It’s about all that’s left of Tulsa’s Orpheum Theatre.
There’s been a lot of attention lately regarding the movie shot in the area starring Julia Roberts and Meryl Streep, Autumn – Osage County. But it isn’t the first big-time film to grab local attention. Back when, downtown Tulsa had some magnificent movie theatres.
One was the Orpheum and it played host to the World Premiere of an Academy Award-nominated film. It’s hard to read from my cell-phone picture, but a ticket from that first showing on April 13, 1950 landed in the bookshop. It has an eighty-two cent price tag, with sixteen cents Federal tax, and two cents State tax. Total?
One Dollar.
Can’t even TOUCH a box of Milk Duds for that, these days.
Fittingly enough, the Robert Preston-Susan Hayward film was called TULSA and centered on the 1920s oil boom. There were power struggles, money and morals issues, and special effects. The Oscar nomination came as a result of the huge oilfield fire scene that depicted the dangers of oil drilling still recent enough for some movie-goers to remember. Thanks go to Tulsa author John Wooley for the movie poster image, included in his book about Oklahoma Cinema history. (The name of his work is SHOT IN OKLAHOMA: A Century of Sooner State Cinema.)
Like so many of the opulent movie-houses of the time, the Orpheum would have been breathtaking to enter. An article from 1924 described the construction contract for a five-story, fifteen-hundred seat theatre to be built on West Fourth street downtown. In its early years, the theater played host to the last acts to make the national vaudeville circuit before the film industry took over for good.
The loss of the old houses is certainly a shame, although – like so many other significant structures – the cost of remodeling run-down buildings can often outpace their relative value. The Orpheum made it until 1970, but there is no trace of it these days.
You can see some excellent pictures of the Orpheum in its day on the Tulsa-cultural-history website ForgottenTulsa.com – just click right here. There are also several reminiscent accounts of the theater posted by those with first-hand memories.
A single DOLLAR to watch a movie at the Orpheum. Ahhh. Those must be some of the good old days.
(Until you remember how much the average hourly wage was back then. Hint – $1.05 for service workers.)
The price for this old movie theater ticket in today’s vintage collectible market?
Who knows?
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