Royal Theatre

The Royal theatre opened on June 9th, 1910 per:

Royal Theatre opening 08 Jun 1910, Wed The Cincinnati Post (Cincinnati, Ohio) Newspapers.com

I have 60 or so old silent movie actors and actress autographed photos addressed to A.J. Paul at the Royal Theater. Cincinnati, Ohio. Would anyone know if someone in the industry could use them. there all at least 8x10’s

milap, try the Studio Cinemas on this web site in cincinnati for your twin screens. The Royal in the 1970’s played soft porn only.

I remember a single-screen movie theater in downtown Cincy that was opened in the summer of 1975. They were playing “Revenge of the Pink Panther” at the time. Does anyone know whether it was the Royal? It looked lovely all lit up at night, but I didn’t have the chance to go inside unfortunately.
Also recall a really tiny downtown Cincy twin theater inside of an office building (or small shopping center) that was in operation in November ‘75. Anybody???

The Royal was already showing soft porn the first time I saw it as a kid but it had that butterfly and the neighborhood was actually clean. Now it is a parking lot and part of the 7th St. Garage sits on the property. Wow, things surely change.

Hello again ken mc, That butterfly facade really was a stunner! It pre-dated what Las Vegas has created today as Times Square surely is another current example. Course all that statuary covering the theater was ordered from a cast iron manufacturers catalogue. It was standard across America as the butterfly motif was a popular one.Until soon,Hank

Hello Ken,The wings on the angel in that 1910 photo were covered in electric bulbs which were programed to give the effect that the wings physically moved ,but it was just the off and on of the bulbs that caused this magic to appear. Mr. Huss who owned and ran the Royal was from a famous family of Cincinnati movie house owners which got their early start in their first nickelodeons on West 5th. Street .There was a major gas explosion in the basement of the Royal in the 1940’s no one hurt but lots of interior damage.

Now THAT is a great old photo. Good job, tinyurl. Where did you find that one?

The following was written by VIDEO WATCHDOG publisher and lifelong Cincinnatian Tim Lucas at the old Mobius Home Video Forum board (a server crash lost all posts prior to a year and a half ago):

Cincinnati’s OTHER adult movie theater was the Royal. It used to stand on Vine Street between Sixth and Seventh Avenues, right across the street from a bus stop that used to take me to my apartment. The Royal showed ALL the Harry Novak stuff — it was torn down in the mid ‘70’s. I used to be very shy around that theater, never wanting to be caught looking across the street at it while waiting for my bus, and I’m ashamed to say I never bought a ticket or went inside. People who did tell me it smelled like one big [possibly rude term deleted]. It is one of the two Cincinnati theaters that inspired The Eros in my novel THROAT SPROCKETS. I will never forget the week they played Roberta Findlay’s (now apparently lost) TEENAGE MILKMAID, with its outrageous Vargas-like “No One Outgrows Their Need For Milk” poster, which didn’t look quite so Vargas-like when I saw it again years later at a movie convention. What the hell, I bought it anyway.

I have a good photo of the Royal before its soft core porn days. Just e-mail me at and I’ll reply with it. Tried to put it on “Add A Photo” but after months and months, it still says “Add A Photo will return.” Yeah, right.