On March 1, 1928, the Seattle Theatre, one of the last downtown entertainment venues to open before the Great Depression, debuted to the public. Featuring the elaborate Publix stage show A Merry Widow Revue and the Bebe Daniels silent film Feel My Pulse, the house more than lived up to its billing as "the show divine at 9th and Pine." Now known as the Paramount Theatre, the venue continues to showcase a variety of formal entertainments, including film, theater, and concert engagements.
A Seattle (via New York, Chicago, and Hollywood) Landmark
The Seattle Theatre was the newest addition to the chain operated by the West Coast Theatres Corporation, which opened the venue in association with the Publix-Loews chain of houses. Vision for the original project was credited to L. N. Rosenbaum, a local businessman who had recently returned to the Puget Sound area after several years in New York. Through his Eastern connections, Rosenbaum was able to raise much of the estimated $3 million in capital necessary to build the new theater. Crucial financial assistance also came from Hollywood mogul Adolph Zukor.
The Chicago architectural firm of Rapp and Rapp was selected to design the Seattle Theatre. Highly praised for a number of their projects, Rapp and Rapp's work on the recently opened Paramount Theatre in New York was a particular help in landing the job. (The Seattle was, in fact, based in part on the Rapp and Rapp design for the New York Paramount.) Local architect B. Marcus Priteca (1889-1971), who had a formidable reputation in theater building, also came on board with the project. However, Priteca's contribution appears to have been limited to the design of the commercial and studio space that occupied the remainder of the building.
Opening Night
Unlike most theatrical openings of the era, the christening of the Seattle Theatre was a largely democratic affair, with no reserved seating. Tickets for the March 1, 1928, event were sold on a first-come, first-served basis, allowing the common man to mingle with the social elite who typically attended such gala affairs. Still, with some 4,000 seats to fill for two opening night shows (beginning at 7 p.m. and 9:15 p.m.), a fair share of notable figures were on hand for the house's debut. These included several top executives from the Publix and West Coast Theatres circuits; F. J. Zukor, assistant to and son of Adolph Zukor; as well as prominent figures in Seattle's business, government, and social circles.
To kick off the evening, organizers of the event roped Mayor Bertha Knight Landes (1868-1943) and Frank E. Edwards, at the time rival candidates for the city's top office, to share the honor of purchasing the first tickets. Pictures of the political foes attending the show, looking a bit uneasy with each other, graced the next day's papers. (Just five days after the Seattle Theatre opened, Edwards would defeat Landes in the general election. Landes was the first woman to be elected mayor of a major American city, and to date has been the only female at the helm of Seattle's city hall. Edwards, on the other hand, was a political unknown at the time who was eventually recalled from office in 1931.)
Let the Festivities Begin
Although organizers attempted to design an opening night unlike any yet seen in Seattle, they would have been hard-pressed to top the debut of the 5th Avenue Theatre some two years before, which brought the downtown area to a standstill for an entire evening. Still, by 6 p.m. thousands lined the streets outside the new Seattle Theatre, and organizers did their best to cultivate a carnival atmosphere.
As the movie-going public deluged the theater's box office, roughly 250 servicemen paraded up to the Seattle from 1st Avenue and Pike Street. It isn't clear whether a band accompanied these marchers; without festive music, one imagines that the crowded scene might have appeared a cross between controlled mayhem and martial law. Later, as darkness descended upon the crowds, spotlights lit up the night sky. Police assigned to keep the throng in order also lit the occasional flare to illuminate the area around 9th Avenue and Pine Street.
On With the Show
Inside the Seattle Theatre there was plenty of entertainment for the admission price, which cost a whopping 60 cents for the best seats in the house. Musically, the Seattle's house band (under the direction of Jules Buffano) offered selected pieces both before and during the stage shows. Once the film was underway, a full orchestra played under the direction of John Barbour, while the brother team of Don and Ron took turns at the controls of the Seattle's mighty Wurlitzer organ.
The evening began when a pair of buglers from the 6th U.S. Army Corps. of Engineers took to the stage to play "Retreat" and "Two the Colors" for an enrapt crowd. They were followed by Virginia Johnson, the star of A Merry Widow Revue, who sang the "Star Spangled Banner."
With the national anthem concluded, the program for the Seattle Theatre's official debut performance got underway. The house orchestra appeared, playing selections from Faust, which was followed by Memories, a novelty film in the then-primitive Technicolor format. The orchestra accompanied the images in Memories.
Following a newsreel selection, the duo of Ron and Don were introduced on the house organ, followed by Jules Buffano and the Seattle Stage Band accompanying A Merry Widow Revue. The revue was a Publix (Publix-Loew) road show attraction which came to the Seattle directly from the Paramount Theatre in New York. (Seattle was reportedly the first West Coast city to see Publix road shows on a regular basis, as the circuit had been based in the East up to that point. With the new Seattle Theatre now brought into the fold, Publix acts would be coming westward directly from engagements in Chicago.)
The evening ended with a screening of Bebe Daniels's Feel My Pulse, co-starring William Powell and Richard Arlen. In the picture, Daniels -- a former leading lady for Harold Lloyd, who was being described as "the female Douglas Fairbanks" -- played a hypochondriac who somehow becomes involved in thwarting a bootlegging operation.
An Impressive Debut
The reaction of critics to opening night at the new Seattle Theatre was, as could be expected, overwhelmingly positive. Focusing (as most writers did) on the house itself (and not necessarily on the show), one local commentator called the new venue a "triumph of theatre architecture, spacious, tasteful and imposing."
When it came to the actual entertainment portion of the evening, however, there may have been room for improvement. Joseph Griffin, a tenor soloist in the Publix show, fared well with the Seattle Star, as did The Runaway Four (knockabout comedy acrobats), and Virginia Johnson. But the main attraction, Feel My Pulse, could only garner lukewarm praise as an "above average" light comedy, and the performance of Ron and Don on the organ was gently panned. Overall, the Star's reviewer had "[c]old, if not gray next-morning thoughts" about the bill ("Seattle Opening Has Four Honor Splitting Acts").
Similar comments came from the city's other newspapers. Interestingly, the Post-Intelligencer apparently found the work of the chorus girls in A Merry Widow Revue a bit unusual, since they could actually carry a tune -- something the paper found to be "a happy innovation" ("Publix Show Wins Favor").
