City’s silent-film theaters attracted Bangor crowds

Silent movies revolutionized entertainment in Bangor a century ago. The first full-time movie theater, the Nickel, opened in the new Graham Building at Central Street on Aug. 12, 1907. Area people attended by the thousands – 18,000 during one early fall week alone, said the Bangor Daily News on Sept. 23. Business was so good the theater was enlarged. A big lobby opened on Jan. 4, 1908, so waiting customers would no longer have to stand in the street.

Silent films were so popular that a second movie theater opened in February in the Blake Building at 164 Exchange St. A contest was held to choose a name. The winner, Miss Eleanor Slattery of 120 Pearl St., won a three-month free pass. Her choice, the Gem, became the name of Bangor’s latest movie palace. It was located on the site of what would become the famed Bijou Theater just two years later as the city’s array of entertainment palaces rapidly expanded.

The grand opening of the Gem was Feb. 8, a century ago this week. Both Bangor newspapers covered the event. Between noon and 11 p.m., 3,000 people crowded into the theater to see repeat showings of “The Quack Doctor,” “Days of ’61,” “Champion All the Same” and “The Sailor’s Practical Joke.” Between shows, the Veilleux brothers, Philip and Dolor, sang the latest illustrated songs.

“With the most modern chairs, beautiful frescoing, rich velvet draperies and a delightful ladies room, it is certainly a ‘Gem,'” said the Bangor Daily Commercial.

“The entrance is lighted by an arch supporting 257 incandescent lights, and the beautiful appearance in white and gold of the front of the theater will be noticeable. Swinging doors at each side of the box office admit the public to the auditorium. … Every seat has a complete view of the picture.” (In less than a week, the management announced it was going to raise the stage 2 feet so everybody could see.)

The orchestra pit had space for piano player Ralph Fortier and a drummer. Special attention was paid to fire safety. “The room where the machines [projectors] are arranged is lined with sheet steel with an asbestos backing.” The movies would change every other day, the illustrated songs twice a week.

Meanwhile, a block or two away, throngs continued to pack the Nickel, which had more than double the seating capacity of the Gem. On the same day the Gem opened, the Bangor Daily News reported that the Nickel had “big crowds all day long, plenty of laughter and applause … that’s the story in a nutshell.” Enthusiasm for the movies seemed to know no boundaries.

Another new development reflecting the entertainment revolution was the opening of the Queen City’s first penny arcade on Sept. 30, 1907, on Central Street. “One side of the long room is occupied by phonograph or song machines, while picture machines fill the other. In all there are 60 of these machines.” An electric automatic rifle and target were featured along with a Fairbanks Standard Scale, which gave weight and height and a variety of strength tests. A huge teddy bear, “advertising that very popular song, ‘Won’t You Be My Teddy Bear?'” was stationed by a big show window on the street, reported the Bangor Daily News on opening day. [I mistakenly reported this event in my column on Dec. 4, 2006, having failed to notice on the microfilm that the BDN issue for Sept. 30, 1907, had been inserted between the issues for Sept. 29 and Oct. 1, 1906.]

But the most exciting news – or rumor – was that Bangor was about to get a vaudeville theater operated by the Keith theater syndicate. On Dec. 2, 1907, the Bangor Daily News explained the situation: “The magnificent new Keith theater in Portland is nearing completion and another Keith theater is soon to be opened in St. John, the same artists appearing at each.” Bangor would be the city in the middle to break up the journey for the same quality performers as the bigger cities.

The Keiths were proposing that local capitalists build a theater and lease it to them. One of those wealthy men, John R. Graham, who owned the building in which the Nickel was located, denied a rumor he was buying land on which to build the new theater, said the Bangor Daily News on Dec. 28. The Keiths already had a relationship with Graham. The president of the Bangor Nickel Corp. was A. Paul Keith, a top company official.

Another site discussed was the old Norombega Hall, which sat in the Kenduskeag Stream between Central and Franklin streets. The stage had been removed several years earlier, and renovations would be expensive. A. Paul Keith visited Bangor to inspect the old theater, where such famous actors as Joseph Jefferson and Edwin Booth had performed in a previous era, the Bangor Daily News reported Feb. 6, 1908. The newspaper said Bangor people were amusement-hungry. “In fact Bangor has long been recognized as the best show town in all New England,” the reporter asserted hopefully.

The folks who ran the Bangor Opera House, the city’s bastion of live dramatic performances, must have watched these developments with trepidation. Advertisements now called the theater “The New Bangor Opera House” since major renovations were completed some months before. How the theater would be affected by the growing number of low-priced movie houses and a new vaudeville theater was unknown.

Of course, it would adapt to prevailing tastes. The week the Gem opened, the Opera House was featuring a movie at “a special low price” of only 10 cents. The next week a vaudeville company was booked.

Information for this column was obtained from Dick Shaw and from “Bangor’s Bijou & Mr. Bogrett” by Linda K. Branniff.

wreilly@bangordailynews.net