Wauwatosa’s Movie Theaters

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Photo courtesy of Milwaukee Movie Palaces

Tosa Theater 1946

Tosa Theater 1946

The history of movies in Wauwatosa began when Louis Schneider, manager of the Union theater in Milwaukee, held a makeshift “Grand Picture Show” on State Street. The show featured 40 minutes of film and two community sing-a-longs accompanied by a piano player. Schneider did some remodeling in what would become a permanent theater building but returned to the Union within six months. Joseph Renner bought the business at 72nd and State and called it the Theater Delight. A new operator, a Mr. Pierce, changed the name to the Bijou in 1912. The cost to purchase an existing theater with several hundred seats was around $1,000 at the time.

Alderman Herman Haberman bought the theater with his brother, John, who ran a Miller brewing company saloon next door. The theater was called the Unique for two years and then the Princess for three months. A Mr. Theobald took control of the Princess, renamed it the Mystic, and assured citizens he would run pictures suitable for women and children. That alone was significant because many Milwaukee neighborhood theaters were fined for offenses involving minors engaged in homosexual acts or intercourse within a pitch-black room. Clergymen and spirited citizens demanded these “schools for vice” be shut down, but the Mystic escaped their wrath by avoiding movies with drunkenness, marital infidelity, or murder. Unfortunately, those were the very elements that attracted patrons in the first place.

The final owner of the theater, now called the Cozy, ran it until 1922 when it finally closed for good under the management of a Mr. Foster. The seven theaters at the State Street location were doomed to fail from the outset because they were behind the times. Milwaukee’s movie men had already moved on from 200-seat rooms to larger auditoriums with the latest in projection technology. 

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Public domain

Wauwatosa "Grand Picture Show" ad

Wauwatosa "Grand Picture Show" ad

First Runs in Tosa

In 1928, the Wauwatosa Development Corporation spent $50,000 for land at 78th and Harwood Avenue with intentions to construct a deluxe $400,000 movie theater on the site. The 1,500-seat-theater was expected to allow Wauwatosa residents to see new movies without having to go downtown. Again, well-meaning investors were destined to fail as larger, more elaborate theaters such as the Uptown had already opened in nearby neighborhoods. The Harwood Avenue theater project was scrapped before ground was broken. 

Three years later, Wauwatosa’s Common Council issued a permit to entrepreneur Ross J. Baldwin for construction of a 600-seat motion picture house at 69th and North. Unlike the Harwood Avenue fiasco, Baldwin’s project became a reality within six months. Prior to owning a theater, Baldwin spent 10 years placing films in Universal-owned theaters from an office downtown. Hiring architects, construction contractors, and interior decorators cost him everything he had, and then some. But his Tosa theater eventually opened on Thursday, Oct. 22, 1931, with Side Show, a musical comedy from Warner Bros. Admission was 35-cents until 6:30 p.m., and 25-cents until closing. After the first week, he lowered admission to a modest 15-cents.

Running a movie theater in the Depression was difficult, and before long, Baldwin found himself in the same trap that frustrated theater owners 20 years earlier. Because he could not accommodate the large audiences that paid 35-cents for admission at the Garfield or Tower, the Tosa was given the films a month later to play for 15-cents. Baldwin boosted attendance on Tuesdays with a bingo game, and on other nights, lucky ticket holders won cosmetics, dishes, flower vases and Bit-o-Honey candy bars in a drawing before the show. 

On Strike

In 1939 Baldwin entered a battle with AFL Motion Picture Projectionists Union 164. Manager Oscar Olson alleged that Baldwin had not paid union scale wages to his projectionists for months and sent members to picket in front of the Tosa. Baldwin said the Tosa’s income did not warrant the $70 weekly wage demanded by the union and offered $55. Baldwin further enraged Olson when he fired his projectionists and ran the films himself. Olson eventually agreed to an undisclosed weekly salary amount and the war was over.

A dozen double-wide love seats were installed in November 1940 and gained instant popularity with young men and women who held hands and smooched their way to tying the knot. Theater manager Nate Cohen received complaints that heavy-set men were monopolizing the novelty seats in the interest of their own comfort. “Broad-beamed gentlemen find the love seats easily accommodate their bulk,” he said. “In the interest of fairness, the seats cannot be reserved for romance. First come-first served is the theater policy.” Cohen said regular patrons knew where the seats were and rushed past the ushers to claim them. “The seats are here to stay,” he said with a grin. 

When the novelty 3-D film Devil’s Canyon came to the Tosa, a sell-out audience arrived early to get a good seat and a pair of 3-D glasses. More than 100 people, mostly teenagers, were angry after being told there were no more seats. Persons in the mob became disorderly and police officers arrived to quell the disturbance. “The girls were worse than the boys,” an usher said. “They were pushing and shoving people out of the way in the auditorium.” Persons who sneaked in through the rear exits were ejected and the doors were locked. Marks and smudges on the screen from candy bars thrown at it were wiped off. Seats that had been slashed were rendered unusable for the evening. With the help of the police, the manager compiled a blacklist of 40 people forbidden to return

In July 1953, Baldwin filed a $2 million lawsuit that charged 12 film distributors for restraining trade with his theater. After a decade of working for Universal, Baldwin already knew that movies went to second-run status at the Uptown, Oriental and other large theaters. He had leased the Tosa to Ben Marcus, an operator of theaters in other Wisconsin cities, but once the deal was in place, Baldwin realized he’d been had. 

An example was Andy Hardy’s Private Secretary with Mickey Rooney. The film opened in February 1941 at the Wisconsin theater and a week later played the Strand. After it was shown at several other theaters with higher ticket prices, the Hardy picture came to the Tosa where it landed with a thud. 

Baldwin claimed losses of $300,000 in box office receipts from 1931 to 1940. He alleged another $500,000 loss when Standard Theaters Management leased the Tosa for below-market terms based on the number of admissions. Named in the action were Paramount, RKO, Columbia, Warner Bros, 20th Century Fox, United Artists and Universal. 

Baldwin lost his lawsuit against the film distributors and sold the Tosa to the Marcus Corporation in 1956. They ran it until 1999, and since then, the theater has had several other owners.