Morris Theater and Banquets
118 E. Jefferson Street,
Morris,
IL
60450
118 E. Jefferson Street,
Morris,
IL
60450
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A busy 1940 night:
Taken over by Kerasotes on December 29, 1978, and last operated by GKC, closed as a twin-screener first-run house on November 14, 1996 with “Larger Than Life” in Screen 1 and “Ransom” in Screen 2.
Posted an 1940 photo and its AI enhanced version from this:
Grand opening ad posted. It became a twinplex on December 25th, 1980. Another ad posted.
The website for the theater is here. The site calls the theater “The Morris Theater & Banquets.” The article I posted on March 6, 2023 says they will have live music but there’s no mention of this on their website.
The Morris Theater will reopened as a music venue. The grand reopening will be March 15, 2023. Here’s an article with all the details.
Boxoffice, Aug. 20, 1955: “Morris, Ill. - The Morris Theatre here celebrated the 25th anniversary of its opening on July 15, 1930. Fred Anderson, owner and operator of the Morris and Times theatre, first came to Morris in 1928 to operate the old Empire … According to a recent article in the Morris Herald, the theatre … was the first theatre to be built expressly for sound”
The Morris Theatre opened in 1931 with 725 seats.
I grew up going to this theatre back in 60s & 70s. I would love to find a night time photo from back in the day when the entire marquee/neon was all lit up. It was quite breathtaking. Note: In the summer of 1979 when they made it into a twin cinema & destroyed the classic interior of this old theatre. (big mistake)
Is that 1976 photo of the marquee advertising an X rated movie?
The theater has been de-twinned and is now a christian youth center. It was a neat theater but somewhat dirty. Still it was sad to see it go – now we have to drive out to the fringe of town and go to the megaplex.