Circa-1950/51, I recall busing on a Sunday afternoon to the faraway, westside Columbus theatre the Old Trail for a reissue double feature of “A Thousand and One Nights”and Abbott and Costello in “Pardon My Sarong.” Outside, I observed the 40 x 60 poster for “Nights” did not say Technicolor. I asked the girl in the ticket booth, “Isn’t this in color?” She pointed to the Columbia credit on the poster and replied, “This is a Reprint.” Inside, the storybook credits on the screen had black bars superimposed on the two for Technicolor.
A great afternoon for a kid at a 1,300-seat theatre that lasted only from 1948 – 1951. This must have been one of its final shows.
This is not Cleveland but Columbus, Ohio. The downtown Knickerbocker at 250 S. High opened in 1916. The movie theater became a burlesque house on Nov. 22, 1946 called (in ads) Gayety Burlesk, closing Feb. 13, 1958. The auditorium was demolished in 1960 and the façade in 1980.
A massive shopping mall called City Center encompassing the block opened in 1989 and was itself demolished in 2009.
In answer to Patsy, the Majestic was indeed on the main drag, High St. in the center of downtown, next to Mill’s Cafeteria, right across from the Statehouse. The Majestic marquee, with horizontal red-neon bars, was similar to the RKO Grand, around the corner on State St. In the latter 1940s, fare was almost exclusively double features of B westerns. When the Majestic closed on New Year’s Eve 1950, the ad in the paper said, “The decade comes in, the Majestic goes out,” or words to that effect.
Circa-1950/51, I recall busing on a Sunday afternoon to the faraway, westside Columbus theatre the Old Trail for a reissue double feature of “A Thousand and One Nights”and Abbott and Costello in “Pardon My Sarong.” Outside, I observed the 40 x 60 poster for “Nights” did not say Technicolor. I asked the girl in the ticket booth, “Isn’t this in color?” She pointed to the Columbia credit on the poster and replied, “This is a Reprint.” Inside, the storybook credits on the screen had black bars superimposed on the two for Technicolor.
A great afternoon for a kid at a 1,300-seat theatre that lasted only from 1948 – 1951. This must have been one of its final shows.
This is not Cleveland but Columbus, Ohio. The downtown Knickerbocker at 250 S. High opened in 1916. The movie theater became a burlesque house on Nov. 22, 1946 called (in ads) Gayety Burlesk, closing Feb. 13, 1958. The auditorium was demolished in 1960 and the façade in 1980. A massive shopping mall called City Center encompassing the block opened in 1989 and was itself demolished in 2009.
In answer to Patsy, the Majestic was indeed on the main drag, High St. in the center of downtown, next to Mill’s Cafeteria, right across from the Statehouse. The Majestic marquee, with horizontal red-neon bars, was similar to the RKO Grand, around the corner on State St. In the latter 1940s, fare was almost exclusively double features of B westerns. When the Majestic closed on New Year’s Eve 1950, the ad in the paper said, “The decade comes in, the Majestic goes out,” or words to that effect.