Opening Night at Tower Theatre

The Tower Theatre opened on March 6, 1940, which was a Wednesday. Managers Ken Hodkinson and Frank Blount focused on showing movies during Sundays, Mondays, and Tuesdays at first. Even though opening night was not on this schedule, it was still very successful with the showing of Four Wives. The film was made by Warner Bros, where there were ties with these big companies because Ken Hodkinson was the son of W.W. Hodkinson, one of the founders of Paramount Pictures. During the early opening years, Ken Hodkinson announced they will provide first run pictures with four different services, Columbia, RKO, Monogram and Warner Bros. These big names brought in many audiences from not only around central Oregon, but from around the state, as well. Even on opening night, crowds were huge with over 900 seats originally. With ties to such companies like Paramount, Tower Theatre was able to show many big name movies and other forms of media like cartoons and sports because of how well supported it was. It was able to show Disney cartoons and other things that usually supplemented the movie shown that evening. With these other forms of media, like fight nights, Christmas shows, fashion shows, and more, the Tower Theatre suddenly became a space of more than just moviegoing, especially now. Today, it is more of a performing arts center rather than a single screen theater. A BendFilm site is used at the theater now, which is still bringing in state-wide crowds on opening nights, yet is bound to be smaller as there are only 400 seats after the renovation that happened in 1997.