In the Dark in New Mexico

THE GOLDEN AGE OF CINEMA IN NEW MEXICO

Page 1 2 3 4 5 6 New Mexico's statehood in 1912 finally bestowed "American respectability" upon the ancient territory and also opened the curtains on a brilliant era of cinema along the Río Grande. As movie features developed from brief flickering curiosities to full-blown epics created by early auteurs such as D.W. Griffith and Charlie Chaplin by World War I, so too movie theatres grew from improvised auditoriums within the community opera houses and other "big rooms" to elaborate "picture palaces."

The robust years immediately after World War I and before the Great Depression endowed New Mexico with its greatest and most legendary movie palaces. One of the most incredible theatres ever built in New Mexico was Las Vegas' Coronado Theatre of 1916, whose facade was a French wedding cake fantasy in the Beaux Arts fashion. A pair of twin classical columns flanked a grand arched entryway, and plaster trumpeters garbed in Renaissance fashion "heralded" all customers who came to see the latest Rudolph Valentino adventure.

By the arrival of the 1920s, New Mexico cinemas were already reflecting local architectural tastes. The cosmopolitan railroad towns of Las Vegas and Rat—n boasted European-style extravagances such as the Coronado or Rat—n's impressive Shuler Theatre of 1915, constructed as a community auditorium in the French Rococo style.

Las Vegas and Ratón, in particular, by virtue of their rapid growth at the turn of the century, attracted large numbers of well-traveled immigrants and visitors who could support grand auditoriums. Cecilio Rosenwald, president of the Las Vegas Amusement Company, which built the Coronado Theatre, was descended from Bavarian Jews and heir to one of Las Vegas' most successful family mercantiles founded by Emmanuel Rosenwald in the 1870s.