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Flickering Treasures
Rediscovering Baltimore's Forgotten Movie Theaters
by Amy Davis
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Book Presentation:
The riveting story of Baltimore's movie theaters over the past century, eloquently told through extraordinary photographs and poignant reminiscences.
2018 Winner of the Preservation Award of the Baltimore Heritage
Baltimore has been home to hundreds of theaters since the first moving pictures flickered across muslin sheets. These monuments to popular culture, adorned with grandiose architectural flourishes, seemed an everlasting part of Baltimore's landscape. By 1950, when the city's population peaked, Baltimore's movie fans could choose from among 119 theaters. But by 2016, the number of cinemas had dwindled to only three. Today, many of the city's theaters are boarded up, even burned out, while others hang on with varying degrees of dignity as churches or stores.
In Flickering Treasures, Amy Davis, an award-winning photojournalist for the Baltimore Sun, pairs vintage black-and-white images of opulent downtown movie palaces and modest neighborhood theaters with her own contemporary full-color photographs, inviting us to imagine Charm City's past as we confront today's neglected urban landscape. Punctuated by engaging stories and interviews with local moviegoers, theater owners, ushers, and cashiers, plus commentary from celebrated Baltimore filmmakers Barry Levinson and John Waters, the book brings each theater and decade vividly to life.
From Electric Park, the Century, and the Hippodrome to the Royal, the Parkway, the Senator, and scores of other beloved venues, the book delves into Baltimore's history, including its troubling legacy of racial segregation. The descriptions of the technological and cultural changes that have shaped both American cities and the business of movie exhibition will trigger affectionate memories for many readers. A map and timeline reveal the one-time presence of movie houses in every corner of the city, and fact boxes include the years of operation, address, architect, and seating capacity for each of the 72 theaters profiled, along with a brief description of each theater's distinct character.
Highlighting the emotional resonance of film and the loyalty of Baltimoreans to their neighborhoods, Flickering Treasures is a profound story of change, loss, and rebirth.
About the Author:
Amy Davis has worked as a staff photographer at the Baltimore Sun since 1987.
Press Reviews:
Juxtaposing current conditions with historical photos, Davis shows how much time has altered the face of our city. Her book is a comment on this transition, and a reminder that change is the only constant.
— Baltimore Magazine
Flickering Treasures is not only a collection of beautiful and evocative photos, but a sociological journey through twentieth-century America. Having Baltimore-bred filmmaker Barry Levinson contribute a foreword is icing on the cake.
— Leonard Maltin, film critic, author of Leonard Maltin’s Movie Guide
This is the finest coffee table book about a local subject that I've seen... This is amazing.
— Marty Bass, WJZ-TV
... [Flickering Treasures] would make a nice gift for anyone who loves movies, architecture, or the city of Baltimore.
— Saving Places
Amy Davis, a photojournalist for the Baltimore Sun, combines vintage with modern color image contrasts to document these urban wonders, considering the social, economic, technological, and political influences on their rise and fall as she crafts a beautiful, iconic collection that will appear to readers far beyond Baltimore City's borders.
— Donovan's Literary Services
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This book belongs in the library of every Baltimorean that loves movies and their city’s history. I’m giving "Flickering Treasures" Five Stars and the highest recommendation.
— Media Mentors Network
Flickering Treasures is not only a collection of beautiful and evocative photos, but a sociological journey through 20th century America
— Leonard Maltin
Juxtaposing current conditions with historical photos, Davis shows how much time has altered the face of our city. Her book is a comment on this transition, and a reminder that change is the only constant.
— Baltimore Magazine
The book is an engaging, often fun and frequently nostalgically joyful combination of historical images and theater "biographies" that are tied to conversational memories as expressed by those with the greatest familiarity with the theaters.
— New York-Pennsylvania Collector
The strength of Flickering Treasures lies in the numerous photographs that take center stage in this book in which [Davis] juxtaposes numerous vintage with her own artful photographs in order to procure a "dialogue with the past, not its replication". Consequently, her book does not merely document how numerous movie theaters became stores, office buildings, churches or were taken over by nature. Instead, the photographs create a compelling story that highlights that the history of Baltimore's forgotten movie theaters is also about transformations, opportunity, loss and lack of (architectural) preservation or neglect.
— Susana Rocha Teixeira, Universität Bielefeld, Sehepunkte
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Between the pages of this book lies a deep dive into the colourful and rich moviegoing history of Baltimore (US). Davis' meticulously researched, beautifully photographed, and professionally presented title is a proverbial treasure trove.
— Marc Zimmerman, Cinema Heritage Group
A sweeping, almost encyclopedic portrait of the movie theaters of Baltimore, Flickering Treasures should be well-received by general readers for its rich combination of background profiles and engaging interviews. Equally impressive, a virtually complete set of matching historic and modern photos chronicles both decay and adaptive reuse. Captivating.
— W. Edward Orser, author of Blockbusting in Baltimore: The Edmondson Village Story
Both a celebration of the splendid glory of what was once the Baltimore movie palace experience and a funereal dirge for what became of those grand old bijoux as the passing of time pulled them toward squalor. To behold the book is, in some sense, to behold the arc of America's cities in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.
— Stephen Hunter, Pulitzer Prize−winning film critic, author of Violent Screen: A Critic's 13 Years on the Front Lines of Movie Mayhem
See the publisher website: Johns Hopkins University Press
> On a related topic:
When Movies Were Theater (2016)
Architecture, Exhibition, and the Evolution of American Film
by William Paul
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Historic Movie Theatres of Wisconsin (2009)
Nineteenth Century Opera Houses through 1950s Playhouses, Town by Town
Subject: Economics
Motion Picture Exhibition in Washington, D.C. (2006)
An Illustrated History of Parlors, Palaces and Multiplexes in the Metropolitan Area, 1894–1997
Subject: Economics
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