Cutler Majestic Theatre
219 Tremont Street,
Boston,
MA
02116
219 Tremont Street,
Boston,
MA
02116
13 people
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In this 1957 photo (described here), the Saxon Theatre marquee advertises Michael Todd’s “Around the World in 80 Days” in Todd-AO, with reserved seats.
According to an unpublished draft manuscript by Douglas Shand-Tucci entitled The Puritan Muse (available in the Fine Arts room of the Boston Public Library), Sack acquired this theatre for his movie chain, and renamed it the Saxon, in September, 1956.
When it closed as a movie theatre in 1983, the Saxon was the last of the downtown movie houses that had once been the backbone of the Sack Theatres chain. The others, and what happened to them:
Beacon Hill: demolished in 1969 to make way for an office tower, which opened in 1971 with a new Beacon Hill Theatre in the basement. The second Beacon Hill closed in 1992.
Gary (originally Plymouth): closed in 1978, demolished to make way for the State Transportation Building
Savoy (originally RKO Keith Memorial): sold to Opera Company of Boston in 1978 and renamed the Opera House, closed in 1991, restored and reopened in 2004
Music Hall (originally Metropolitan): lost its lease in 1980, when it was turned over to the new non-profit Metropolitan Center. It was later renamed the Wang Center for the Performing Arts
Capri (first location, in Copley Square): demolished for the Massachusetts Turnpike extension
Capri (second location, on Huntington Avenue): demolished for the Christian Science Center
According to a Boston Globe article published on May 22, 1988, the Majestic showed the silent film Birth of a Nation in 1915. This showing was the first time a movie was ever presented on a reserved-seat basis and in a “legitimate” theatre.
Other silent films played there as well, with a full orchestra accompanying them. From the same article:
“In one case, a silent version of All Quiet On The Western Front, there were scores not just for the musicians in the pit, but stagehands offstage as well. They supplied the groans and moans, on cue, and operated the machine- gun-effects machine, a kind of big ratchet affair.”
Famous performers who appeared on the Majestic’s stage include Burns and Allen, Fred Allen, John Barrymore, Ethel Barrymore, John McCormack, Ruth Gordon, W. C. Fields, Al Jolson, Ruby Keeler, Ethel Merman, Ed Wynn, and the Marx Brothers. The Moscow Art Theater performed Chekhov plays in 1923, and the Yiddish Theater of New York offered several productions in the late ‘30s.
The second balcony remained closed for years after Emerson bought it, but I believe it reopened after restoration was finished in 2003.
Some memories from when I worked there during its action film days in the 80s.
The tunnel was still there and the brave ushers said you could go down it on a wooden plank, it led up to a blank wall though. Door at the top of the stairs that led to it said ‘Majestic Theatre’ in gold leaf.
Backstage was a mess, catwalks survived but looked really unsafe, the ushers would go on these too. Lights were dimmed by a chain attached to some massive knife swtches, looked like something from a Frankenstein movie. Dressing rooms below stage level had several inches of dirt in them from flooding.
First balcony was usable and had nude statuary along the walls.
Second balcony was incredibly dangerous looking with a very steep angle, one missed step and you’d be gone. Also it had a separate exit, was told it was from days of racially separated audiences.
Projection booth had access to a stone balcony outside the theatre front, I was told a projectionist used to go out here and watch the action across the street at a sleazy hotel above the Saxon Coffee House.
I think the firsy film I saw there was the Rainmaker in the 50s; also saw South Pacific and My Fair Lady. I worked at 80 Boylston for awhile in the early 80s, when they were demolighing the Gary (aka Plymouth). They were throwing ou posters for the stage production of ‘Teahouse of the August Moon".
Originally, the Boylston st subway station connecyed to the lower lobby of the majestic, although in the 50s the subway only had a tunnel as far as the basement of 80 Boylston.
In its final few years as a movie theatre, the Saxon was involved in several controversies.
In 1979, the Saxon showed the movie “The Warriors”. A young man who attended the film then took the subway to Fields Corner in Dorchester and fatally stabbed a teenager. Two years later, the murder victim’s family sued Sack Theatres and Paramount Pictures for wrongful death, claiming that the movie was an incitement to violence. The lawsuit dragged on until 1989, when the Massachusetts Supreme Court ruled that Paramount and Sack could not be held responsible.
In May, 1980, the Saxon showed Fredrick Wiseman’s 1967 documentary “Titicut Follies” as part of a film festival. Audience members were required to sign a statement that they were involved in professions related to mental health care, because of a 1971 injunction that stemmed from a lawsuit claiming the film infringed the privacy of Bridgewater State Hospital inmates. Many people falsely signed these statements to attend the film.
In June, 1980, Boston police seized a print of Bob Guccione’s movie “Caligula” from the Saxon few days after it opened. Sack Theatres and Guccione’s Penthouse Pictures were charged with “disseminating obscene material”. A Boston municipal court judge found them innocent on August 1, saying that while the film had no literary, artisitic or scientific value, it was not legally obscene because it had a “serious political theme”. I don’t know whether the film reopened after the judge returned the print to Sack.
The last film to show at the Saxon was the horror film “XTRO”, which had its final showing on May 26, 1983.
[all information above is from Boston Globe online archives]
I have a booklet called “Boston Theatre District: A Walking Tour”, published by the Boston Preservation Alliance in 1993. It says:
An extravaganza of Beaux Arts detail inside and out, the Majestic Theatre was designed by John Galen Howard and J.M. Wood for merchant and music patron Eben D. Jordan Jr., son of the founder of Jordan Marsh and Company [department store]. It opened on February 16, 1903 with a musical fantasy called “The Storks”. The Majestic is the only known Boston work of Howard, who was MIT- and Beaux Arts-trained and went on to a distinguished career at the University of California in Berkeley. The gray terra cotta façade dominates Tremont Street, with its ornamentation cast in high relief.
Its small but highly decorated lobby, with murals by William de Leftwich Dodge, fine stained glass windows, mirrored walls, and a heavily gilded frieze in relief, leads to the auditorium with its series of arches proceeding from that of the proscenium, each one higher than the last, until reaching the gallery ceiling. It was the first theatre to integrate electrical fixtures into the architectural fabric and the first to be constructed without balcony support columns, thus ensuring an unobstructed view of the stage. Its distinctive curved shape, likened to the inside of a megaphone, accounts for its superior acoustics.
For half a century the Majestic featured such luminaries as Ethel Merman, Harry Houdini, Lena Horne, the Marx Brothers, and W.C. Fields. In 1956 it was sold to the Sack Cinema chain and converted into a movie house called the Saxon. It suffered from unfortunate alterations, neglect, and misuse. In 1983 Emerson College purchased the Majestic for its performing arts program and began a meticulous restoration. The Majestic is a Boston Landmark.
I fondly remeber seeing “My Fair Lady” in its hard-ticket run at the Saxon – it was VERY expensive for my family on my father’s military pay. It is on of the earliest memories I have for movie-going, period.
I saw many of the 60’s 70mm roadshow pictures here like “MY FAIR LADY” (one of the most beautiful projection prints I ever saw), and even some 35mm blowups like “THE CARDINAL”, and “BECKET”
I remember seeing Cukor’s MY FAIR LADY here in the 1960s when it was the Saxon Theatre and part of the Sack chain. I just paid a visit the other day for Opera Boston’s production of “Nixon in China” by John Adams, and the magnificently restored theatre was a wonder to behold indeed, utterly breathtaking. Perhaps Emerson College could rescue all the endangered entertainment palaces of America!
Still owned by Emerson College, but now renamed “Cutler Majestic Theatre” after donors Ted and Joan Benard-Cutler.
This was the first 70MM roadshow house I believe in New England. Opened with OKLAHOMA. At its backstage door was the rear of the GARY Theatre (originally the Plymouth) another BEN SACK roadshow theatre. Currently still across the rear is the backstage of the Colonial Theatre.
The theater’s URL is: http://www.maj.org/
Restoration work is ongoing. The theater will close again for several months next year to facilitate this work.
The Majestic has been so successful that Emerson College is now moving all of its campus to the neighborhood surrounding the theatre.