Great American Movie Theaters (Great American Places Series)

Rating:
Summary: A PHOTOGRAPHIC HANDBOOK TO AMERICA'S MOVIE THEATERS
Review: Handbooks are supposed to fit comfortably in one's hand for ease of use, and this 5-1/4" wide by 10" tall paperback does just that, since the author intended it to accompany one on national travels as he did. The 272 pages of this 1/4" thick volume create a heavier weight than one might expect due to the satin coated paperstock, but the space inside is crammed with capsule descriptions of 360 movie houses within some 450 photographs. A Forward by famed actor/dancer, the late Gene Kelly, and an appreciative note on the back cover by movie reviewer Roger Ebert help put this book in context as it catalogs a social phenomenon of the 20th century. The table of contents and the index take us into the era that created these architectural works of art and the changes in technology which brought about the doom of many others. Indeed, since publication in 1987, a few of these notable structures have been converted or demolished, and the Epilogue of the book: "The Ones That Got Away", by Joseph DuciBella, former President of the Theatre Historical Society of America, can bring a tear to one's eye at the realization of just how much we have lost.

Mr. Naylor strives mightly to capture the essence of each of these significant and extant theaters (one estimate is that there were in excess of 10,000 such built for the showing of movies), while cognizant of the fact that he had to exclude many, especially the "nabes" or neighborhood theates which dotted our larger cities in great numbers. They were not as elaborate as the pallazi of the downtowns where thousands sat in "gardens of splendor", but there is no one book which could have enough pages to capture them all. He does do more to capture such in his earlier volume: "AMERICAN PICTURE PALACES: The Architecture Of Fantasy", (also listed here at Amazon) where its 224 pages in 8-1/2 by 11 inches allows more space for text and photos, a number of which are in modern color photography. The archival photos which occupy the handbook could not be in color, since color still photography did not exist until after the second world war.

There is no significant criticism one can make of the handbook other than to wish it were longer, but then would it still justify that format? True, there are a few small errors which may have come from the fact that the author did not visit every one of these theatres, but researched them at various places, chief among which was the Archive of the Theatre Historical Society in Elmhurst, Il. An example known to this reviewer is the mention on page 178 that the AVALON TH. is "the sole survivor of Milwaukee's three atmospheric theaters", when in fact that city had six such 'stars-and-clouds' movie palaces. Trifles such as this, however, are not enough to gainsay the mass of important information in these pages. If you love old theatres and would like a printed guide to hundreds of the best, you could do no better than this book.