A story in the December 2004/January 2005 issue of Arthur Frommer’s Budget Travel Magazine alerted me to Ross Melnick and Andreas Fuchs’s Cinema Treasures. It was an annotated list of seven theaters still operating today:
Cape Cinema: This 1930 Dennis, Mass., theater was built to look like a church.
The Senator Theatre: A 65-year-old art moderne classic, it shows new releases in Baltimore.
Oriental Theatre: Head to Milwaukee for this $1.5 million theater with porcelain lions.
The Panida Theater: A ghost is rumored to walk the aisles in this Sandpoint, Idaho, theater.
Paramount Center for the Arts: In Peekskill, N.Y., it has Caesar and Dante busts.
Arlington Theatre: Pick from 2,000 seats in this Santa Barbara, Calif., theater.
As it turns out, they ran a similar story with the same seven theaters in a November issue of Newsweek as well.
The website CinemaTreasures offers searching of over 8000 theaters, many with photos and detailed descriptions.
The Ragtag Cinemacafe, which boasts a quote by Bertolt Brecht on their website: “A theater without beer is just a museum,” shows movies nightly in Columbia, Missouri. Their alphabetical list of links to other independent theaters around the country is a good companion to Cinema Treasures.