A century ago in Glens Falls — Deep discounting at The Rialto

Deep-discounting of movie admission a century ago boosted attendance at The Rialto Theatre on Warren Street in Glens Falls.

“Manager Well’s policy at The Rialto Theatre in putting on sale 1,000 seats at ten cents each (the equivalent of $1.83 in 2024 dollars) is winning out in splendid manner, and it is reported that over the weekend and Memorial Day this policy went a great way toward attracting movie followers,” The Post-Star reported on June 2, 1924.

The discount price was to run at least through the summer, with continued showing of first-rate films.

“One of the pleasing features of every performance is the work of that excellent organist George Latsch, whose musical settings for the various performances is a rare treat in itself. Mr. Latsch plays the pictures in an intelligent manner, something that many orchestras do not give much attention to.”

Catherine M. Lamoureux, cashier at The Rialto for six years, and at Park Theatre before that, announced her resignation, effective June 17.

In other 1924 Glens Falls area news collected from The Post-Star archives:

• Mountainview Amusement Park at Round Pond in Queensbury opened for another season.

“An elaborate display of scintillating harmony in color was created Friday night by the fireworks pageant stages in conjunction with grand opening of Mountain View Amusement Park at Round Pond, under the able direction of Edward G. Newcomb’s live-wire attraction outdoor pavilion,” The Post-Star reported on June 2.

Nellie Chander’s Harmony Maids was house band for the season.

“The girls are all professional exponents of snappy dance music and, for tonight, have arranged a program of the latest metropolitan dance music.”

• “L. A. Elms is the first to cultivate and hoe potatoes in this place,” the Jenkinsville correspondent reported in The Post-Star on June 4.
• The Paramount Pictures film “The Humming Bird,” — “a tuneful title, a colorful story” — starring Gloria Swanson, was showing June 5 at The Strand Theater in Hudson Falls.
• The Glens Falls Chamber of Commerce enrolled 78 new members in a two-week recruitment drive, falling short of a goal of 100, The Post-Star reported on June 5.

“While the drive formally ended yesterday at noon, the workers will continue until all prospects have been interviewed.”

• The mail must go through — eventually.

“Word has just been received from Miss C. Baumgarten of New York, who stopped at the new Adirondack Hotel last September, visited Chestertown, and while there mailed some postal cards to friends in her office,” The Post-Star reported on June 6. “They arrived at their destination on Wednesday morning of this week, and were postmarked New York, June 4, taking nearly six months to go from Chestertown to New York.”