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Haddon Township Historical Photographs The Westmont Theatre |
 The Westmont Theatre (1928) |
 Westmont Theatre Anniversary Program (1928) |
 Haddon Avenue by Westmont Theatre (1928) |
 The Westmont Theatre (1929) |
| The first image was taken in April 1928 for a two day run (April 9th and 10th 1928) of Charlie Chaplin's film The Circus. Billed as 'The Greatest Show on Mirth', The Circus was Chaplin's last completely silent film. It was also one filled with great tragedy for him. His studio burned down during production and he suffered great distress in other areas which led to a stop in filming. It would take nearly two years before it was complete. Despite it containing some of Chaplin's best material, it is the only feature not mentioned in his autobiography. The film was shown at the Westmont and numerous other theatres in 1928. But Chaplin would not release the film again for the public for 41 years, until 1969. When he did, the 80-year old Chaplin sang the title song. |
| The Westmont Theatre opened at 49 Haddon Avenue on Labor Day (September 5, 1927), with a seating capacity of 1800 during the waning of the Vaudeville era (It had a stage size was 40' x 35') and silent films. The interior was decorated in silk fabrics of gold and "old rose." The original grand marquee was made for the theatre by The Philadelphia Sign Company. |  |
| Many theaters built during the early years of motion pictures included an organ to accompany the silent feature film. However,
few theater organs could compare with the custom built organ installed in the Westmont Theatre. This new organ, perhaps one of the largest of its kind in New
Jersey at the time, costing over $25,000, was made and installed by the Benjamin Lenoir Company of Philadelphia. The console included many complicated
stops to create special effects. For example, when storms or water scenes were depicted on screen, the organ would provide sounds resembling rain and
sweeping winds. The blower (serial P303B) had a rating of 7.5 horsepower, with 12" of wind pressure used. Mr. Monroe Hilbert of New York City presided at
the organ on opening day. (The Westmont Theatre also had two Lester grand pianos purchased from F. A. North Company). Lenoir organs were also installed
in the Levoy Theatre in Millville, NJ (1927); the Clementon Theatre in Clementon, NJ (1927); and the Runnemede Theatre in Runnemede, NJ (1928).
The Westmont's organ was probably larger than the organ that was installed in the Levoy during the same year. The Levoy Theatre organ (serial P304B) featured
3 Manuals/10 Ranks of Pipes. There are no known surviving Lenoir Theatre organs.
The executives heading the Westmont Theatre enterprises were : I. M. Rappaport, manager of Handle-Rovner interests in Camden County; Morris A. Handle and A. J. Rovner, co-founders of Handle-Rovner Amusement Enterprise; Roy Reed, resident manager of the Westmont Theatre ; and, Kolman Goldstein, associate owner of the Westmont Theatre. The total cost of building the new Westmont Theatre was $400,000. There were many local businesses involved in the construction of the Westmont Theatre. J. B. Van Sciver Company of Camden provided the furniture. Brick work came from Andrew White and Chester B. Hardman was the electrician. Concrete work was provided by W. Wiglesworth of Collingswood, and lumber was furnished by Stinson and Dickensheets of Gloucester City, New Jersey. Uhr Electric Company provided the electric fixtures, and Hitchner-Holmes Company of Camden provided the millwork hardwood flooring. |
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The interior painting was done by Harry Brodsky. In 1928, he did work for the Ambler Theatre in Ambler, Pennsylvania. He may be the same, or perhaps the son of, the Harry Brodsky who went on to become a world famous artist and who exhibited at the Whitney in 1934,
and later at other renowned venues including the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. That Harry Brodsky's work is now in the collections of the
British Museum, National Museum of American Art, and Philadelphia Museum, among others, and he died in Philadelphia in 1997. |
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The architect, engineer, and general contractor for he Westmont Theatre was William Wrifford. Wrifford is credited with designing the Levoy Theatre in Millville, New Jersey. The Levoy was built as a Vaudeville Theatre in 1908. That theatre still functions and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places for its architecture and engineering. Another of Wrifford's buildings is also listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The Marcouse Building on Market Street in Camden, New Jersey |
| It took only six months from the first public announcement of the coming theater to its opening day in 1927. The first movie to play at The Westmont was a
silent film, The Unknown, a bizarre Tod Browning tragedy starring Lon Chaney Jr. and Joan Crawford. Chaney plays an armless circus knife-thrower named
Alonzo the Armless who commits a murder and falls in love with a woman who fears men with arms. News, organ music, and vaudeville acts were also presented. Many
prominent Haddon Township and County officials spoke during the opening night ceremonies. Prior to the theater's premier, Mr. Handle was quoted as saying, "We
are particularly fortunate in our geographic location here. With Camden as a key manufacturing city offering...more chances for employment, and a suburban section
that can be classed as one of the most desirable residential sections of America, nothing can stop the growth." |
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 | The Westmont Theatre indeed represented another milestone in our growing community. The Vaudeville theatre and silent motion picture house was the cornerstone of a burgeoning Westmont's Haddon Avenue, which had recently been modernized with concrete. It wasn't long before another technology had its effect on the theatre, when the first "talkie" was shown at The Westmont, the 1927 Al Jolson film, The Jazz Singer. At the time, on Sundays, a 120-piece orchestra performed there with the massive organ. Even though The Jazz Singer featured only minimal synchronized sound, it was the beginning of the end--silent films dissipated within the next two years. With the early 1930s, silent films came to a complete end and Vaudeville faded away within the decade. The issue of showing motion pictures on Sunday evenings became a heated debate. A public meeting was called on July 28, 1931. The result was the formation of a committee that later ruled against showing motion pictures on Sunday evenings at the Westmont Theatre. The Westmont Theatre remained open during the Great Depression and continued to feature motion pictures on other days and nights. Live vaudeville acts were presented at the theatre through much of the 1930s. During World War II the theatre closed operation altogether. Following the Rovner management, the theatre became part of the Stanley Warner chain (who also managed the Collingswood Theatre). |
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| The theatre reopened, Thanksgiving Day (November 25, 1948) as part of the Varbalow chain of theatres; which also acquired the Collingswood Theatre shortly after The Westmont. (The Varbalow chain later became the Savar Corp.) It was completely remodeled for them with a design by David Supowitz. According to South Jersey Theatre historian, Allen Hauss, it was during this period that Eli M. Orowitz (EMO) was the District Manager for Varbalow, and his son, Eugene Orowitz (later known as Michael Landon) worked for a short time at the Westmont Theatre as a doorman. The Orowitz lived nearby in Collingswood, NJ. After high school, Eugene's skill as a track star (javelin) earned him a spot on the UCLA track team but an injury ended his sports career. With help from his father's connections in Hollywood (via his radio reporting about celebrities) both Eugene (now Michael Landon) and his sister got into films. It was a short time before Michael was a television star. A Courier-Post news story indicates that a young Steven Spielberg was inspired to become a director after seeing the Cecil B. DeMille circus film, The Greatest Show on Earth, at this theatre in 1952. Spielberg was then a 5-years old was a resident of Crystal Terrace in Haddon Township. Steven's father, Arnold Spielberg was working for RCA in Camden at the time and promised to take Steven to the circus. Steven was fascinated by the train crash scene in the film and re-enacted it at home with toy trains, over and over again, and eventually filmed such scenes when he made his first films several years later. Spielberg pays homage to the scene in his War of the Worlds remake (the crash scene from The Greatest Show on Earth appears on the television set visible in the film. Sam Varbalow's daughter, Henrietta, became the CEO of the Savar Corporation after Sam's passing. In the early Sixties, she began to sell off the chain with the most important theatres going to the Milgram Chain. Bill Milgram put in the new wide screen and wall-to-wall curtain at the Westmont for the "first South Jersey" opening of The Sound of Music in 1966. |
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| On December 26, 1973, a modest-budget $10,000,000 controversial film made its "world premiere" (as it was dubbed in the papers) at The Westmont. The Exorcist actually simultaneously opened on only 30 screens nationwide; The Westmont was the only theatre to debut the film in New Jersey and in most states there were no theatres showing it at all. Only a single theatre of a Cinema 5 showed the film in New York City. Within a week the film was a national phenomenon and people flocked to Westmont from all over to, by chance, get a ticket to see one of the showings. There were traffic jams around the theatre and hysteria in the theatre. Well into 1974, when the film was nominated for ten Oscars, The Westmont remained the only theatre in the state of New Jersey, and one of only a handful on the east coast that you could see The Exorcist. In the late Seventies, Milgram sold off his theatres; the Westmont was sold to Claude Schlanger, CEO of Budco Theatres (a Dolyestown Pa. company). In 1979 Kramer VS Kramer was "sneak previewed" at the Westmont with the director and Dustin Hoffman in attendance. Budco closed the theater and turned it into a twin theatre in 1979. Budco eventually sold off its theatres to AMC. It was last owned by AMC and continued to operate as a twin theatre when it finally closed in 1986. In 1992, The Westmont Theatre Company (formerly The Living Arts Repertory Theatre [LART]) began using the theatre. In 1999, the Township purchased the theatre with $280,000 in funds from the Camden County Improvement Authority. |
 The Westmont Theatre in 2003 |
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The Westmont Theatre in 2005< |
| The most exiting recent news about the Westmont Theatre is that it is the subject of a documentary film by Brent J. Donaway and Footprint Films. Brent Donaway's The Grand Old Lady premiere date is May 6, 2007 at the Ritz Theatre, White Horse Pike in (Oaklyn) Haddon Township. A trailer is available to view at The Grand Old Lady Trailer. Ticket information will be available from the Ritz Theatre. |
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