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Published on Monday, Sep 01, 2008
In an effort to avoid a police raid, theater managers had edited out all of the explicit scenes. The films suddenly became all talk and no action. Perplexed patrons watched adult stars Linda Lovelace and Georgina Spelvin do nothing but act.
That is how far the Strand Theater had fallen. Once the epitome of elegance, it was reduced to screening badly censored porn films.
The Strand advertised itself as ''the finest motion picture theater in Ohio'' when it opened Sept. 2, 1915, at 131 S. Main St. Located between Mill and Bowery streets, the downtown theater cost $225,000 to build — about $4.6 million today.
Its operator was Maurice C. Winter, 36, ''The Movie King of Akron,'' who sold the Bank Theater near Main and Market streets to open the larger Strand.
''I don't know where you can find an equal to this house,'' Winter said. ''I've planned it for years. And in these plans, I always kept foremost the convenience and comfort of patrons and the utilization of every possible inch of space.''
The Strand had seating for 1,200 people — 850 in the main auditorium and 350 in the balcony. Patrons ''rested luxuriously'' in comfortable, leather-upholstered chairs as they gazed at the gold-mesh screen, which measured 14 feet by 18 feet.
''The rows are so far apart that leg cramping is banished,'' the Beacon Journal reported.
Winter installed a $12,000 organ from the M.P. Moller Pipe Organ Co. of Hagerstown, Md., and hired Akron musician Katherine Bruot to provide music.
She was under contract to play the organ every day from an alcove near the stage. When Bruot pressed a button, an electric motor parted the velvet curtains on the screen. After each movie, the curtains drew closed and the house lights returned.
Winter filled his theater with nice little touches. The Strand's front lobby had inch-thick carpet and oil paintings. A cash register printed tickets — a novelty in those days. Electric fountains dispensed perfumed water. Lounges provided free stationery for guests to write notes. The foyer offered free telephone service. A billiard parlor operated on the top floor.
''Patrons of the Strand need never worry about being caught in the rain,'' the Beacon Journal reported. ''In the check room on the main floor will be a gross of umbrellas which will be lent on the deposit of $1, the user being permitted five days in which to return the umbrella and get back his deposit.''
The Strand's owner was especially proud of the $3,000 ''air washer'' that purified the atmosphere every four minutes in the auditorium. Air was drawn from above ''the dust zone'' over the roof, carried to a washer in the cellar, scrubbed of impurities, cooled in an ice chamber and pumped into the theater.
The first movie ever shown at the theater was The Island of Regeneration, a six-part film based on Episcopal minister Cyrus Townsend Brady's novel about young castaways who fall in love on a desert island.
Tickets ranged from 5 cents to 15 cents.
Capacity crowds packed the Strand for the grand opening.
''Hundreds were turned away,'' the Akron Times reported. ''Manager M.C. Winter wouldn't sell standing room. When all seats were filled, the doors were closed.''
The Strand was a big success, but Maurice C. Winter did not live long enough to enjoy it fully. In 1918, ''The Movie King of Akron'' suffered a fatal heart attack at his home. He was only 39.
Isaac and Jacob Silverman of Altoona, Pa., who operated a dozen theaters, took over the Strand's ownership. They hired a full-time orchestra and supervised the theater's gradual transition to talking pictures. The Silvermans soon faced major competition on Main Street.
The 2,200-seat Palace Theater opened in 1926 followed by the 3,400-seat Loew's Theater in 1929. They surpassed the Strand in grandeur, but the smaller theater had an advantage.
Warner Bros. bought the Silvermans' chain in 1929, remodeled the Strand for $30,000, gave it a flashy new marquee and turned the theater into a showcase for first-run movies.
New York native Millard Ochs arrived in 1941 to serve as manager of the Strand. His name became synonymous with the theater for the next two decades.
One of Ochs' first successes in Akron was booking the movie Sergeant York, a war drama starring Gary Cooper. It played for a record-breaking nine weeks and was on the bill when Pearl Harbor was attacked.
The Strand sponsored many events to boost public morale during World War II. It had a special $10 screening of This Is the Army to raise money for the Army Emergency Relief Fund. It held a war bond rally where Fred Astaire spoke in person.
One of the most unusual events was a frog-jumping contest in support of the 1944 movie The Adventures of Mark Twain.
Akron jeweler Ralph Hogan, a judge in the contest, instructed boys and girls 8 to 13 on how to catch frogs at night. ''Take along a small landing net and flashlight,'' he said. ''The flashlight temporarily blinds the frog and he can be readily caught.''
Just in case children couldn't catch amphibians, Ochs ordered 20 frogs from New England.
Ochs didn't usually allow tomfoolery in his theater. Ushers kicked out hooligans who disrupted movies. Once in a while, though, he had to laugh at the outrageous antics of patrons.
''One woman tried to walk out of the theater with a toilet seat tucked under her overcoat,'' he once told the Beacon Journal. ''She didn't make it, though. It bulged in the wrong places.''
The Strand — like most Akron theaters — began to suffer at the box office when television's popularity exploded in the 1950s. It was tough to compete with free programs at home.
Downtown was beginning to suffer in general. Businesses were moving to the suburbs.
Ochs left the Strand in 1963 to manage the Colony Theater in Shaker Heights, but returned in 1965 to operate the new Summit Mall Theater in Fairlawn. He remained there for five years until his death in 1970 at age 65.
The Strand's ownership changed hands several times. It closed in 1964, reopened in 1965, closed in 1966 and reopened in 1967. The theater reinvented itself as an oldies house that showed films by W.C. Fields, Mae West and Boris Karloff.
That lasted for a few months, but the theater closed again.
In 1970, the Star Kay Theater Corp. of New York bought the Strand and converted it into an adult cinema. The marquee was replaced by a sign that advertised such subtle titles as We Do It, Never Enough, Teenage Jailbait and Your Wife and Mine.
Religious groups began to picket outside the theater.
''We just want these kinds of movies stopped in Akron,'' one protester said in 1972. ''These movies are against everything Christ stood for. They are anti-morals.''
Akron police raided the rundown theater several times to confiscate movies that local authorities considered obscene. Officers were waiting to pounce in 1974 when Deep Throat and The Devil in Miss Jones arrived, but the theater operators avoided trouble by editing the movies.
''It's a damn ripoff,'' one man complained after the movies.
The Strand closed in 1976, but made another attempt at respectability a year later when it reopened as a concert club.
Live bands included the Rubber City Rebels, Cirrus, Chrome City and Brother Nature. Jazz pianist Earl ''Fatha'' Hines gave an electrifying concert in 1977.
That proved to be the last hurrah. The curtain closed again.
Renamed the Cascade Cinema, the theater went back to showing adult movies. It operated as a porn theater until 1986, when it shut down for good.
A demolition crew razed the building in 1990 to make way for the $30 million Main Place building.
The Strand was an elegant theater in its day. It was obscene what happened to it.
Mark J. Price is a Beacon Journal copy editor. He can be reached at 330-996-3850 or send e-mail to mjprice@thebeaconjournal.com.
In an effort to avoid a police raid, theater managers had edited out all of the explicit scenes. The films suddenly became all talk and no action. Perplexed patrons watched adult stars Linda Lovelace and Georgina Spelvin do nothing but act.
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