Films designed to be made and seen in their immediate locality
When the Beaver Theatre opened in downtown Beaverton on February 14, 1925, it immediately presented itself as more than just a movie house. Advertisements for the theater’s opening week show how the Beaver combined films, comedy, live entertainment, and community promotions to attract local audiences.
When the Dreamland Theater was first created, like many other theaters at the time, it had to be promoted in the newspaper to attract patrons from all over the town of Albany, Oregon. To gain traction the Dreamland Theater would often gain promotional advertisements in the newspapers telling patrons the price of admission, shows being played, acts offered if any. The promotions would complete this information with the showtimes of the films and the days on which the films would be changed.
The St. Helens Mist was one of the primary newspaper companies in St. Helens in the early 20th century. After scouring articles that were available through the UO library website, I was able to find many instances of documented male managers and owners of theaters in the city of St.
In the April 11, 1910 edition of the Medford Mail Tribune, an article was written about the filmmaker H. Riemers and his tour of Oregon. He filmed several scenic views of Oregon, including landmarks such as Table Rock and Sterling Mine as well as local orchards and farmland. Riemers’ future plans were also added, saying that he was going to film Crater Lake and other natural features. The films were said to have cost upwards of $2000, and according to the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics’ CPI inflation calculator today that would be $50,929.
The Heilig theater, located in Portland Oregon, was a vibrant and thrilling addition to the Portland theater scene in the 1900s. It was built in 1910 and slowly became a staple for movie patrons in the Portland area. Although the Heilig was well known as a movie theatre, it was also extremely popular for showing comedic operas and vaudeville shows.
Dan L. Sharits was an enterprising and ambitious manager of the Star theater (1911-1918) in Medford, Oregon, who leveraged his movie theater experience into a career making pictures in Hollywood.