Da-Bel Cinema
1920 S. Smithville Road,
Dayton,
OH
45403
1920 S. Smithville Road,
Dayton,
OH
45403
3 people
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What a beautiful wide screen theater. On another site I found a Sound of Music ad for it so I looked it up here. This is what I wished the Ziegfeld was like in New York. Wow 105 weeks for SOM. It didn’t even run that long in NY at the Rivoli. A lot of repeat viewings. I would have been one of them in a 70MM house like that.
Here’s a new 4-page 50th anniversary FIDDLER ON THE ROOF retrospective featuring a roadshow playdate chronology and historian Q&A. The Dabel’s lengthy run is mentioned in the piece.
AKA Dabel Cinema
AKA Dabel Theatre
A complete list of Cinerama and 70mm Engagements at this theatre is available at the In70mm website
The Da-Bel closed September 29, 1992 with “Honey, I Blew Up the Kids.” It was razed one week later.
Grand opening ad
Dabel theatre opening · Mon, Apr 21, 1947 – 17 · The Dayton Herald (Dayton, Ohio) · Newspapers.com
Hey Zookie Freddie. Read Dingoman’s note again. He said he saw the movie 2001 not in the year 2001. Put your glasses on if you can find them and read.
It was 50 years ago today that “The Sound of Music” premiered at the Dabel. With a reserved-seat run of 105 weeks, it’s almost certainly the long-run record holder for this venue. (Anyone know of something that ran longer?) It was one of ten runs in the United States and at least 24 globally that ran the movie continuously into a third year.
He’s talking about the Kubrick film 2001.
Please help me here. Dingoman says he actually saw a movie here in 2001 even though it was torn down in 1992! I moved out of Dayton in 1999 after the drug store had replaced the theater with their own building and it, after that, became a Family Dollar store. Maybe he meant another year for sure?
Gee…
How The West Was Won
Sound of Music
Circus World
2001: A Space Odyssey
Ice Station Zebra
Grand Prix
Krakatoa East of Java
I’ll never forget going in and sitting down, listening to the overture, and then watching those curtains pull back to reveal that huge curved screen as the movie began. This movie palace gave me my love for movies.
Before the Dabel was built between Brownies Market and Steberal’s Market on Smithville, there was an open air “farmer’s type” market on the spot with a big tent in the middle. The tent pole had a telephone on it and when we would come home from downtown (the bus line loop was on Wayne Ave at Smithville), we would call mom to pick us up using that phone. Then they demolished the market place to build the Dabel in 1947. I was eight and joined the “booster” club with my sisters and we all got a badge with a number on it. Every Saturday (no TV!) we would get a quarter and a penny to go to the Dabel and watch the serials and superman (the original) and all of the other 1940 movies. When we bought our tickets for 20 cents, we would have six cents left to buy a candy bar. Sometimes our booster club number would appear on the window of the ticket booth and we would get in free with 26 cents to buy candy and popcorn!
Saw the Sound of Music there when they took all the paperboys to a special morning showing. Also saw How the West Was Wong and 2001 in Cinerama. The last film I saw there was Tommy in “quintrophonic sound.” Nice and loud and great sound for all the shows on the big screen!
Here is a 1948 photo:
http://tinyurl.com/2ohlea
When I lived in Dayton from 1963 to 1999, I attended this theater many times. It was directly across from the end of Wayne Avenue and had ‘rocking chair’ seats. It was torn down to build a Revco Drug store, which went bankrupt. The drug store, of course, closed and was later taken over as a Family Dollar store.