FILLMORE : A New/Old Marquee Is Just the Ticket

Fillmore’s Towne Theater has gone back to the past to secure its future.

The theater, one of only two single-screen movie houses in Ventura County, sports a flashy neon marquee reminiscent of the 1950s, thanks to a $13,000 grant from the city’s Redevelopment Agency.

When current owner Dale Larson purchased the building on Central Avenue 20 years ago, painted sheet metal had covered the marquee for 10 years because the original neon was considered too troublesome and expensive to maintain.

Last year, City Council members envisioned the theater as the centerpiece of a dressed-up downtown and supplied the funds to renovate it.

The theater was built in 1912 by Judge Merton Barnes, who had a background in vaudeville before serving as Fillmore’s justice of the peace for 16 years. Weekly movie programming was often supplemented by live shows produced by the traveling companies that passed through by railroad.

In a letter to the local historical society, Barnes’ daughter, Barbara, said that the judge kept the Barnes Theater active, occasionally staging minstrel shows himself. The performance space was considered very modern for its time, with plenty of room for storing scenery, and a trap door in the stage for disappearing acts. An electric organ provided background music from the theater’s tiny orchestra pit.

Charlie Chaplin films were such favorites that Barnes sponsored a look-alike contest. A photograph taken circa 1919 shows the assembled impostors in front of a brick-faced building without a marquee. An arch in the brickwork is the only clue that the would-be Chaplins were standing where the Towne Theater now has its ticket booth.

Local historians date the theater’s first neon marquee from the 1940s.

The new version is a good replica of the old work, but more colorful than the original, said Hal Graves, who manages the theater. The new marquee has brightened Central Avenue for nearly a year, but Graves said, “I still get comments almost every night about how nice it looks.”