The legacy of the Delmar Theatre lives on in memories
DELMAR — In the 1950s, when Delmar resident Barbara Castle started watching films in the Delmar Theatre, the self-proclaimed ‘home of the superior photoplays’, it had already been open for over two decades on Delaware Avenue.
When the theater eventually shut its doors in early 1959, the building became the shell that many residents now know as the 333 Cafe.
When the Jarvis brothers of Troy opened the theater in 1929 the first movie shown there was the now-lost film ‘The Wolf of Wall Street’, starring George Bancroft. Opening night was reportedly an elaborate event; the Albany County Post’s April 1929 paper recorded an audience of 500, and they were treated to ‘musical renditions’ and ‘speeches of welcome’.
News articles from the era paint a clear picture of their fight to bring the cinema to Delmar. Almost immediately, an injunction was threatened against the theater due to its plan to show films on a Sunday. The reception to this was conflicted, with Delmar residents arguing both for and against it.
Despite the initial agitation, the doors would open and stay open for three decades. “When I talk to older folks in town, there is clearly still a deep and abiding affection for the Delmar Theatre,” said Town Historian William Ketzer. “They speak of holding hands on first dates, popcorn throwing, westerns, and Saturday matinees.”
One resident with such memories is Castle, who has been a Delmar resident her entire life. Her memories are a treasure trove of information that covers the rapidly evolving local area throughout the years. In 1951, she began going to the Delmar Theatre. She and her childhood friends, scattered across the area from Stratton Place to the Four Corners, would walk to the theater together.
“Back in the early 50s, we kids walked around town freely… In 6th grade, I would gather with all of my local friends… We’d walk down to the theater called ‘The Dump’ at the time. On Friday nights, there would usually be a double feature, and we’d go to the movies,” she said.
However, she admitted that her ‘clearest memories are not about the movies’. “Most of the time, truthfully, we’d go in, sit down, we’d look around, and see who was there,” she said. “One by one, we’d all gather in the ladies room. It was about the size of a very small closet; we’d jam ourselves in there and gossip. ‘Who is with who?’, ‘Who is doing what’? It was kind of our social time together.”
Castle’s memories are specific to the theater’s layout: a lobby with double doors led into the theater. On the right was a window with an office in the back, where Mrs. Joseph Jarvis would sit at the window.
By the 1940s and 1950s, Mrs. Jarvis was the primary proprietor of the theater. The 1957 Tri-Village Directory lists Mrs. Jarvis as the owner of the theater. When the theater returned to the Jarvis family after a brief time in the 1930s, it was leased to a local businessman, Mitchel Conery, of Ravena.
Behind Mrs. Jarvis’s office were the bathrooms, where Castle and her friends would cram inside to gossip. Inside the theater, there were three aisles with seats. Admittedly, few residents remember them as being particularly comfortable; the chairs had wooden arms and would seat at least four or five in a row.
Once the theater would go dark, Castle and her friends would see a wide variety of films. Westerns and musicals were common viewings with double features. Ketzer called it ‘celluloid anthropology’.
”Beyond the scope of simple nostalgia, for me, each era in the history of motion picture theaters provides a unique look at the themes, social norms, and values that prevailed in pop culture at the time,” said Ketzer.
“They were our heroes,” said one resident, recalling the actors that frequently rode their horses across the sun-bleached Western hills. He believes that the last movie he saw there as a teenager was the 1956 film, The Friendly Persuasion, starring Pat Boone. “It was a grand time.”
On Saturday mornings, he and his sister, along with the neighborhood children, would walk to the theater. “That was our Saturday morning. It was a lot of fun,” he said, recalling how they would ‘sit on the floor’ in the front row, ‘staring up at the big screen’.
Newsreels were also an important aspect of the theater experience. “That’s how we got our news,” he added. “It wasn’t like real time. It was a week later.”
Newsreels and short comic films would accompany the films, and the theater screened a wide array of films, from award-winning movies such as Bette Davis’s ‘Jezebel’ to audience favorites like ‘Gold Diggers in Paris’.
One aspect of the theater’s history that remains difficult to trace the origins of is how the theater earned the moniker The Dump. For some, this is the only name they ever heard the theater referred to as. Still, Castle struggled to find a reason why this name was ever associated with the theater.
“I have no idea,” admitted Castle. She described the theater as “dark; it was not glitzy at all. It was kind of dungeon-y-looking. But nobody was rowdy; there were never any fights or problems.”
By the late 1950s, the popularity of the theater as a local theater dwindled. Some of the children had grown up and gone off to college or to the Korean War; when they returned, the theater was gone. Castle and her friends began going to Albany’s theaters, looking to join a more ‘sophisticated’ adult crowd.
In addition, televisions brought films right into people’s living rooms. By the end of the 1950s, theaters were struggling to maintain their place in communities. For the Delmar Theatre in 1959, the last film that they showed was a Vincent Price horror film, ‘The Fly’.
”I think what happened in Delmar was ultimately a reflection of what was going on in many towns across the country in the late 1950s, which was the proliferation of the television set,” said Ketzer.
”Once TVs became cheap enough for most working families to have one in the household, the theater’s popularity started to dip,” he added. “It wouldn’t be until the 1960s that the motion picture industry pivoted toward the multiplex model that helped theaters regain some commercial appeal as an experience to have, as opposed to simply a movie to watch.”
After the closing of the theater, the space was utilized by other establishments, such as Vet’s Body Shop and Garage. Libby Thomas of the 333 Cafe noted in Susan Leath’s book, ‘Historic Tales of Bethlehem, New York’, that nothing remained in the theater to indicate its existence, “not even in the depths of the basement.”
“We assign legacy status to Jericho Drive-In because it’s still there; we can still go and see a double feature and get soft serve. Same with Spectrum in Albany. But I don’t feel it makes Delmar Theatre any less integral to the development of Four Corners in that era of significant suburban growth,” commented Ketzer. “I don’t think the place’s legacy has been overlooked by those who remember it; I just think that, despite its 30-year run, it’s about longevity.”
In the fight for longevity in a rapidly evolving area, the Delmar Theatre’s legacy lives on in its nicknames, in the space that once was, and in the memories of those who crowded into the seats to see a movie or to spend time together as friends.
“In an era where technology has done its level best to physically separate us from one another, these small theaters provide an entertainment space where we remember who we are as a species,” said Ketzer.
“There was nothing else for us to do,” said Castle. “Many of us didn’t have TVs early on. We couldn’t spend time on the telephone because we had party lines and couldn’t take up the phone. We didn’t have game machines or anything but talking to each other, which is wonderful when you think about it.”
“That socialization was so important, and kids today are missing that,” she added. “This was our entertainment.”
