I doubt this building will ever be used again. Is this the fate of most late 1970s and early 1980s multiplexes that fall by the wayside?

Evans A Criswell http://home.hiwaay.net/~criswell/theatre/

From what you described, it sounds like the owner of the theater building doesn't care about it at all. Who would want to reopen the theater if it's all vandalized and dilapidated.

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I first thought that homeless people may have broken into it to live in it, since we had some very cold weather, followed by some very miserable rainy, windy, cold days, but after thinking more I realized that they probably would have only broken one window or door to get in to minimize the effects of the weather on the inside. Since every single pane of glass in the front of the building was broken, it was clear that the people who broke in were breaking in with no other intention than vandalizing the place. It's almost surprising that they didn't try to burn the place. I'll drive by the place again within a day or two and see if anything has been done (like boarding up the windows and doors, which is frequently done to vacated businesses anyway).

I hated to see the vandalizing, since the theatre would have made a good second-run theatre (since we have no second-run theatre anywhere near Huntsville or Decatur anymore). It is very close to the university here and would have attracted many college students if it had been reopened, provided the crime was kept under control. One person I spoke to a couple of years back expressed interest in buying the place and using one auditorium or two to show movies and putting a restaurant/club in the rest of it.

Evans

That theater with the slashed screen &
smaller screen on the wall behind - When
was it built?

The screen on the wall looks like 1.37:1
(Academy), but I thought the practice of
putting the screen on the wall was quickly
going out in the pre-Academy ratio 1.33:1
silent movie days.

Of course, even in the silent days, there
was no telling what aspect ratio they'd make
the screen:

A cool photo from the LOC site at
http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?runyon:2:./temp/~ammem_o2Nq::

------------------
William Hooper
Junk drawer: http://www.geocities.com/hollywood/theater/3622
Theatre Empire: http://members.xoom.com/saenger.1

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I have heard stories that the theater was built 1929, 1932, or 1938 depending on which old timer you talk to! The theater has a 1938 RCA tube amplifier, RCA 1040 soundheads, Super Simplex projectors, and Peerless Magnarc lamps. Surprisingly, NONE of the booth equipment was vandalized---just the screen slashed and drivers taken from the speaker cabinet. Funny, but I bet the vandals were probably trying to figure out how to hook the field coil bass driver to their car stereo!

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Contrast KILLERS! Give them the death penalty!

Since there are no curtains or blinds on the windows, I suspect the old theatre was only used after dark. Or they wanted some light to help the musicians read the music .

That "screen" is certainly wider than the 1.33:1 aspect ratio of most silent films.

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