Dabel Cinema

The Dabel opened April 22, 1947 to a capacity crowd.  The Dabel had been scheduled to open the year before, but material shortages due to high demand after World War II delayed construction.

The size of the lot was 98 x 200 feet, due to local zoning restrictions and the theater’s size was limited to 72 by 180 feet.  The front of the cinema combines green-veined white Georgia marble facing, trimmed with cream-colored terra cotta.  The left side of the front represented a marble tower capped with multi-colored terra cotta moldings which wrapped around the top of the tower then traveled down the tower’s side to the ground.  The remainder of the front consisted of buff-faced brick.

The Dabel proved to be very popular with the public, even though the theater’s program in the 1950s usually consisted of second-run films.

In 1963, plans were made to convert the Dabel to show Cinerama films.  The transition involved the installation of a wide curved screen.  Special wiring and booths to hold three separate projectors were installed in the theater which reduced the theater’s seating capacity from about 950 to 742.  

Cinerama debuted at the Dabel on May 28, 1963 with This is Cinerama. The entire proceeds from the opening performance were given to the Dayton Variety Club for Camp Variety, located on Dog Leg Rd for crippled and handicapped children.

In 1963-64, the Cinerama movie How the West Was Won ran for nearly 8 months with an estimated 110,000 patrons viewing it.  Movies like The Sound of Music would sometimes stay for as long as a year at a time if proved popular enough.

Cinerama was quite a success.  On Friday and Saturday nights, tickets were scarce.  Dabel turned to selling “hard tickets’, meaning that all seats for each show were reserved.  Patrons seemed to enjoy the idea of dressing up and acted as if they were going to see a play rather than a movie.

By 1980, having outlasted most of the other movie palaces in the city, the Dabel had become the largest neighborhood single-screen house in Dayton.  It also garnered a reputation as the nicest indoor theater due to its large screen and plenty of elbow room for each patron.  By the mid-1980s, patronage to the theater had slowed considerably and plans were made to close the Dabel.

September 23, 1985 was slated as the theater’s last day.  There was talk of razing the Dabel or turning it into an adult entertainment theater.  Fortunately, Barry Weaver stepped in and stopped the wrecking ball.  For 7 years he kept the theater open, but competition from large cinemas north and south of Dayton became too much.  In 1991, as a final effort to keep the theater going it was renovated one last time installing new beige seats, brown carpeting and orange, brown and cream wallpaper.

To compete with the first-run houses the Dabel promoted oldies such as A Star Is Born, with Judy Garland and the missing footage.  Citizen Kane and some other classics did pretty well,  but it wasn’t enough. Hard as it was to come to a decision, the Dabel was closed in 1992.