According to Donald C. King’s new book The Theatres of Boston: A Stage and Screen History, this one started out as an amusement called Hale’s Tours, where “customers sat in mockups of train coach interiors, which shook, rattled and rocked as film scenery rushed by on a motion picture screen. This was a short-lived attraction. The location then became the Unique Theatre, then the Stuart.”
As the Unique Theatre, it opened in January 1907, with 250 seats.
King calls it “Boston’s last new single-screen motion picture theatre”, but I think he means to say that it was the last newly-built theatre that opened as a single screen and was never subsequently subdivided.
According to Donald C. King’s new book The Theatres of Boston: A Stage and Screen History, the Loew’s State was intended as a vaudeville theatre, featuring a fully equipped stage and a separate rehearsal hall (which soon became the Fine Arts).
However, when the State opened on March 13, 1922, it showed first-run films accompanied by an organ and, initially, a 30-piece symphony orchestra. It never became a full-time vaudeville house.
“In October 1922, the 656-seat Fine Arts Theatre opened as an upstairs house that was part of the uptown Loew’s State Theatre Building with an ‘around the corner’ entrance. It had a small but fully equipped stage, planned as a rehearsal hall. It was Boston’s first art film house, opening with a British import.”
In 1956 it became the “Off Broadway Stage”. In 1958, Sarah Caldwell’s opera company moved in, and it became the “Little Opera House”. The opera company moved downstairs in 1960 to the Donnelly Memorial (the former Loew’s State), and this house once again became the “Fine Arts”, showing foreign and art films.
According to Donald C. King’s new book The Theatres of Boston: A Stage and Screen History, the Exeter opened as a theatre on May 4, 1914. It originally played second-run films with three acts of vaudeville, but eventually became strictly a movie house. It had 830 seats on the main floor and 436 in the balcony.
King’s book also says that Ben Sack took over the Majestic on September 13, 1957, renaming it the Saxon. It opened with Oklahoma! in 70mm Todd-AO, shown twice a day with reserved seating.
“The gloom of the Great Depression hung over Boston, and every theatre advertised ‘Big Shows! Little Prices!’ and ‘1,000 seats for 25 cents!” The proud Tremont Theatre became the home of the 'proven pictures’. Old films and double features changing every few days were offered at 15 and 25 cents, and the policy caught on. The new proprietor, Frederick E. Lieberman, also leased the Majestic Theatre for ‘proven pictures’. His subsequent elimination of union stagehands and union projectionists brought about bombings of both houses, but fortunately no one was injured and little permanent damage was done."
Also from King’s book:
“The year 1941 opened with some excitement in Boston as a team of experts from RCA and Walt Disney’s film studios arrived to select a theatre to house Fantasia, a symphonic cartoon feature film which used stereophonic sound for the first time. The winning theatre had to have sufficient space to accommodate the great quantity of equipment required.
“Three soundtracks were carried on three reels for three lampless projectors, synchronized with a fourth one that showed the motion picture. The three dummy projectors connected with their own speakers behind the screen, creating stereophonic sound. One can imagine the size of the projection room that was needed.
“Supporters of the Boston Opera House, which had become something of a white elephant, campaigned desperately for the film, to ‘Save Our Opera House’. But the film opened January 28, 1941, at the refurbished Majestic Theatre, whose façade carried a huge marquee advertising Fantasia in attention-getting neon and bulbs, a show in itself. Disney’s trailblazing production enjoyed a long run in Boston because there were no other showings in New England.”
According to Donald C. King’s new book The Theatres of Boston: A Stage and Screen History, the large screen at the Charles opened in April 1967, but the two smaller downstairs screens, “Charles East” and “Charles West”, opened in 1973.
In 1947, E.M. Loew bought the Globe and renamed it the Center Theatre. The Center’s first production was Ben Hecht’s A Flag is Born, a stage play about the new state of Israel. In April 1947, it offered Everything on Ice, a copy of the Ice Capades arena show, which flopped. The Center then played a revival of the movie The Thief of Bagdad, which “did tremendous business”, according to King. As a result, E.M. Loew turned the Center into a double-feature revival film house.
By the early 1970s, the Center was playing action films and Asian “chop-socky” films, and it eventually changed its name to the Pagoda.
According to Donald C. King’s new book The Theatres of Boston: A Stage and Screen History, the Toy Theatre opened in 1914. William Morris took it over in 1916 and renamed it Copley, opening with Harry Lauder’s play The Night Before. King says that “Morris tried films, then a stock company, but nothing worked.”
It originally had 600 seats, but after it was disassembled and rotated onto Stuart Street in 1922, it gained 400 more seats.
The Shuberts took over the Copley in the 1930s. At one point it hosted productions of the Works Progress Administration’s Federal Theatre Project for unemployed theatre workers.
On January 31, 1958, Ben Sack reopened the Copley as a first-run movie house called the Capri. King says that Sack’s second Capri (formerly the Strand) opened on July 6, 1962, but that conflicts with the Herald ad that dwodeyla reported above.
According to Donald C. King’s new book The Theatres of Boston: A Stage and Screen History, the Repertory Theatre in 1939 was part of Fred E. Lieberman’s “proven pictures” circuit, showing cheap reruns of popular old films. Other theatres in his “proven pictures” circuit were the Tremont, Bijou, Normandie, and Majestic.
Starting in September 1940, the Repertory was used as a live stage once again, presenting the play Life With Father.
King says that the theatre was renamed Esquire around 1949. I do not know if this is accurate; it conflicts with the history that Boston University presents on its page.
According to Donald C. King’s new book The Theatres of Boston: A Stage and Screen History, the Fenway Theatre opened on December 19, 1915, with 1500 seats. “Architect Thomas Lamb designed it in early Adam style.” It was designed solely to show motion pictures, but also “had a fully equipped vaudeville stage, just in case.”
On July 28, 1928, the Fenway and the Washington Street Olympia presented what was billed as “The First 100% Talking Motion Picture” — Lionel Barrymore in The Lion and the Mouse, with a musical score plus a little dialogue.
Around 1969, the Theatre Company of Boston took over the Fenway’s stage.
King’s book also says the second Beacon Hill Theatre opened in 1973, while the Herald article I quoted above says 1971. Anyone know for sure, or will I have to revisit the Boston Public Library’s microfilm room and look at old ads?
Donald C. King’s new book, The Theatres of Boston: A Stage and Screen History, says that Jacob Lourie opened the Beacon in Feburary 1910 (not 1913 as earlier stated here) and was “architect Blackall’s first film house and joined Boston’s thriving multitude of dime movie enterprises. It played films and vaudeville for ten cents.” It had 800 seats. Lourie went on to open the Modern on June 25, 1914.
The book also says that “on November 10, 1948, a refurbished Beacon became the Beacon Hill Theatre, subsisting on foreign first runs and films moved over from the Astor.”
“The gloom of the Great Depression hung over Boston, and every theatre advertised ‘Big Shows! Little Prices!’ and ‘1,000 seats for 25 cents!” The proud Tremont Theatre became the home of the 'proven pictures’. Old films and double features changing every few days were offered at 15 and 25 cents, and the policy caught on. The new proprietor, Frederick E. Lieberman, also leased the Majestic Theatre for ‘proven pictures’. His subsequent elimination of union stagehands and union projectionists brought about bombings of both houses, but fortunately no one was injured and little permanent damage was done.
“In the late 1930s Lieberman performed drastic surgery on the Tremont, removing its stage. The house remained open during construction, and its moving pictures continued to be shown on a small screen painted on the front of a tall, wide barricade. Beams, which had supported the boxes, proscenium, and the roof trusses, were left in place at each side of the auditorium. The stage had been removed, and new orchestra flooring sloped down to its back wall under a new ceiling. The screen was hung on the back stage wall inside a tiny proscenium. There were no curtains.
“On November 11, 1947, the Tremont became the Astor Theatre. The house was remodeled, its gallery shaved back as far as structurally possible, and its projection booth was dropped to the balcony below. New seats were installed, and a new false ceiling was hung to level off Lieberman’s earlier surgery. The Astor boasted a ‘three dimensional screen’ and dubbed itself ‘the theatre of the future.’ John Ford’s controversial The Fugitive, a first-run RKO picture, was screened for the premiere. For Christmas the Astor landed Goldwyn’s The Bishop’s Wife, starring Cary Grant.”
King’s book says that the Astor was demolished in July 1983.
This page says 28 Chelsea Place, but I have no idea where the site gets its directory information from. The phone number listed on that page is disconnected.
According to Donald C. King’s new book The Theatres of Boston: A Stage and Screen History, this one started out as an amusement called Hale’s Tours, where “customers sat in mockups of train coach interiors, which shook, rattled and rocked as film scenery rushed by on a motion picture screen. This was a short-lived attraction. The location then became the Unique Theatre, then the Stuart.”
As the Unique Theatre, it opened in January 1907, with 250 seats.
Unfortunately, we can’t ask Donald King this or any other question, as he died last year, shortly before the book was published.
But I think he meant that the Paris was the last single-screen theatre that remained one throughout its life.
According to Donald C. King’s new book The Theatres of Boston: A Stage and Screen History, the Cinema 57 opened in 1972.
According to Donald C. King’s new book The Theatres of Boston: A Stage and Screen History, the Pi Alley opened on December 17, 1969.
According to Donald C. King’s new book The Theatres of Boston: A Stage and Screen History, the Paris opened on February 6, 1964.
King calls it “Boston’s last new single-screen motion picture theatre”, but I think he means to say that it was the last newly-built theatre that opened as a single screen and was never subsequently subdivided.
According to Donald C. King’s new book The Theatres of Boston: A Stage and Screen History, the Cheri opened with 800 seats on February 17, 1966.
According to Donald C. King’s new book The Theatres of Boston: A Stage and Screen History, the Loew’s State was intended as a vaudeville theatre, featuring a fully equipped stage and a separate rehearsal hall (which soon became the Fine Arts).
However, when the State opened on March 13, 1922, it showed first-run films accompanied by an organ and, initially, a 30-piece symphony orchestra. It never became a full-time vaudeville house.
The last movie was shown here on August 24, 1959.
According to Donald C. King’s new book The Theatres of Boston: A Stage and Screen History:
“In October 1922, the 656-seat Fine Arts Theatre opened as an upstairs house that was part of the uptown Loew’s State Theatre Building with an ‘around the corner’ entrance. It had a small but fully equipped stage, planned as a rehearsal hall. It was Boston’s first art film house, opening with a British import.”
In 1956 it became the “Off Broadway Stage”. In 1958, Sarah Caldwell’s opera company moved in, and it became the “Little Opera House”. The opera company moved downstairs in 1960 to the Donnelly Memorial (the former Loew’s State), and this house once again became the “Fine Arts”, showing foreign and art films.
According to Donald C. King’s new book The Theatres of Boston: A Stage and Screen History, the Exeter opened as a theatre on May 4, 1914. It originally played second-run films with three acts of vaudeville, but eventually became strictly a movie house. It had 830 seats on the main floor and 436 in the balcony.
Decades ago, it was common to run short subjects before a main feature. I like the idea of restoring this tradition.
Thanks. The ad says July 30, 1962 — not 1961.
King’s book also says that Ben Sack took over the Majestic on September 13, 1957, renaming it the Saxon. It opened with Oklahoma! in 70mm Todd-AO, shown twice a day with reserved seating.
According to Donald C. King’s new book The Theatres of Boston: A Stage and Screen History,
“The gloom of the Great Depression hung over Boston, and every theatre advertised ‘Big Shows! Little Prices!’ and ‘1,000 seats for 25 cents!” The proud Tremont Theatre became the home of the 'proven pictures’. Old films and double features changing every few days were offered at 15 and 25 cents, and the policy caught on. The new proprietor, Frederick E. Lieberman, also leased the Majestic Theatre for ‘proven pictures’. His subsequent elimination of union stagehands and union projectionists brought about bombings of both houses, but fortunately no one was injured and little permanent damage was done."
Also from King’s book:
“The year 1941 opened with some excitement in Boston as a team of experts from RCA and Walt Disney’s film studios arrived to select a theatre to house Fantasia, a symphonic cartoon feature film which used stereophonic sound for the first time. The winning theatre had to have sufficient space to accommodate the great quantity of equipment required.
“Three soundtracks were carried on three reels for three lampless projectors, synchronized with a fourth one that showed the motion picture. The three dummy projectors connected with their own speakers behind the screen, creating stereophonic sound. One can imagine the size of the projection room that was needed.
“Supporters of the Boston Opera House, which had become something of a white elephant, campaigned desperately for the film, to ‘Save Our Opera House’. But the film opened January 28, 1941, at the refurbished Majestic Theatre, whose façade carried a huge marquee advertising Fantasia in attention-getting neon and bulbs, a show in itself. Disney’s trailblazing production enjoyed a long run in Boston because there were no other showings in New England.”
According to Donald C. King’s new book The Theatres of Boston: A Stage and Screen History, the large screen at the Charles opened in April 1967, but the two smaller downstairs screens, “Charles East” and “Charles West”, opened in 1973.
According to Donald C. King’s new book The Theatres of Boston: A Stage and Screen History, the Globe opened on September 14, 1903, with a capacity of 1536 seats.
It did not last long as a legitimate stage; by 1912, it was presenting vaudeville and movies for 10, 15, and 25 cents. At the end of 1913, it showed a film called Traffic in Souls, an exposé of white slavery. The following year, it became part of Marcus Loew’s vaudeville and movie circuit. NETOCO took it over in December 1928 and extensively remodeled it during the summer of 1929.
By the 1940s, it was a burlesque house.
In 1947, E.M. Loew bought the Globe and renamed it the Center Theatre. The Center’s first production was Ben Hecht’s A Flag is Born, a stage play about the new state of Israel. In April 1947, it offered Everything on Ice, a copy of the Ice Capades arena show, which flopped. The Center then played a revival of the movie The Thief of Bagdad, which “did tremendous business”, according to King. As a result, E.M. Loew turned the Center into a double-feature revival film house.
By the early 1970s, the Center was playing action films and Asian “chop-socky” films, and it eventually changed its name to the Pagoda.
According to Donald C. King’s new book The Theatres of Boston: A Stage and Screen History, the Toy Theatre opened in 1914. William Morris took it over in 1916 and renamed it Copley, opening with Harry Lauder’s play The Night Before. King says that “Morris tried films, then a stock company, but nothing worked.”
It originally had 600 seats, but after it was disassembled and rotated onto Stuart Street in 1922, it gained 400 more seats.
The Shuberts took over the Copley in the 1930s. At one point it hosted productions of the Works Progress Administration’s Federal Theatre Project for unemployed theatre workers.
On January 31, 1958, Ben Sack reopened the Copley as a first-run movie house called the Capri. King says that Sack’s second Capri (formerly the Strand) opened on July 6, 1962, but that conflicts with the Herald ad that dwodeyla reported above.
According to Donald C. King’s new book The Theatres of Boston: A Stage and Screen History, the Repertory Theatre in 1939 was part of Fred E. Lieberman’s “proven pictures” circuit, showing cheap reruns of popular old films. Other theatres in his “proven pictures” circuit were the Tremont, Bijou, Normandie, and Majestic.
Starting in September 1940, the Repertory was used as a live stage once again, presenting the play Life With Father.
King says that the theatre was renamed Esquire around 1949. I do not know if this is accurate; it conflicts with the history that Boston University presents on its page.
According to Donald C. King’s new book The Theatres of Boston: A Stage and Screen History, the Fenway Theatre opened on December 19, 1915, with 1500 seats. “Architect Thomas Lamb designed it in early Adam style.” It was designed solely to show motion pictures, but also “had a fully equipped vaudeville stage, just in case.”
On July 28, 1928, the Fenway and the Washington Street Olympia presented what was billed as “The First 100% Talking Motion Picture” — Lionel Barrymore in The Lion and the Mouse, with a musical score plus a little dialogue.
Around 1969, the Theatre Company of Boston took over the Fenway’s stage.
King’s book also says the second Beacon Hill Theatre opened in 1973, while the Herald article I quoted above says 1971. Anyone know for sure, or will I have to revisit the Boston Public Library’s microfilm room and look at old ads?
Donald C. King’s new book, The Theatres of Boston: A Stage and Screen History, says that Jacob Lourie opened the Beacon in Feburary 1910 (not 1913 as earlier stated here) and was “architect Blackall’s first film house and joined Boston’s thriving multitude of dime movie enterprises. It played films and vaudeville for ten cents.” It had 800 seats. Lourie went on to open the Modern on June 25, 1914.
The book also says that “on November 10, 1948, a refurbished Beacon became the Beacon Hill Theatre, subsisting on foreign first runs and films moved over from the Astor.”
From Donald C. King’s new book The Theatres of Boston: A Stage and Screen History:
“The gloom of the Great Depression hung over Boston, and every theatre advertised ‘Big Shows! Little Prices!’ and ‘1,000 seats for 25 cents!” The proud Tremont Theatre became the home of the 'proven pictures’. Old films and double features changing every few days were offered at 15 and 25 cents, and the policy caught on. The new proprietor, Frederick E. Lieberman, also leased the Majestic Theatre for ‘proven pictures’. His subsequent elimination of union stagehands and union projectionists brought about bombings of both houses, but fortunately no one was injured and little permanent damage was done.
“In the late 1930s Lieberman performed drastic surgery on the Tremont, removing its stage. The house remained open during construction, and its moving pictures continued to be shown on a small screen painted on the front of a tall, wide barricade. Beams, which had supported the boxes, proscenium, and the roof trusses, were left in place at each side of the auditorium. The stage had been removed, and new orchestra flooring sloped down to its back wall under a new ceiling. The screen was hung on the back stage wall inside a tiny proscenium. There were no curtains.
“On November 11, 1947, the Tremont became the Astor Theatre. The house was remodeled, its gallery shaved back as far as structurally possible, and its projection booth was dropped to the balcony below. New seats were installed, and a new false ceiling was hung to level off Lieberman’s earlier surgery. The Astor boasted a ‘three dimensional screen’ and dubbed itself ‘the theatre of the future.’ John Ford’s controversial The Fugitive, a first-run RKO picture, was screened for the premiere. For Christmas the Astor landed Goldwyn’s The Bishop’s Wife, starring Cary Grant.”
King’s book says that the Astor was demolished in July 1983.
Homage to the Gaiety, a poem from today’s issue of the Chinatown newspaper Sampan.
> Let cooler heads prevail.
Indeed. This bickering is unseemly and certainly isn’t going to help any of you save this theatre.
I’ve never been to this location, but I very much want to see this succeed. If it works, perhaps it will spawn worthy imitators in other cities?
This page says 28 Chelsea Place, but I have no idea where the site gets its directory information from. The phone number listed on that page is disconnected.