In December 1897, 2,000 people packed the opera house at the Tampa Bay Hotel Casino to watch short films by the Biograph Company. The screening offers an early glimpse of Tampa’s appetite for movies—and a starting point for a new exhibition at the Henry B. Plant Museum.
“Cigar City Cinema: Tampa Goes to the Movies, 1897-1936” opens Oct. 3 at the museum, at 401 W. Kennedy Blvd. in the former Tampa Bay Hotel, according to tampabaybeacons.com. The hotel operated as a winter resort from 1891 to 1932. The exhibition follows changes in Tampa moviegoing, including the transition to sound and local audiences’ response, as Osprey Observer reports.
The exhibition runs through Feb. 28 and is included with regular museum admission, the Osprey Observer report notes. It also presents some of the early films shown to Tampa audiences in 1897, connecting the exhibit to the hotel-casino screening.
From Opera Houses to Griffith's Propaganda
Museum Director Dr. Charles McGraw Groh has emphasized that Tampa’s early film culture grew through existing performance spaces, including opera houses and vaudeville theaters. The exhibit examines how early filmmakers drew on vaudeville and minstrel-show traditions, including slapstick and blackface.
The exhibit also addresses the influence and uses of D.W. Griffith’s feature films. Organizers say artifacts on loan from the Museum of the Moving Image illustrate the propaganda power of Griffith’s films, inviting visitors to consider early cinema’s troubling dimensions alongside its technical achievements.
King Kong Headlines a Rotating Film Series
Alongside the historical artifacts, the exhibit features a rotating film presentation that opens with “King Kong,” tying the museum's archival focus to the kind of big-screen spectacle that once filled Tampa's theaters. The exhibition is underwritten by the Bank of Tampa, the Betsy and Steve Chambers Family Foundation, Cogent Bank, the Henry B. Plant Museum Society and Raymond James.
Tampa Theatre, which opened in 1926, marks another chapter in the city’s moviegoing history. Organizers describe its arrival as the beginning of Tampa’s golden age of Hollywood. In the silent-film era’s final years, the theater’s Wurlitzer organ and full orchestra accompanied screenings.
From early theaters to preservation
For the years between the 1897 hotel-casino screening and Tampa Theatre’s 1926 opening, Tampa Bay Times/NIE offers two local-history waypoints: Tampa’s first full-time movie theater opened at 315 Franklin Street in 1907, and by 1915 the city had 14 theaters, six on Franklin Street. Tampa Theatre later faced a different challenge: The Oracle reported that it was at risk of closing in 1973, after six downtown theaters had closed, but was saved with help from Tampa City Councilman Lee Duncan and community support.
Tampa Theatre Partners for a Classic Film Series
The companion series begins with a 2 p.m. matinee screening of “Dracula” on Oct. 25. The date is part of Tampa Theatre’s broader Halloween program, which has 42 showtimes this season, according to lakerlutznews.com; that total is for the Halloween program, not necessarily the exhibit-related series. At 4 p.m., the Taylor Screening Room will show the Spanish-language 1931 feature “Drácula.”
Later screenings in the companion series will include the Oscar-winning films “Sunrise” and “Grand Hotel.” The exhibit and screenings offer visitors different ways to explore how Tampa’s moviegoing changed from the 1897 hotel-casino presentation to the era of Tampa Theatre.
