A Century After Opening, Knoxville’s “Movie Palace” Still Delights
ESSAY BY BECKY HANCOCK
IMAGES BY BRUCE MCCAMISH & DON DELFORD
I’m the director of the Tennessee Theatre, a non-profit theatre in Knoxville. Since 1928, this theatre has featured countless performers on its stage and screen, creating lifelong memories for the millions who have passed through her golden doors. It’s a theatre that has gone through more lives than a lucky cat.
Formerly known as a “movie palace,” the Theatre was designed to imitate the opulence and magnificence of an old-world palace in Paris or Prague or perhaps Marrakesh. In the early 20th century, Hollywood-based movie studios built thousands of theaters throughout the United States. In movie palaces, their largest and most extravagant type of venue, the studios intended for people to feel like royalty, to be whisked away from everyday cares.