community.
Crested Butte News • Summer 2013 • 11
The Princess Theatre
A
big-screen
relic
- by Melissa Ruch Fenlon -
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irst it was silent movies, then the Hollywood hits of the golden age, then the art house films. The Princess Theatre was home to Crested Butte’s big screen for decades. Going to the movies was a way for the townspeople to be entertained and stay connected to the rest of the world. The original building that stood where the theatre is now served as the Colorado Supply Store, but it burned down at the turn of the century, with only its three stone walls remaining. They served as the foundation for a new building. Today, you can walk past the building and touch those old stones. Before being used as a movie house, the building was a roller rink. Then Joe Faussone opened the Princess Theatre in 1918. According to George Sibley’s Crested Butte Primer, “Faussone is remembered in town as a man who really put himself into his work. He would come out onto the sidewalk before the evening showing, and talk up the movie in the best carny-barker style. Joe Saya recalls working for Faussone— he built the fires in the Princess Theatre stove in return for free movies. The movie only cost a dime or fifteen cents at that time–but that was a lot of money to a kid in Crested Butte.” Next, the Snyder brothers bought the theatre, showing two or three different movies a week. The price of the ticket was typically 15 cents, according to Sibley, with shows like Ben Hur selling out at 25 cents. The Snyders installed sound equipment in 1932, putting new projectors in as well. Sibley writes, “During those days, until the High School building with its auditorium was built in 1927, assembly programs for the Crested Butte school children were held in the Princess Theatre. Many of these assembly programs were put on by the state Fish and Game Department—conservation-oriented programs.” One of the most comical tales from the Princess Theatre’s history is how kids used to sneak their way in for a free movie. There was a crawlspace under the stage that served as the cheapest entrance—the only downfall was that it also served as in indoor outhouse for patrons. Local historian and author Duane Vandenbusche tells the story of “bank night” at the theatre. “During the week, hardly anyone went to the movies. They were looking for ways to get people into the theatre.” So they created the “bank night” at a theatre in Montrose. On Tuesday nights, the owners would pool the money from ticket sales and raffle part of the proceeds during intermission. “You could win $20,” says Vandenbushe, “and $20 was a lot of money back then.” Bank nights soon became a nationwide sensation. The two men from Montrose trademarked their new idea. Crested Butte was one of the first communities to run bank nights. Rudy Sedmak and Martin Verzuh ran the theatre from 1950 to 1962, buying it from Adolph Fisher. It was a family-run business, explains Jo Laird, the niece of Martin Verzuh. Laird’s father, Rudy, ran the projection booth and her mother, Emmy, worked in the ticket office. “When I got old enough I got to pop a little corn,” she says. Running the theatre was a good business venture for her family, Laird says. “And there wasn’t much entertainment in Crested Butte then, so it was a good place to go.”
Laird has the old stove that once heated the movie theatre, a piece of Crested Butte’s history. In 1962, Laird’s family sold the theatre to Jack Johnston of Oklahoma City, who sold it to local Steve Glazer in 1970. The building was in disrepair—it had been condemned by the state. According to Glazer, the state gave him three years to get the building into compliance, which included adding plumbing. “I ran it as an art house,” Glazer recalls. “The first five years I ran it for myself, showed films I wanted to see. I refused to show a John Wayne movie. But after a while, I realized I was being too selfish—people have their own taste. Then I started showing movies for other people.” After the first three years in business, Glazer took on a partner, Bill Pense, who was running the Flick Theatre in Denver’s Larimer Square at the time. They began to make major renovations to the theatre, putting in bathrooms and a heating system. The days were done where people would huddle around the stove at the beginning of the movie to stay warm. Sibley remembers the old pot belly stove: “Without a heating system, seats in the theatre were chosen not on the basis of where a person could see best from, but where he could be warm enough.” Glazer upgraded from horsehair seats to modern theatre seating. Chandeliers from an old theatre in Chicago were hung, and an artist out of Telluride was commissioned to create a hand-painted mural curtain. He created his mural in five different artistic styles. It’s Crested Butte Mountain from the vantage of Gibson’s Ridge. There are Greek columns, Venus rising bare-breasted on a half-shell encompassed by fiery borders with cherubs flying. But Glazer says he didn’t take himself too seriously, so there was a Mickey Mouse peeking through the forest on the curtain. The curtain is in storage at the Mountain Heritage Museum. Glazer held three world premiers at the Princess: Ghost Town Skiers, Snowball Express and Karate Kid. Ghost Town Skiers and Snowball Express were filmed in Crested Butte, and Karate Kid was written by Robert Mark Kamen in town. The art film fan enjoyed his time running the theatre, bringing entertainment to the small town. And he was proud to carry on the tradition of showing films in this mountain community. When he first began remodeling the building he found old music scores from the silent movie days. “It was a big deal to have a theatre in town,” says Molly Minneman, the town’s historic preservation coordinator. She says that when the theatre opened in 1918, it was an indicator that the community was on the map. “It shows that there was enough commerce in town,” she explains. Even though the coke ovens closed in town that year, it was still a boom time, and people had the money to go to the movies. The building itself is unusual, says Minneman. No other building on Elk Avenue has the arch on its false front. “You don’t see that type of architecture anywhere else. It’s has a certain level of ornateness,” she says. “The building itself draws you in and wants you to be a part of the downtown.” Today, when Jo Laird walks past the old Princess Theatre, which is now home to the Princess Wine Bar and Furnishings store, she gets nostalgic. “It’s a fun reminder of the older days. I like to remember it in the good old days.”
The building itself draws you in and wants you to be a part of the downtown.