Photo by Barry Houlehen
The Downer Theatre in 2024
The Downer Theatre in 2024
In 2024, the Downer is the oldest continuously operating motion picture theater in the city. It’s been entertaining audiences for an astonishing 109 years, and with its new owners, there’s no telling how much life the Downer still has.
In 1915, movie theaters had already been in Milwaukee for 10 years, and the Downer opened in a time of intense competition. The Butterfly, Alhambra, Strand, Toy and Princess theaters each drew approximately 5,000 patrons per week. Six vaudeville theaters also offered additional amusement options, like the Gayety that advertised 28 well-bred maidens, and the Majestic that boasted the world’s greatest entertainer, the cyclonic Eva Tanguay.
Unable to gain a foothold against these established venues, the Downer severed its motion picture contract with Paramount Pictures and filled the seats with benefit after benefit for local non-profits such as the Milwaukee Protestant Orphans Asylum, the Women’s Auxiliary of Saint Mark’s Church, Lake Park Girls’ Recreation League, and the Maryland Avenue School Parent-Teachers Association. The Westminster Women’s Club held a fundraiser with a three-year-old Mary Pickford film. Additionally, weekly educational lectures became part of the programming. They were given by university professors and carried titles such as “Eugenic Aspects of the Jewish Question” and “How Race and Intermarriage Cause Problems Among the Jews.” For some variety, films of the 1916 World Series games between the Boston Red Sox and the Brooklyn Robbins were shown over several weeks. Mrs. Charles Riley reported losing a 2 ½ carat diamond ring valued at $700 in the theater. She’s still waiting for it to be returned.
The Downer presented motion pictures from time to time in those early days, perhaps a melodrama like Her Silent Sacrifice, a 50-minute epic with two men fighting over a woman who loves only one of them. Universal Pictures added the Downer to their chain of Milwaukee showhouses and began booking one main feature accompanied by a two-reel comedy (often Harold Lloyd or Buster Keaton) and a newsreel. The Council of Jewish Women presented amateur vaudeville performances on weekday afternoons when the theater was vacant. The audiences were mostly school children on field trips.
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In 1927, a $60,000 renovation of the Downer included everything from new wall fabrics ,carpets, seats, and adaptations to accommodate the new talking pictures. In 1931 Warner Brothers took control of the Downer and several other local theaters to be operated from their new flagship, the Warner Theater on Wisconsin Avenue. Two years later Warner disposed of the still-unprofitable Downer, and it fell into the hands of the Shorewood Theater Company. Under their management, the Downer experienced a 33% loss on admissions due to second-rate film bookings. Then, Harold J. Fitzgerald, general manager of Fox Theaters in Milwaukee, took control of the Downer .Finally, under the auspices of Fox, the Downer showed a new film each week along with a comedy, cartoon, newsreel and a travelogue. Fox added a vending stand which added to the bottom line, and for perhaps the first time since opening, the Downer was making money.In July 1947, Fox contracted with British film distributors for art films to play at one theater in each city where they operated. In Milwaukee they chose the Downer to be the exclusive venue for U.K. films of operas, mysteries, comedies, romances and musicals. The surprising success ofthe new policy led Fox to bring in films from other countries. For a time, there was even talk of changing the theater’s name to the Prestige.
Looking back, it only took 35 years to discover what moviegoers on the East Side wanted to see. For the next six decades, the Downer specialized in the presentation of independent films, non-Hollywood productions, and foreign and art films. Much of that programming will continue now that the venerable Downer is the new home of the popular Milwaukee Film Festival.
