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    Theatres of Portland
    Theatres of Portland
    Theatres of Portland
    Ebook215 pages1 hour

    Theatres of Portland

    By Gary Lacher and Steve Stone

    4.5/5

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    About this ebook

    Portland s theatre history is marked by early enthusiasm and exceptionally vigorous growth. With the Pacific Northwest s often rainy weather, people sought refuge in movie entertainment, and the city eventually grew to have more theatre seats per capita than similar-sized cities in the United States. Beginning with short cinema segments at vaudeville houses downtown, Portland movie theatres came into their own swiftly and ambitiously. By 1915, there were over 70 individual theatres showing films both downtown and in neighborhoods throughout the city. By the 1920s, larger theatres were being built, including substantial neighborhood palaces such as the Bagdad, Hollywood, and Oriental. Meanwhile, downtown provided the Broadway, Portland, and Orpheum, to name a few. This volume contains an overview of Portland s theatre history through rare and newly discovered historical photographs of those memorable places of entertainment.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArcadia Publishing
    Release dateJun 15, 2009
    ISBN9781439638316
    Theatres of Portland
    Author

    Gary Lacher

    Portlander Gary Lacher, a former television photojournalist, is active in researching and restoring films, having made numerous film donations to the American Film Institute and the Oregon Historical Society, which has provided many photographs for this book. Historian Steve Stone has researched and photographed Portland movie houses for over 40 years. Stone helps produce illustrated lectures for Portland�s Architectural Heritage Center and worked in theatres for over 23 years.

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    • 5/5
      This non-fiction theatre book makes drama relate to each of my students. Since the pictures and info. focuses on theatre's in Portland it will relate more to them. Students will be able to recognize the places they mention and then understand the history behind it. In my Theatre History unit it includes a section on theatre houses and their development; this book will come in handy for that discussion.

    Book preview

    Theatres of Portland - Gary Lacher

    passion.

    INTRODUCTION

    One of the fondest pleasures we have are memories of going to the movies. Not only do we remember the film we saw but also who we went with and perhaps where we sat in the audience. Included in those highlights would be the theatre we saw those movies in. Whether it was a Saturday kids’ matinee, a Friday evening date, or a special family event, theatres themselves encompassed the movie-going experience.

    Portland, Oregon, parallels the history of the movie industry. Beginning with novelty showings in transition from vaudeville houses at the dawn of the 20th century, to the nickelodeon period in the early 1900s, movie houses grew rapidly. In fact, Portland had as many as 72 theatres exclusively for films by 1915. Although theatre growth reflected many other American towns and cities of the time, Portland provided a special refuge for those rainy evenings. The city has actually had more theatre seats per capita than any other city in the country, a notable statistic. But the biggest and best was yet to come. The 1920s began the era of larger palatial theatres, in both downtown and some neighborhoods, designed by local architects. The experience of going to see films was greatly enhanced by large pipe organs and even stage shows in the larger theatres.

    The introduction of sound introduced a new advance by 1928. Like most other cities, Portland theatres went through a great state of flux during the Depression of the early 1930s, with new ownerships and management, but audiences remained loyal in a period of reasonable and inexpensive entertainment. During World War II, Portland provided constant movie programs for shipyard workers in split shifts, around the clock. This was a reflection of movie going at its height, even for a few years after the war.

    By the early 1950s, theatres were met with new challenges, particularly television, and had to meet with new technology, bigger screens, and better sound. Portland theatres installed CinemaScope, stereophonic sound, and, yes, even ran 3-D for a brief period. But the smaller theatres were unable to equip their buildings with equipment or compete with television and subsequently went dark. At this point, the old palaces were becoming far too expensive to maintain. They were cavernous, gloomy and not appealing to a modern audience, and many of them fell by the wayside.

    But new ideas came on the scene, and new deluxe or remodeled theatres began appearing. The Fox evolved out of the Mayfair, complete with the newest CinemaScope and stereo sound. New achievements such as Cinerama were installed in the large Hollywood neighborhood theatre. One of the few original 70-mm road show presentations of Oklahoma was shown at J. J. Parker’s Broadway. Many patrons enjoyed this immensely, and movies, as well as the theatres, could outshine the television experience.

    Sadly, by the early 1970s, many small neighborhood and downtown theatres became distinctive in showing adult films, and it is only with this dubious credit that they survived at all.

    Meanwhile, new and large neighborhood theatres began appearing in the outer areas of Portland, such as the Eastgate and the Westgate in nearby Beaverton, supplementing the older downtown palaces that still existed or had been torn down. This was the deluxe style of the 1970s. The 1980s introduced the new mall-oriented theatre with eventual stadium seating, digital sound, and other enticements. Ironically some of those have already disappeared.

    Meanwhile, theatres had to keep reinventing themselves. Again Portland led the way for the film community by establishing a new form of film entertainment: the brew-pub theatre, restored out of older historic buildings, school auditoriums, and lodge halls. This was now an era where people could share a film with an audience and a pizza in a living room atmosphere.

    By the new millennium, a new dynamic diversity in the arts community, as well as traditional movie-going habits, continues the film experience. Although technical film presentations have changed dramatically and theatres are somewhat different in style and atmosphere, one cannot deny the experience of whom you were with and where you were when you went to the movies in Portland.

    City directories show a Palace Theatre from 1909 through 1915 on Southwest First Avenue, between Madison and Main Streets. This is the doorman at the Palace, awaiting his duty to greet and open the door for patrons. The picture of the day is 1913’s Saved by Airship. The theatre itself was not really a palace but rather a typical nickelodeon. The People’s Amusement Company, in a 25-foot-wide, 100-foot-deep former storefront in a three-story building, operated it. But it was a retreat for people to escape into another world—a world not only of celluloid, but a world of developing architecture that people would attach themselves to. Portland, Oregon, just as the rest of the country, has been home to many such places. So let’s prepare to enter the Palace doors. (Courtesy Dick Prather.)

    One

    ENTERING THE PALACE DOORS

    The most impressive examples of Portland movie theatres, as in the case of most other American cities, are images of the downtown palaces. Because of early stage and vaudeville houses, people became used to the best in showmanship and entertainment. When films began taking on their own programming, theatre owners wanted to impress their audiences with the best in atmosphere, and it was not long before auditoriums were built to provide at least 1,000 seats for single-screen entertainment. People were delighted and impressed with large palatial auditoriums that would let them escape from their daily routines and into another world of luxury and opulence, if only for a few hours.

    Included with first-run feature films and surroundings, theatres also provided stage shows and even had their own fully staffed orchestras. It was not unusual to watch a complete stage presentation of musical and novelty acts before the films even started. Even theatres, which did not have an orchestra, at least had a giant pipe organ that supplemented the many sound effects and music that accompanied the films. Silent films were never shown silent. In fact, the sound of a live orchestra or pipe organ was just as impressive as the latest digital technology today. Sensing the live orchestra and performers below the screen was certainly a

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