The Empress of 9th Street

Moving Picture News, May 20th, 1911:

"The Empress, Marcus Nates, manager, using most expensive independent service in national capital and vicinity. 

Three reels on day of release. Had extraordinary run of 'Fall of Troy'"

"Theatre on 9th Street, Washington D.C."

Photographer: David Myers, July  1939 

United States Farm Security Administration

Gangster's Boy

Arizona Wildcat

Since 1997 theatre historian,  Cezar Del Valle, has conducted a popular series of  theatre talks and walks, available for  historical societies, libraries, senior centers, etc.

Del Valle is the author of the Brooklyn Theatre Index, a three-volume history of borough theatres.

The first two chosen 2010 OUTSTANDING BOOK OF THE YEAR by the Theatre Historical Society. Final volume published in September 2014.

Editing and updating the third edition of the Brooklyn Theatre Index, Volume I.

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Halloween-- What Happened to Showmanship?

The scream pierced the darkness, houselights went up and two ushers ran down the aisle with a stretcher. A young woman had fainted during a scary moment of a horror film at the Loew's Gates in Brooklyn. Can't recall the name of the movie or whether I fell for this bit of  hokum.

In the days before the multiplex, streaming video, and Netflix, movie houses often featured some form of gimmick or tie-in to promote the feature film. Not even the so-called classics were spared.Sometimes the movie theatre presented an event connected to holiday such as Mother's Day or Halloween.
But even at a young impressionable age, I was never impressed  by William Castle, his films and the assortment of exploitative tricks used to promote them. I never  thought that a $1,000 life insurance policy was really needed for Macabre. Apparently my local movie house could not afford a nurse on duty or a hearse that the other theatres offered for this 1958 film.
For me, EMERGO did little to improve Castle's House on Haunted Hill. The same applies for Percepto and The Tingler.  The films didn't scare me, the monsters didn't impress me and I left the theatre feeling cheated and disappointed.
Not so for the young John Waters who idolized Castle "without a doubt the greatest showman of our time." "His film made me want to make films." "William Castle was God."
The quotes are from an article by Waters entitled "Whatever Happened to Showmanship." While disagreeing with him on Castle, I also ponder the question of what happened to showmanship, ballyhoo and exploitation.

Box Office, Penn Theatre, Washington D.C.

I remember going with my father to the Penn Theatre, in Washington D.C., for a Halloween show. Once again don't recall the film but the stage show lingers. Basically a magician/hypnotist did an act that had for a climax a woman from the audience coming up on stage. While he hypnotized her, a clip of thunder and lightening suddenly flashed on the screen as the Frankenstein monster walked out. We really couldn't see exactly what was happening on the stage but suddenly the monster stood up, holding a woman's head high. He begun to lumber out into the audience just as everything went dark.   
Now that was scary. 


On October 28, the Loews Jersey will have a rare screening of The House on Haunted Hill in EMERGO. Plus Q&A with William Castle's grandson. .

Academy Theatre, 535-537 8th St. S. E., Washington D.C.

We never went to the Academy when I was a child growing up in the 1950s.  The concept of the Eighth Street corridor being an unsafe war zone lost on my youthful mind.  According to my father, the Academy showed Mexican films briefly in the late 1950s or just before closing in 1961. He worked at the nearby Navy Yard and enjoyed stopping to talk Spanish with the cashier. That was the story he told us and I can’t vouch for its validity.

An early movie show carved out of a pre-existing building, the Academy opened as the Meaders in 1910. This tiny theatre, with 400 seats, did have dressing rooms for an occasional live show. Its policy of showing fourth-run movies apparently set from the beginning. The space, renovated by the Stanley-Crandall Company, opened as the New Theatre in 1927.  The name changed briefly to the Family when Sidney Lust took over management three years later. Finally in 1933, it  became the Academy.
Like many of the small early movie houses, in the  poorer neighborhoods of Washington D.C., the Academy survived on a diet of  triple feature re-runs. That is with the possible exception of the Mexican films mentioned above.
And like many of these theatres, converted to a church when its days as a movie house had run its course. The Academy becoming a place of worship, under the Rev. Fred W. Hall, in 1962.

Capitol Hill Theatre

Across from the Penn (see earlier post)  was an even older theatre, the Capitol Hill. Working there in the 1960s, I did some research and came up with an opening date of September 1909. Richard Headley in his excellent “Motion Picture Exhibition in Washington, D.C.”  gives 1910.

Originally called the Avenue Grand it featured vaudeville and motion pictures.  As I recall the wing space was practically non-existent and the dressing rooms in the basement were probably nothing special in 1910. When I first went to the theatre as a kid in the 1950s, it seemed run down, a bit seedy and reeking of age. This is where I saw many of the Universal “B” monster movies including “Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein.”

At some point in the mid 1950s or early 60s, the theatre  became the Capitol Hill. After renovating the space, owner Donald King opened on August 17th, 1967 with “The King of Hearts.”  I was an usher that evening but over the next few months served as doorman, cashier, assistant manager and finally manager. Everything being a bit chaotic.

Shortly after I moved on to a theatre in Arlington, Virginia, a “for sale” sign went up on the old Avenue Grand-Capitol  Hill . A fire broke out, in November 1970, destroying the interior. The last remnants of the burned out theatre razed soon afterwards.