Bowie Theatre

Pettigrew and Worley were the architects for the long-running theatre. Wealthy Cunningham was the final operator of the Bowie running it as a double-feature, sub-run discount house at $1.50 per admission. The first show would repeat with the second show getting one showtime. The theatre went to weekend only operations and had cult films at midnight. She closed up shop after the September 26, 1982 double feature of “Star Trek II” and “Quest for Fire” making “Star Trek II” the final film shown there. A portion of the seats went to the Cornerstone Theater on the south side. In 1985, a salvage sale was held prior to the theater’s conversion to a bank.

The Bowie was built before the advent of CinemaScope and did not have an extremely wide auditorium. On top of that, the screen area was enclosed by walls that sectioned off the emergency exits located on either side of the screen. Consequently, when the Bowie ran a widescreen movie the picture size was reduced which created an effect similar to watching a letterboxed DVD. Non-widescreen movies filled the screen and looked fine.

Regardless, I saw many movies at the Bowie such as GONE WITH THE WIND, CABARET, SKIDOO, HALF A SIXPENCE, KING KONG and many others. In its latter years it was a bargain house with reduced admissions.

Here is a photo of the Bowie Theater featuring “A Clockwork Orange” in 1971.

www.flickr.com/photos/lastpictureshow/2256642778

Here is the page containing TC’s photo. You can’t post the individual photos, apparently:
http://web.ics.purdue.edu/~cirillo/fwsights.htm

photo:
http://web.ics.purdue.edu/~cirillo/bowie.jpg