Please note that location entries may feature older photos or post card views that may not represent the current appearance, features, addresses, phone numbers, or contact names of the attraction. This site is intended to be a historical as well as current record of various attractions but it is not always possible to have up-to-date information due to the vast number of locations featured here. We ask you consult the propietor for current information.
Source: George Linington
The Emsee Theatre, which opened on the main floor on August 10, 1946, with a screening of Devotion starring Ida Lupino and Paul Henried. The movie house was operated by R. Roy Shook, and featured 1,000 seats on the main level and 300 more on the mezzanine. In 1958, the theatre changed its name to the MC-Art and featured foreign art films exclusively. It soon returned to screening Hollywood fare, but finally succumbed to pressure from the more popular area drive-ins. The MC closed in early 1959 and the newspaper offices expanded into the theater space. My father, William Linington, was a long time projectionist at the Emsee. I work there during high school as an usher in 1953 and 1954. While in college I worked as a relief projectionist at the Emsee as well as imost of the other theaters in Macomb County.
Source: Andy Gray
My grandfather's Michigan theater project slide collection includes a street view of the Emsee Theatre at 67 Cass Avenue in Mount Clemens. "Em-see" sounds like "M.C." for Mount Clemens, get it? Al Johnson took the slide in September 1948 with "The Bishop's Wife" and "Kings of the Olympus" on the marquee. Although the marquee is of a style more typical of the late 1930s or early 40s, online sources say the theater opened much later.
Another nice feature of Al's 1948 color slide is a bright red New Era delivery van parked in front. The New Era "Scientifically Processed" Potato Chips were a Detroit-based product which were sold in round yellow tins. Many Michiganders will remember seeing silos painted to match those potato chip tins throughout the countryside.The Emsee Theatre closed in 1959, but the building still stands.