Martin Theatre

1529 N. Wood Avenue,
Florence, AL 35630

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Additional Info

Previously operated by: Carmike Cinemas, Martin Theatres

Styles: Streamline Moderne

Nearby Theaters

The Martin Theatre opened at the Grant Plaza shopping center on Friday, December 4, 1970. The theatre was the first automated theatre in the Shoals. This allowed the projectionist to press a button to start the movies and the automation equipment would dim the auditorium lights and start the show.

The theatre featured Xetron lamp houses. The screen size for cinemascope was 15 feet by 35 feet and the size for normal features (flat widescreen) was 15 feet by 28 feet. Helen Slay was the first manager of the location and Warren Carswell was the city manager for Martin Theatres.

This theatre became a Carmike theatre on October 25, 1985, along with the Capri 4 and Cinema Twin Theatres. The Martin’s last night of business was on June 9, 1988.

Contributed by Charles Van Bibber

Recent comments (view all 4 comments)

rivest266
rivest266 on February 14, 2010 at 3:51 pm

Grand opening ads starts at View link for the next few pages.

Allan
Allan on March 19, 2012 at 11:53 pm

Where to begin. There is so much confusion with four cities that are all referred to as part of the Muscle Shoals AREA. There are four separate cities. Florence. Sheffield. Tuscumbia. Muscle Shoals. The Martin Theatre information in this listing is correct. Rivest’s post with the ad is corrent. The above address is wrong. The picture above is a GREAT picture of the intersection of Avalon and Woodward in Muscle Shoals, which is where the Cinema I and II were located. The Martin Theatre, however was located in the city of FLORENCE. It was located at 7 points in the shopping center that also was home to the W.T. Grant Store. The Martin was located about two blocks north of the Norwood Theatre which had burned down two years earlier.

rivest266
rivest266 on March 20, 2012 at 3:44 am

I uploaded the picture and grand opening ad here.

Allan
Allan on March 20, 2012 at 10:17 am

Awesome Rivest! Thanks!

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