American Picture Palaces

Each week from the 1910s through the 1940s, Americans “went to the show” in record numbers. “The show” drew peak crowds three to four times daily with an extra screening on weekends and it began, as architect S. Charles Lee noted, “on the sidewalk” with the extravagant architecture of America’s motion picture palaces. (1) Palaces seated between 2500 and 6000 patrons at a time; “de luxe” palaces boasted stage shows, permanent orchestras, organs, first run films, and an array of customer services unknown to today’s cinemagoers. Studio head Marcus Loew recognized, “We sell tickets to theaters, not movies.” (2) Movie historian Ben Hall described the movie palace as “an acre of seats in a garden of dreams.”(3)