Connor Palace Theatre
1615 Euclid Avenue,
Cleveland,
OH
44115
1615 Euclid Avenue,
Cleveland,
OH
44115
13 people
favorited this theater
Showing 1 - 25 of 58 comments
Closed as a first-run movie theater on July 20, 1969 with “Krakatoa East Of Java”.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DhlFlBiO7LY
The old marquee was featured prominently in the open for the Hoolihan and Big Chuck Show on WJW TV when that tv station studio was at 1630 Euclid Ave.
Besides the Cinerama engagements the Palace was also home to reserved seat runs of SPARTACUS, PORGY AND BESS and CAN-CAN. Too bad they tore off the spectacular neon and light bulb marquee in the restoration. It was the greatest movie marquee in Cleveland. They must think the new one is more “tasteful” but the 1950s one was really dazzling.
11/26/33 photo & description added courtesy Frank N Karen Burval.
November 6, 1922 grand opening program in photos
Loews didn’t do 70mm at the Cedar Center, they butchered the place soon after taking it over in the late 70s by dividing it in half and installing those hated game machines and tile floors in the once-beautiful lobby. As with Loews East and Loews West, both equipped with 70mm and mag stereo equipment, Herb Brown, the Loews DM at the time, wasn’t interested in 70mm and had the RCA technicians set up for only 35mm mono operation after the auditoriums were split. The original operator, National General Corp., did a lot of 70mm at what was then called the Fox Cedar Center.
1968 photo added courtesy of Theo Tersteeg.
1956 photo added courtesy of the AmeriCar The Beautiful Facebook page.
1945 RKO Palace Theater had all the big bands playing as they came up from the basement to the stage. Kay Ballard was the head usherette and she use to practice singing in the shower in the usherette changing room on the 4th floor and I was an usherette when I was 16. I heard them all. Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey, Harry James, Glen Millen…and all the others. We had uniforms professionally made just for us. Every Thursday, each band leader met 3 usherettes with the manager next door at a soda fountain and they autographed 8 x 10 glossies for us by name. Of course, I was too young to realize the importance. They got ruined in the attic. I had over 20 of them.
There was a new band every week and played twice each day after a movie.
There is an excellent 1928 photo of the Palace on the Historic-Memphis.com website’s Theatre page. Here’s a link to the page.
Thank you!
(Thanks also for your mention of the Loews Cedar-Center, the name of which I’d totally forgotten and I was having trouble finding any reference to it.)
I do too, Tim; I was looking forward to filling in some gaps in my Cleveland Cinerama memories.
Note to ChasSmith: Actually, the reserved seat Cinerama run of “2001” was at Loew’s State. After Cinerama ended at the Palace, Cinerama productions (only 70mm versions) were shown at the Great Northern in North Olmsted, which was opened by Stanley-Warner as a purpose-built Cinerama house (SW has earlier considered retrofitting the Vogue in Shaker Heights for Cinerama; plans were drawn but not used). When Cinerama films were discontinued at the Great Northern, Cinerama returned downtown to Loew’s State. The 70mm re-release of “This is Cinerama” was shown at Loews Cedar-Center.
I wish Cleveland had been included in that “Remembering Cinerama” series last year, I kept waiting for it.
The Palace was the one equipped for Cinerama, so I guess I’ve found where I saw “2001” in its roadshow engagement two or three times in the summer of 1968. I wish I could remember more from back then about the theater itself.
Here is a construction view
A picture showing (supposedly) the first ticket being sold to “This is Cinerama” at the Palace:
View link. Only a few months later, on a cold February Saturday morning, our family went to see the film; an experience I can still recall vividly over fifty-odd years later.
Just wanted to point out that every year since 1998 the Palace Theater has hosted the “Cinema At The Square” classic film series every August for only $5 bucks each. In 2010 they played 16 films, dating from mostly the 1930s-1980s.
Great ad!
Spectrum, those are great photos!!!
So glad it’s still there. I hope to visit it soon.
Any chance of it being incorporated with the famous Cleveland Film Festival in March???
Here is a September 1949 article about the Palace from Boxoffice magazine:
http://tinyurl.com/y9t8oke
Spectrum, you are the man! Those are the best modern photos of Playhouse Square I have seen to date.
Great before and after shots of the Loews Ohio and State and the Palace in 1956.
Renewing link.
And an ad from 1947:
View link