River Oaks Theatre might be probably the most well-known of Houston’s outdated film theaters.
Everybody goes to the flicks, proper? The joys of a brand new blockbuster, the lure of a considerate, modest drama, and even the rescreening of an outdated favourite can compel us to attend in line, purchase a ticket, and sit quietly with strangers in a darkish room for the communal expertise. OK, possibly that’s not as true because it as soon as was. Now that all of us maintain in our mitts an expansive universe of movies, why do we want film theaters? Properly, that will depend on whom you ask. Film theaters stay an ideal third area: not house, not work. In Houston, a chilly, darkish room is the very best respite from the warmth and humidity.
Within the early twentieth century, when the movement image trade grew into a worldwide phenomenon, grand film palaces have been inbuilt each nook of America. They took their design cues from performing arts theaters and opera homes, with many together with a stage beneath the display. For the most important of these Houston film theaters, spectacle was the theme, with names as grand and romantic because the movies they confirmed: the Metropolitan, the Egyptian-themed Isis, the Queen, and the Majestic. All are actually gone.
The one remaining theater from that period is the Ritz Theater; it was restored, renamed the Majestic Metro, and reopened in 1990 as a rentable occasions area. The previous silent film home on Preston Avenue wasn’t as grand because the bigger film palaces downtown and had a small footprint, which was probably the rationale it was spared the wrecking ball.
The previous Tower Theater is scheduled to grow to be a jazz membership after renovations.
On the nook of Westheimer and Waugh Drive, the 1,200-seat Tower Theater opened to nice fanfare in 1936. The only-screen film home can be the anchor to the adjoining Tower Neighborhood Heart. The artwork deco construction, designed by architect Joseph Finger, has been up to date barely through the years. Nevertheless, it stays a bona fide Montrose landmark, stubbornly resisting the sluggish neighborhood gentrification. The Tower Theater, which hung out as a efficiency venue, cabaret, video retailer, and restaurant, seems secure from demolition now that builders Radom Capital are rebuilding the stage for jazz performances. Hopefully, the neon marquee signal will quickly twinkle above Decrease Westheimer as soon as extra.
In 1939, the one-screen artwork deco film home River Oaks Theatre opened as a companion to the brand new River Oaks Neighborhood Heart outlets on West Grey at Shepherd. By the Nineteen Seventies, it had advanced right into a repertory theater with offbeat, artsy flicks, cult classics, and overseas movies. To promote extra tickets, the balcony was closed and divided into two small screens, and a bar was added within the early 2000s. After COVID decimated ticket gross sales, the theater shuttered in 2020, however the landlord discovered a brand new tenant in Sugar Land–primarily based Star Cinema Grill, who restored it to an unusually excessive customary for Houston landmarks. And so they introduced again midnight Rocky Horror Image Present screenings.
The previous Alabama Theatre was famously a well-loved Bookstop earlier than Dealer Joe’s took over.
Additionally in 1939, just some blocks away, the Alabama Theatre had its grand opening. The artwork deco, single-screen movie show anchored the Alabama Heart, named for its location on Shepherd and West Alabama. Exhibiting first-run motion pictures till the Nineteen Eighties, the theater misplaced patrons to multiplexes and residential video. In 1984, the Austin-based bookstore chain Bookstop restored the vacated film home into a wonderful instance of historic preservation. Houstonians, accustomed to demolition of beloved theaters, have been shocked and charmed by the renovation. After getting purchased out by Barnes & Noble, Bookstop moved out after almost 20 years. Landlord Weingarten Realty eliminated the sloped ground, the stage, and a lot of the architectural distinctiveness, hoping a simplified inside would snag a brand new tenant.
It labored. Kind of.
Dealer Joe’s moved in and tries to play to the theater’s historical past with film pun promoting. Sarcastically, the theater that was as soon as the very best instance of historic preservation and adaptive reuse in Houston is now the lamest instance. Pragmatic Houstonians with their “at the very least they saved the surface” don’t bear in mind how fantastic it was inside.
Music followers can nonetheless hit up Heights Theater for excellent exhibits in an historic setting.
Among the many remaining basic film theaters, the River Oaks is the one one nonetheless displaying motion pictures. Bellaire Theatre is a part of a Complete Meals, the Heights Theater is a comfy performing arts venue, and the Fifth Ward’s initially segregated DeLuxe Theater acquired its first makeover in 1971, when artwork collectors John and Dominique de Menil hosted the modern artwork exhibition The DeLuxe Present. Following the exhibit, the de Menils stored the area open because the Black Arts Gallery till 1976. The DeLuxe Theater was restored in 2015 as a neighborhood performing and visible arts facility, and is an enthralling landmark on Lyons Avenue.
Backyard Oaks Theater on North Shepherd is now house to the Grace Church. The desolate OST Theater is almost invisible to drivers alongside Outdated Spanish Path close to Griggs. By now, it’s been empty longer than it was a movie show. There are probably extra former theaters hiding in plain sight, stripped of their marquees and neon.
The previous Backyard Oaks Theater is now house to a church.
Within the Nineteen Seventies and ’80s, film theaters have been integral to buying malls. In the summertime, as an atypical Houston child, I most well-liked any mall over AstroWorld (too crowded, too scorching). The Galleria had two film theaters, Greenway Plaza had a two-screen theater, later transformed to a few in its subterranean micro-mall. Meyerland had a two, later 3-screener out in its car parking zone. Free-standing multiplexes haven’t had such a fantastic lifespan both. The jumbo AMC on Dunvale extra intently resembled an airport, with its whopping thirty screens, however is only a multi-acre reminiscence now.
Basically, film theaters really feel disposable now, and it’s uncommon that Houstonians get one thing really particular. Nevertheless, in 2021, we have been handled to the Lynn Wyatt Theater within the Museum of Tremendous Arts’ Kinder Constructing. Its sibling by way of the MFAH tunnel, the Brown Auditorium Theater on the alternative facet of Bissonnet, opened in 1973 with what we now name stadium seating, and mercifully with none noisy popcorn.
