Sunset Theatre
1407 E. Harry Street,
Wichita,
KS
67211
1407 E. Harry Street,
Wichita,
KS
67211
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Grand opening ad posted.
The Wichita-Sedgwick County Historical Museum posted a photo with comments about the Sunset Theater
The Boxoffice article Tinseltoes linked to says that Ted Mason, not George Mason, was the architect of the Sunset Theatre. The Internet provides several references to a Ted Mason who was practicing architecture in Wichita in the 1950s, but I can’t find any references at all to a Kansas architect named George Mason (except this page, of course.) Boxoffice probably got the name right.
The Sunset opened on December 25, 1951. It’s first showing was a western called “Slaughter Trail”.
I have a great aunt that lived for decades in a house next to the parking lot behind the Sunset. When I was a kid playing outside her house I could see the marquee and remember seeing titles like “Funny Girl” and “Paint Your Wagon”. I only wished I had seen a movie there before it closed.
It is not demolished. It’s at 1407 E. Harry, and has been turned into a banquet hall, though it looks like they’ve preserved some intersting parts inside. According to this, it closed in 1968. I only recall seeing one movie there as a small child – ‘Dr. Zhivago’ in 1965. As I recall, it was a pretty swanky place at the time, but it’s a pretty lousy neighborhood now.
http://www.sunsetbanquethall.com/about_us.html
The Sunset and Southern were similar in design.
Wonder it the same architect designed both houses? This link has lots of photos of historic Kansas theatres,
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