HAMILTON — Black-and-white images no longer flicker until midnight. The powerful smell of popcorn has vanished too, along with the ornately designed movie houses that once attracted crowds downtown.

        These days, multiplexes with an array of snacks from popcorn to pizza pull people to a suburban strip on Hamilton's west side.

Shauna Hanley stands in front of the Princess Theater in Oxford. (Ernest Coleman photo) | ZOOM |

        Hamilton's downtown was once a movie mecca, boasting no fewer than 10 theaters during the 1920s. As with most Tristate cities, Hamilton's movie houses were for much of the last century the main entertainment attraction downtown. But the theaters gradually declined in the face of increasing competition from television and later, home video, and the population shift to the suburbs.

        Today, renewed interest in the region's old theaters is reawakening film fans, preservationists and downtown boosters. Old theaters are being reborn and remade.

        “They're still around in various capacities. In some cases, it's preposterous to think that theaters can be saved as movie houses,” said Greg Waller, a professor of English and film studies at the University of Kentucky. “Often, they're multipurpose places today.”

        In Wilmington, a $1 million renovation over the last 10 years has turned the Murphy Theater into the centerpiece of Clinton County's government seat.

        “Our Community Improvement Corporation considers the Murphy the economic engine of the downtown,” said Doug Lynn, theater manager. “We book big names — Glen Campbell, Rosemary Clooney, Tom Jones — and supplement them with lesser-knowns from May through September. The theater is also used by the community for school productions. The Murphy really is a community project.”

        Built in 1918 by Chicago Cubs owner Charles Murphy, the theater is a sprawlingplace. A private nonprofit group bought the theater in 1987 and has continued to operate it for live shows.

        “We were fortunate,” Mr. Lynn said. “It had been in continuous operation. It hadn't fallen into disrepair. We didn't have a tree growing through the stage.”

        Other old theaters are used for live shows. On Hamilton's west side, the Rossville (a 1940s theater later named Cinema West) is now the Hamilton Music Theater, which presents country and gospel groups.

MOVIE PALACES

Hamilton theaters included:     • The Palace, on South Third Street, built in 1921 and open until 1958.     • The Paramount (left), 18 S. Second St., a premier movie house that operated from 1932 until 1961.     • The Rialto, Front and High streets, opened in 1921 by the Jewel Photoplay Co. Also operated as the Court Theater in the 1970s but closed as The Rialto in the 1990s, the last of Hamilton's old-time movie theaters.

        The days when Hamilton was a bastion of movie houses live again at the Butler County Historical Society Museum's new exhibit “Lights ... Camera ... Hamilton!” It shows the interplay between theaters and popular culture in Hamilton in the early 20th century.

        “The most fanciful and elaborate theater architecture came of age during the '20s,” said Marjorie Brown, museum director.

        “The history of movie theaters says much about economics and history and popular culture of the period,” said Shauna Hanley, a Miami University junior who prepared much of the theater exhibit.

        She pulled out a large photograph of a group of ushers at Hamilton's old Rialto Theater downtown.

        “Theater owners actually trained boys to be ushers,” she said. “They went through an usher "boot camp' to make people feel like royalty. That was a goal in the '20s — make customers feel like they were special.”

        The exhibit, which runs through March 17 at the society's Richie Auditorium, 327 N. Second St., examines the development of the motion picture and the rise of the “picture palace” in the United States, using photographs, movie posters and other memorabilia.

        Hamilton theaters included:

        • The Palace, on South Third Street, built in 1921 and open until 1958.

        • The Paramount, 18 S. Second St., a premier movie house that operated from 1932 until 1961.

        • The Rialto, Front and High streets, opened in 1921 by the Jewel Photoplay Co. Also operated as the Court Theater in the 1970s but closed as The Rialto in the 1990s — the last of Hamilton's old-time movie theaters.

        “Theaters like these have made an enormous impact in the everyday lives of people,” said Mr. Waller, the author of Movie Going In America, to be issued this year by Blackwood Publications. “There is reason to preserve them. If we can save them, then we've saved a crucial part of American history from the 20th century.

        “In a place like Hamilton and in smaller towns, the theater — not only the picture palaces but the plain ones too — was the absolute center of town. It was where racial distinctions were drawn in the era of segregation and where social activities took place.”

        In Sharonville, a city arts council recently leased the Act One Theater from the city for four years. The arts council wants to present plays and movies at the building on Reading Road (U.S. 42).

        “We're not promising to bring it back to its full historical condition, but we're looking to upgrade it and refurbish it,” said Sue Koetz, city recreation director and a member of the Sharonville Fine Arts Council.

        In Athens, Ohio University recently spent $2.5 million to buy and renovate the 560-seat Athens Cinemas. The three-screen theater, which opened in 1915 as the Majestic, received a new chrome marquee and outdoor ticket booth, concession stand and a decor that reflected the 1940s. The theater will be used to show first-run, foreign and possibly student films.

        Fred Baum, who restored the Princess in Oxford in the early 1980s, installed new seats designed for maximum leg room, a large pipe organ and new projection equipment. He left the exterior about the same, except for a new marquee. The front still featured the old ticket booth and wooden doors.

        He said old theaters are pieces of local history that need to be preserved.

        “What's driving the interest in early theaters is the baby boomers,” Ms. Koetz said. “They watched old B movies in these kinds of places, and now people want to see them restored. There's strong sentiment for it.”

        She added: “The old movie theaters are just great places to be entertained in.”

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