly known as the Dukedun Theatre and had been operated by Brady and Omhart. I thought perhaps the odd name Dukedun was a typo, especially since the magazine used a different spelling of La Feria (LeFeria) in the headline than in the article. But Google did fetch one other instance of the name, in the March 21, 1929 issue of The Brownsville Herald, which said that Mrs. Beulah Lee Nesmith was going to take over management of the Dukedun Theatre at La Feria from Ed Brady.
The Dukedun is listed in the 1929 FDY with 600 seats. La Feria isn’t in the 1930 FDY, but in 1931 the Dukedun is listed as closed. In 1932 it is open again, but in 1933 the house at La Feria is called the Bijou, though still with 600 seats. The 600-seat Bijou then remains listed through 1938. I don’t have the 1939 yearbook, but in 1940 the only house listed at La Feria is the Rialto, with 475 seats.
The Alto Theatre was being advertised in the Brownsville Herald by November, 1940, so the name Rialto didn’t last long, and the FDY was a bit behind the times for still listing the Rialto in 1941.
The August 11, 1931 issue of Motion Picture Times said that H. N. Jorgensen had closed his East Grand Theatre in Dallas for a complete remodeling and an expansion that would almost double its seating capacity. Architect for the $25,000 project was W. Scott Dunne. Reopening was expected to take place about October 1.
The March 25, 1950 issue of Boxoffice said that Long’s Pasadena Theatre had been shuttered and the building would be remodeled for use as a store.
An item in the April 13, 1929 issue of Motion Picture News said that “Dent Theatres, Inc., will start work on their new theatre, at Mexia, Tex., soon.” This could have been the National. It was not the Palace, as another item in the same issue of the magazine said that the Palace was then being remodeled.
The April 13, 1929 issue of Motion Picture News said that the Palace Theatre in Mexia, Texas, was being remodeled.
Well, the second Elma Theatre was also destroyed by a fire, this one on March 16, 1948. The Fire which destroyed the Dawn Theatre in 1954 took place on March 4. The Alma Theatre Corporation rebuilt the Dawn with another Quonset structure, and rather daringly (or defiantly) named it the Flame Theatre. I’ve been unable to discover if the Flame was later destroyed by fire.
The Lyric Theatre was the only house listed at Brady in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory, but the theater had already been around for some time. A column headed “In Brady…42 Years Ago” in the July 16, 1954 Brady Standard included an item from the July 5, 1912 issue of the paper saying that an SRO crowd had attended the opening night of a week-long engagement of a stock company at the Lyric on July 3.
An ad for the Lyric in the January 1, 1924 Brady Standard showed daily changes of program (no Sunday shows) with a feature film and short subject, usually either a two-reel comedy or a Fox newsreel. There was one show a night at 7:30 pm, except Saturday when there were two shows, the first starting at 7:00 pm. Julius Levy was the proprietor and manager.
The 1940 Film Daily Yearbook lists two theaters at Brady, the 750-seat Brady and the 450-seat Palace.
CinemaTour lists the address of the Lyric as 118 S. Blackburn Street.
Downtown Brady had three movie houses in operation as late as 1954. The March 13 issue of Boxoffice reported that Kay Caywood, manager of all three houses, had changed their hours of operation. The Brady Theatre would now open at 1:00 pm daily except Saturday when it would open at 12:00 noon. The Texas Theatre and Palace Theatre would open at 5:30 pm Monday through Friday, 12:00 noon on Saturday, and 1:00 pm on Sunday.
The Palace might have closed in 1955, but the Texas and the Brady continued to operate for many years, so it isn’t true that the first movie shown in Brady since 1955 was at the re-opened Palace in 2014.