Thanks to a post by Tom Brueggemann yesterday on Dave Kehr’s web site, I’ve just discovered the existence of a remarkable site cataloging almost 23,000 movie theaters around the world, including all nine of those in northwestern Alabama that were owned and/or operated by my grandfather between roughly 1919 and 1960, only a couple of which are still standing today (neither of which still shows movies). There’s also quite a lot of factual information about these theaters available on this site.

Cinema Treasures also features almost 1600 photographs of theaters, though, alas, not any of the nine run by my grandfather. It seems that the people in charge of this site got inundated with more photos of theaters than they could cope with, so they’re not currently adding any more, at least for the time being. But since a good many photos of my family’s former theaters are available in my first book, Moving Places: A Life at the Movies (1980), I’ve decided to reproduce a few here, restricting myself to exterior views of four of them. Directly overhead are the two that are still standing—the Shoals in Florence (which opened in 1948, and is seen here just after it opened) and the Ritz in Sheffield (which opened in 1928). The two below are the Princess in Florence (which opened in 1919 and is listed in Cinema Treasures as the Cinema—its second name, dating from 1958) and the Colbert in Sheffield ( which opened in 1942, and is seen here circa 1954). [12/25/08]