Reel through entertainment across the decades by learning about the history of the Edmonds Theater. Examine historical photographs and listen to the audio guide.
Transcript
The Edmonds Theater is one of the last remaining independently owned, single-screen theaters in the pacific northwest.
Many remember it as The Princess Theatre. It’s been in its current building since it was built in 1923. But it wasn’t always where it is now. In fact, the theater used to be where the Edmonds Bakery is today. When it was on the other side of the street, from 1916 to 1921, it was called the Union Theater.
In 1925, The Princess Theatre showed a film by Edmonds local, Walter Reece. He traveled to California where he wrote, produced, directed, edited, and starred in his motion picture called “Clothes and the Man.” What was the film about? We have no idea!
Broadway Melody was the first movie with sound to be shown in Edmonds. It opened to a packed house at the Princess Theater in August of 1929. This was the first musical to win an Oscar and the first film to win an Academy Award for Best Picture. Though it was a musical, a silent version was also released, as not all theaters at the time had the necessary sound technology to show a “talkie.”
Due to the Great Depression, admission to the Princess Theatre was temporarily reduced from 35 cents to 25 cents. During World War Two, the Princess Theatre often offered free movies to those who donated metal to the local scrap drive.
“It was cheap, I remember the theme song, it think it’s sunrise serenade…it played before the movie came on and during intermission” – Rod Neff, 2008
The theater became “The Edmonds Theater” in 2008. Though it now uses modern film technology, the theater still retains its original balcony and continues to entertain Edmond’s theater-goers today.