~~There was considerable commercial public entertainment in Lexington in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Acting companies came to town regularly, vaudeville shows arrived almost weekly, and minstrel shows were occasionally offered. Lecturers, singers and orchestras were frequent fare. The Opera House, built in 1887, was the most common venue. But beginning in the mid-1890s, the movies grew into the dominant form of entertainment in town, as happened throughout the U.S.
Not long after Thomas Edison patented what he called the “Vitascope,” movies came to Lexington. Brief film scenes were introduced on Dec. 15, 1896, between melodramas on stage at the Opera House. A week later a Cincinnati entrepreneur began showing only Vitascope scenes at Melodeon Hall, the second story of a building across Main St. from the courthouse which was often used for dances or public events. Admission was 10 cents for the matinee and 25 cents for the evening. Large crowds attended. The fare changed regularly and showed, scenes of ladies dancing, youngsters eating at fairs, ping pong matches, etc. However, the Melodeon showings lasted less than a month because the Vitascope was destroyed during a labor dispute. Beginning in 1897, itinerant Vitascope (or similar equipment) businessmen would come to town with some frequency and rent the Opera House, Melodeon Hall or a vacant storefront and show short films for a week or so and then move on to another town. In 1904, the Herald noted, a Lexingtonian could see a movie on almost any day.
The Nickelodeon era began on June 12, 1906, with the opening of The Theatorium, a 70 seat storefront on Cheapside. Admission was five cents and it opened with a double billing of “The Miser’s Daughter” and “The Kleptomaniac.” The offerings were changed twice a week. The Theatorium went out of business six months later. Next came the Star, the Blue Grass and the Dreamland, none of which lasted much over a year (although the Star reopened in 1913 for three years). The Princess opened in 1907 on Main between Cheapside and Mill and lasted until 1914. It advertised “films-de-Art” and said its fare was aimed at “the better class of people.” Even so, it only took a nickel to get in.
The Colonial Theater marked a transition away from storefront Nickelodeons to more elaborate venues. Located across from the courthouse on Main, it opened on August 1, 1911, and seated 400. It featured a dancing electric lady atop the building along with two uniformed doormen and five ushers. A similar size theater followed in 1914 when the Orpheum Theater opened on the corner of Main and Limestone. Both charged five cents. The Colonial closed in 1917 while the Orpheum lasted until 1930.
Full-fledged theaters appeared in town shortly afterward with large screens and plush seats accommodating over 1,000 patrons. The Ben Ali opened in 1913 featuring plays, vaudeville and films, but in May, 1915, it shifted entirely to movies. Across Main St. from the Phoenix Hotel, it was built for over $180,000 by Elmendorf Farm owner James Ben Ali Haggin. It was torn down in 1965 for a parking lot. Next came the Strand, about 50 yards east of the Ben Ali on Main. Built in a Renaissance décor style, it was the city’s most elaborate theater and a portent of the palatial metropolitan theaters built across the country in the 1920s. It didn’t close until 1974. Both theaters exuded class and charged ten cents for admission. Also the Ada Meade opened in 1913 on Main between Cheapside and Mill Sts. Named after a Lexington born, nationally known stage actress, it featured vaudeville and travelling comedy shows initially, but gradually shifted to films. It became a B grade outlet, largely showing Westerns, crime films and serials appealing to youngsters and admission was only a nickel. It preceded the Ben Ali into parking lot status in 1954.
The Kentucky Theater opened with great fanfare on October 4, 1922, at 214 E. Main. The interior emulated an Italian Renaissance style. It remains open to this day as city’s only downtown theater and one of a dwindling number of palace-type theaters in America. Emphasizing grandeur, it competed with the Strand and Ben Ali for middle and upper class attendance. In 1929, the Kentucky’s owners opened the State Theater next door; it fielded cowboy, detective and screwball comedy movies. The State closed in the 1970s, but was reopened in1996 as an adjunct to the Kentucky.
In the days before sound, theaters provided some kind of music before, after and sometimes during a film. Most Nickelodeons, along with the Colonial and the Orpheum had piano music with occasional vocal accompanists. A uniformed Strand Orchestra performed at its namesake theater with some instrumental music occurring during the film. The Ben Ali and Kentucky installed Wurlitzer organs at over $10,000 apiece.
Lexington was a segregated town and about one-third of its citizens were African-American. For over two years beginning in 1909 the Pekin (later called the Lincoln) Theater opened on Main west of Broadway for blacks. From 1911 through 1916, another theater for blacks, the Gem, seating about 250, operated across the street. There were no black theaters until 1922 when the New Lincoln and the Dixie had short lived operations in the DeWeese and Second Sts. area, the heart of a black neighborhood. They often booked movies with race themes and actors, but showed mainstream films as well. The Ben Ali and Kentucky were open only to whites. The Colonial, Orpheum, Ada Meade and Strand had balconies where black viewers had to sit.
The introduction of motion pictures to Lexington produced some controversies. As early as 1898, some entrepreneurs showed a film of the Heavyweight Boxing Championship match between “Gentleman” Jim Corbett and Bob Fitzsimmons. Some church and women’s groups protested arguing that showing such violence wasn’t in the community’s best interest. The aldermen, however, took no action and many women attended the showing. Prize fights were often shown because they were easy to film and didn’t involve much talking.
Showing films on Sunday was a longer running dispute. The state and city had sabbatarian laws. In 1904 church leaders formed the Law and Order League and pressured the city to close theaters on Sunday, but the mayor and aldermen wouldn’t budge. In 1911, the question arose again with the formation of the Moral Improvement League. A Methodist minister who led the League argued that films’ “suggestions of infidelity … disappointed love and wild west ideals” whetted “youngsters sharp appetite for evil.” (H-2-8-13) Again, Mayor Ernest Cassidy and the council held firm. In 1915, the managers of three theaters were indicted for violation of the Sunday closing law. They were convicted and paid a $10 fine. By the 1920s, sabbatarian pressures on movies had faded away.
Related to the above, some church and civic leaders objected to movies that suggested immorality and on a few occasions the mayor would authorize the Police Chief to ban films after viewing them. In 1915, the city created a censorship board. It did not screen films before their exhibition, but it reacted to complaints. It prohibited a few films over the following 15 years or sometimes allowed only people 18 and older to see them.
Race relations was another source of dispute in exhibiting films. In 1910 Mayor John Skain banned a film showing the heavyweight championship match between Jack Johnson and James Jeffries because Johnson, the winner, was black. He said it would “demoralize and appeal to race prejudice” and disrupt “the friendly relations between our people and the colored race.” (L-7-6-10). The greatest controversy came over showing of D. W. Griffith’s classic film “The Birth of a Nation” in 1915. The local NAACP chapter and numerous black leaders protested showing it because it depicted blacks as ignorant, crude, violent and lusting after white women. The protestors noted that in 1905 the United Daughters of the Confederacy had successfully pressured the state legislature into passing a statute forbidding theatrical productions that “tend to create racial feelings and prejudices.” after the play “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” was performed at the Opera House in 1904. As might be expected, the censorship board ignored this precedent and allowed “Birth of a Nation” to be shown. (It should be noted that one member of the censorship board and a couple of aldermen would have banned “Birth”.)
