Showstopper: Competition and cooperation

Continued from previous week
On the Allied Independent Theater Owners Board of Directors was Wisconsin’s J.P. Adler.
As Adler continued to advocate for the independents, he continued to build his own theater chain.
In 1932, he leased a second theater in Waupaca, the Palace, to continue his method of first- and second-run movie houses.
The Palace Theater, located at 112 W. Fulton Street, had been a great showplace in its early days, offering the best of traveling productions in a true palace-style theater.

While leasing the grand theater from the A.M. Penney Estate, Adler continued to offer productions and movies at the classic venue, while making much-needed improvements to increase comfort and style. After purchasing the theater in 1938, Adler did extensive remodeling focused strictly on feature films.
Turning his attention to his Waupaca Theater, Adler installed a new sound system at the town’s sister venue.
While building up his business interests in Waupaca, Adler was establishing a new presence in a city much farther south. Joining together with John A. Ludwig and his Milwaukee syndicate partners, the group made plans to build a new theater in Monroe, Wisconsin.
Monroe, a growing city steeped in cheese production, was a prime location with just one other existing theater owned by Chester Goetz.
Ludwig and associate Harry Perlewitz began securing permits in the summer of 1935 and were met with much contention from the city.
After struggling for over a year, the syndicate would finally announce plans to build their new 550-seat show house on the 1100 block of 17th Avenue.
Just days prior to the group’s declaration, Monroe theater owner, Chester Goetz, announced his own plans to build a more modern facility in the 1100 block of 16th Avenue.
Both projects moved forward.
At 1118 17th Avenue, Adler and his group designed their new show house in the Swiss Chalet style, a nod to the heritage of the surrounding area, while Goetz remodeled an existing building into a more modern movie house.
The Adler group dubbed the new theater the Chalet Theater.
Adler left a great deal of the Monroe project in the hands of his partners.
This may not have come by choice, as the year-long delay may have pushed the project, now conflicting with a plan much closer to his heart.
In 1937, on his 50th birthday, J.P. Adler presented to Marshfield the New Adler Theater.
Situated at 333 Central Avenue, the showplace constructed with polished granite and a black Vitrolite glass façade would become a symbol of hope to the new era.
The façade and glorious canopy, coupled with an interior filled with swagger boasting an automatic air conditioner, a state-of-the-art sound system, and film projectors with high intensity lamps, made it one of the finest in the Mississippi Valley corridor.
The creation of the New Adler would become the epitome of Adler’s career, as well as a symbol of J.P.’s great success in the entertainment business.
As Marshfield marveled in the elegant theater bestowed upon Adler’s ancestral city, production studios were waging a colossal, yet obscure war.
In a Supreme Court battle, the United States government now battled Paramount Studios.
The result set a precedent that separated all production companies from activities in the distribution field.
The move would level the playing field for the industry as a whole and protect smaller exhibitors from the exclusive practices of the production companies.
To be continued