by Jay Kerner

Ok, it’s 4:20pm on Monday February 18th.

At 1pm I got the call that the talented writer who usually provides our “Old Joe” pieces is under the weather. Could I please work up something last minute on old St. Joe theaters? No problem, I pick up the phone to call the lifesavers in the Reference Dept. at the downtown library. Closed for Presidents day.

No problem. I log onto the internet and spend an hour or so, researching everything I can find, from a hundred different sources. I open a Word document and copy/paste tons of facts and figures as notes for the story. About 2:30 pm I opened a new document and started typing, toggling back and forth from my notes to check dates etc.

At 4:01 pm according to the clock hands no longer turning, the power went out, sending my nearly finished story off into the Netherlands. I check with the neighbors and find out it’s not just a case of the Queen neglecting our friends at Aquila.

So here I am at the office where the power is still on, recreating the story even more last minute, and without the benefit of notes. I tell you this so that maybe you will cut me some slack if a year is wrong, or if I place a building on the wrong street corner. Anyway, it went something like this:

Practically everyone born in the last 100 years or so has childhood movie memories. What you saw, who you were with, what you ate. My mom always talked about walking to the old Regal on St. Joe Avenue where 15 cents bought her a ticket, a popcorn and a Dr. Pepper.

For me, my earliest movie memory is being taken to I think the Midland Theater in KC for a re-release of Bambi when I was three or four. I remember being in awe of the huge velvet curtain as I watched from the balcony. The next thing I know they shoot Bambi’s Mom, I’m screaming bloody murder and being carried bodily from the building with a hand firmly over my mouth.

Fun as that was it was no surprise that they waited a couple more years to try again. This time it was my first trip to the Regal for “Son of Flubber” with Fred McMurray. I remember wondering how the dad from “My Three Sons” lost his kids.

The grand Missouri Theater left me the indelible memory of Catherine Ross disrobing at gunpoint in “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.” I was about twelve. Enough said.

After that the movie going public had a major shift in demands. Enough with opulence stop with the architectural niceties. We wanted generic rectangles devoid of details. The plainer the better. We got the Fox East Hills Theater. I saw the Beatles’ Yellow Submarine there.

Next in the progress of our civilization was the very pinnacle of cinematic achievement; the mega-plex. In St. Joe that meant the Hillcrest 4 Theaters. I saw tons of mid 70’s features there through High School. If I had to pick one, to represent the time, it would probably be “Blazing Saddles.” The campfire scene…..and the beans!

That pretty much sums up my childhood movie experience, with the notable exception of the drive-in theaters. That is a category all it’s own, and I’ll tease you with the promise of that piece, a little closer to this season’s Horseshoe Lake opening.

For now though, I want to back up, and go through some of St. Joe’s theater history.

As near as we can tell, the first commercial showing of a movie here was at the Tootle Opera House which first opened in 1872. By the name and the date of construction you can probably surmise that it wasn’t built for showing movies. Still it was the most fabulous example of its kind anywhere in the country in its day. Spanning 5 stories at 5th and Francis, no expense was spared inside or out. Portable equipment was brought in early in the 1920’s to demonstrate this exciting new entertainment medium and the enthusiastic crowds encouraged three different investors to build grand movie palaces, all opening within 8 years and all within 3 blocks on the same Downtown street.

The Electric Theater opened in the 600 block of Edmond in 1926. It was a tremendous improvement over the horse-drawn theater that came before it. (Sorry, brain got away from me for a second.)

The incredible Missouri Theater opened a year later in the 700 block of Edmond. Thanks to the heroic efforts of a number of individuals in the 70’s this landmark was saved from demolition, and after significant restoration, remains a civic treasure to this day.

The third was completed in 1933, when the Orpheum opened at 5th and Edmond, owned by Nate Block. I couldn’t find anything to corroborate it, but a good guess is that this was the precursor to the Block’s Super Discount Store that operated in the same space years later.

The “big three” were certainly the finest examples of movie house architecture in town, but were by no means all there were. Smaller neighborhood theaters included the afore mentioned Regal built in 1941, The Hickory Theater on S. 11th, the Rialto on King Hill and the Uptown at 21st and Frederick where Lehr Construction stands today.

Most of these theaters are gone now, some completely, to make room for other structures. Some of them left the shells behind with the neon long removed. You can see the boarded up exteriors and imagine their former glory. One I would have liked to learn more about was supposedly at 4th and Jules before closing in the early 50’s. I only found one reference to it but I bet you would have had a great time at “The Joe Theater.”

Now shhhhhhhh! And pass the popcorn!