Buster's Last Stand:
Silent Nights at the Granada Organ Loft

Construction on the Granada Theatre began at the corner of California Avenue and Hudson in West Seattle in February 1926.  Projected to cost around $125,000, the project was undertaken by Frank Edwards, the future Seattle mayor, and George Herpick – partners with extensive experience in building modest neighborhood theatres around Seattle.

Edwards and Herpick brought in G.C. Field to design the venue; Field envisioned with a Spanish theme with stucco walls, terra cotta trim and red tile roofing.  The design concept spurred the selection of a Spanish name, the Granada.  The theatre itself was installed at one end of a larger building complex that included several one-story retail spaces along running California Avenue.^[1]  Interestingly, at least one early notice for the Granada claimed that Edwards and Herpick were contemplating an interior scheme with no balcony, but that never came to pass.  When the Granada debuted to audiences in West Seattle, it sat almost 1,000 patrons between its upper and lower levels.

Construction began with a target opening in May, but delays pushed that date out until late July, by which time the $125,000 picture theatre was being promoted as a $200,000 picture theatre.  (The West Seattle Herald, by contrast, pegged the actual construction cost at $135,000.) The neighborhood already had the Portola, opened in 1919, operating at California and Admiral Way, but the Granada had special status because it was not only newer but part of a larger commercial undertaking. The West Seattle Commercial Club was taking a lot of pride in the new Granada, for which they took credit for bringing the project together after conducting a promotional campaign designed to lure new businesses to that area of West Seattle.^[2]

The Granada Theatre opened to the public on July 23, 1926, under the management of William M. Harford, formerly of the Portola, with a crowd of 3,000 there to greet it.  “The new Granada Theatre is one of the most imposing structures in West Seattle,” remarked the Daily Times. “Approaching it on California Avenue is stands apart from the surrounding neighborhood by its special street illumination and artistic electric sign.”  Particularly interesting was the arched entryway, which was two stories tall and gave people a place to stand out of the elements while they waited to purchase tickets.  This “dome” over the box office had a painted mosaic pattern set against a background of gold, invoking a castle-like feel even before the patron stepped inside.  That regal Spanish feeling extended well into the building. “Deep, rich red and gold hangings, hand-carved furniture, beveled mirrors and thick, soft carpets add to the luxurious beauty,” the Times continued. “The walls are of travertine stone with decorative niches concealing colored lights. The ceiling is tinted in a color suggestive of bronzed metal blending burnt orange, dull reds, deep blues and dark green.”^[3]  Everhardt Armstrong of the Post-Intelligencer was given a special tour of the new Granada by manager Hartford the day before the opening, which allowed him to reflect on the luxurious and spacious appointments of the venue.  Armstrong, the paper’s film and dramatic critic, was delighted with his preview and observed that “New York has dozens of theatres that are far inferior to the Granada.”^[4]

From top to bottom the new Granada was indeed sumptuous, but the venue also boasted one amenity that was not just unusual, but distinctly ahead of its time. “One of the features for accommodation of the patron is the parking lot in the rear which will afford space for 150 cars,” the paper continued.  “Patrons may park their cars free of charge and step into the theatre by a special entrance. The driveway is so arranged that there is no congestion when entering or leaving.”  That last claim was a bit of a stretch, but nonetheless the addition of a parking lot was a sign of the times.  Whereas he earliest movie theatres like to brag about attracting patrons with automobiles (signaling that both the house and the movies had attained a certain level of respectability), the opening of the Granada in West Seattle made driving a car to the local theatre something open to virtually anyone.

The Granada’s opening feature was Rolling Home, a comedy starring Reginald Denny, which was paired with a special musical program arranged by Nellie Dean Mitchell, who manned the console of the Granada’s new 2/7 Wurlitzer organ, an opus 1194 model.^[5]

Opening night at the Granada was a triumph – the latest addition to the long list of neighborhood movie theatres debuting in Seattle’s growing suburbs. And once the initial hoopla settled down, the Granada quickly became a West Seattle fixture, and not simply because of its movie programming.  In addition to the commercial space that was part of the design, the Granada itself also boasted an upstairs meeting room that could be rented to various community groups.  So while audiences paid to see whatever the latest hit film may have been, elsewhere in the Granada it was a gathering place for local clubs, society or charitable events, public meetings and private gatherings. This made it quite unique – a commercial, social and entertainment center for all of West Seattle.

Still, the Granada was a theatre first and faced the same concerns as other picture venues in Seattle. A city-wide crackdown on “petting parties” in the late 1920s, for example, meant that Granada management had to devote extra time to policing its balcony, which had become a romantic destination for young couples.  It also had to grapple with the coming of sound, and was eventually outfitted with Vitaphone and Movietone equipment in May 1929 – a change that prompted a slight increase to ticket prices.  (Barely 18 months later the Granada’s sound equipment was upgraded to an entirely different system.) It struggled a bit during the Depression to pull in audiences, and like many other neighborhood venues tried to diversify their bills as a way to maintain audience interest.  The Granada had been built with modest stage facilities, so film shows were supplemented with small-time novelty and vaudeville acts, though this was primarily local talent and wasn’t anywhere on par with what one could see in the larger houses downtown.^[6]

Just before the outbreak of World War II, John Danz’s Sterling Theatres bought the Granada, right around the time the company was overhauling the old Portola and turning it into the Admiral, which remains a fixture in West Seattle today.  When the Granada opened in 1926, it stole the thunder from the old Portola, opened several years earlier; now the Admiral, the refurbished Portola, was repaying the compliment.  But the Granada got some notoriety of its own in 1942 when Sterling Theatres hired Lillian Saxe, a local resident with no previous movie experience, to be the venue’s newest manager.  Saxe was the first woman to manage a theatre in the Sterling chain, but the Seattle Times, in their headline, asserted that she was actually the first woman manager in all the Northwest – something that wasn’t close to being true.  “‘As men are released for war activities, there no doubt will be more women managers in our theatres, and we hope other theatres will do likewise,’” John Danz remarked when Saxe’s hiring was announced. Obviously, there was a homefront publicity angle the veteran exhibitor was angling for.  But, in her own way, Lillian Saxe (previously a socialite and homemaker) stepped up to do her part, becoming John Danz’s Rosie the Exhibitor.^[7]

But regardless who managed the venue, the Granada went through the same business challenges facing other theatres at the time.  It was robbed in 1931 when thieves broke into the venue after hours and proceeded to batter the house safe until it finally popped open.  This incident lead to one of the better lines written about a theatre-related crime, when the Post-Intelligencer observed that had the thieves simply tried the handle, they would have found that safe wasn’t actually locked.^[8]  The Granada was also hit at least twice in the 1940s – once when thieves cracked the house safe on a Sunday evening (most of the box office receipts had already been removed), and again when a cashier was robbed of $60 by a man with a sawed-off shotgun.^[9]

There were also rowdy patrons on occasion. On February 12, 1949, Herdis Sugden was watching an evening show with her husband, Will, and his children from a previous marriage. The Sugden family was enjoying the show on the main floor, but up in the balcony a group of unsupervised boys were horsing around.  One of them, a 12-year-old, was dared by companions to steal a large cushion from the 2^nd floor women’s lounge and toss it onto the seats below.  That sounds relatively harmless, but the Granada’s public areas were furnished with large, bulky pieces that not only fit the venue’s Spanish décor but designed to survive a lot of wear and tear.  Though the cushion itself was quite heavy, the boy marched right up to the railing of the balcony and pitched it over, striking the 26-year-old Herdis Sudgen in the head.

Sudgen was knocked unconscious for two full hours, was taken to the hospital and suffered from what doctors felt was temporary memory loss.  “‘When I talked to her…she didn’t even recognize me,’” her husband Will told the Daily Times. “‘She remembered none of her family; only a woman friend who lived with her when she worked on Boeing’s assembly line in 1944.’”^[10]  The boy, who admitted to his part in the incident, was taken from the scene by juvenile authorities and released to his parents.

What seemed like temporary memory loss, however, stretched on for days.  Mrs. Sugden claimed not to remember anything that had occurred in the previous four years, and could not be convinced that Will was her husband, even though he brought wedding photos and their marriage certificate to prove it.  Her condition improved after about a week – certain things, in bits and pieces, started to come back – but her recovery was slow and her memory spotty.  “‘I talked to her about her husband yesterday and her eyes brightened,’” said one of Sudgen’s doctors almost a week after the incident. “‘She remembers him now. She is anxious to go home.’”^[11]

Herdis Sugdens was discharged from the hospital after eight days, but months later she was still claiming that she hadn’t fully regained her memory.  In August 1949 the Sugdens family filed a suit for $21,000 in damages, charging that Sterling Theatres was negligent for not monitoring the Granada balcony, for furnishing the women’s lounge with a sofa having loose cushions, and for not having adequate safeguards to prevent an object from being thrown from the balcony.^[12]  The outcome of that suit wasn’t publicized, but it’s likely that the Danz organization settled with the Sugdens family and moved on.

Though it remained an important part of West Seattle, by the 1950s the Granada was feeling the pinch.  This was also the case with countless other silent era movie theatres across the country.  Changing times, shifting demographics and the rise of television were just a few of the challenges faced by these old-time venues, which were closing at an alarming rate.  The Granada – which operated for a time as the Egyptian, despite its Spanish trappings – even stopped advertising in the West Seattle Herald in 1956, a clear sign that the end was near.

The formal announcement came in early 1959: the venue would finally cease operations.  For similar theatres this was usually the end of the road, and the buildings would either be torn down or retrofitted for other uses.  That appeared to be the fate of the Granada, especially after it was vandalized later that year when two boys, ages 13 and 15, broke in and used a knife to slash the screen into ribbons, then emptied a fire extinguisher in the projection room down on the seats in the auditorium.  The venue suffered approximately $3,000 in damages as a result.^[13]  But the Granada got a lifeline when a West Seattle theatre group announced plans to move in and mount stage productions, while also renting it out for public and private events.  But that arrangement didn’t last long, and the theatrical troupe eventually moved out – and the Granada, barely limping along, appeared to over the hill at the tender age of 35.^[14]

By Eric L. Flom – November 2025

Notes:

[1] “Contractor to Start on $125,000 Theatre,” Seattle Daily Times, 7 February 1926, Page 28.
[2] See “West Seattle Has $200,000 Theatre,” Seattle Daily Times, 9 May 1926, Real Estate Section, Page 5; and “New West Seattle Theatre Building Opens Next Month,” Seattle Daily Times, 23 May 1926, Real Estate Section, Page 2.
[3] “West Seattle Theatre Opens Doors Friday,” Seattle Daily Times, 22 July 1926, Page 19; see also “District Bids Welcome to Granada,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 24 July 1926, Page 6.
[4] Everhardt Armstrong, “West Seattle Gets Great Theatre,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 23 July 1926, Page 11.
[5] See “Granada Theatre Opens Friday in West Seattle,” Seattle Daily Times, 22 July 1926, Page 11; “All City Represented at Granada Opening,” Seattle Daily Times, 24 July 1926, Page 6; and “Granada (Egyptian) Theatre,” Puget Sound Theatre Organ website (http://www.pstos.org/instruments/wa/seattle/granada.htm), accessed 16 February 2019.
[6] See “Granada (Egyptian) Theatre,” Puget Sound Theatre Organ website (http://www.pstos.org/instruments/wa/seattle/granada.htm), accessed 16 February 2019.
[7] See “Seattleite First Woman in N.W. to Run Theatre,” Seattle Times, 30 August 1942, Society/Fashion Section, Page 24; and “Woman Manages Theater Here,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 30 August 1942, Page 4.
[8] “Unlocked Safe Gets Beating, Yields $50,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 11 August 1931, Page 5.
[9] See “Yeggs cracked the safe…,” Seattle Times, 7 March 1940, Page 26; and “A bandit held up the Granada…,” Seattle Times, 19 November 1942, Page 19.
[10] W.K. Sudgen, as quoted in “Thrown Cushion Causes Amnesia,” Seattle Times, 14 February 1949, Page 7; see also “Woman Hit by Cushion; Can’t Recall Identity,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 14 February 1949, Page 1.
[11] Unidentified doctor, as quoted in “Memory Coming Back to Wife, Hit By Cushion,” Seattle Times, 17 February 1949, Page 21; see also “Boy Confesses Throwing Cushion That Hurt Woman,” Seattle Times, 15 February 1949, Page 7.
[12] See “Woman Injured in Theatre Asks $20,976 Damages,” Seattle Times, 27 August 1949, Page 10; and “2 Women Sue on Accidents,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 27 August 1949, Page 4.
[13] “$3,000 Damage: Boys Admin They Broke Into Theatre,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 2 October 1959, Page 10.
[14] “Granada (Egyptian) Theatre,” Puget Sound Theatre Organ website (http://www.pstos.org/instruments/wa/seattle/granada.htm), accessed 16 February 2019.

Unlike so many other neighborhood theatres, the building’s owners, Sterling Theatres, didn’t immediately part with or adapt the old venue once it closed for business, holding onto the Granada long enough that it got another lease on life.  In this case, West Seattle resident Lou DuMoulin looked at the old Granada space and imagined it as something completely different.

DuMoulin was in a unique position to do so.  He was born in Bellingham but raised in Seattle and Everett, holding variety of positions throughout his long career, including stints as a radio station manager in California and, in the early 1960s, managing the West Seattle Herald. As a young man, however, DuMoulin had been introduced to organ music while working as a doorman at John Hamrick’s Music Hall Theatre in downtown Seattle. On top of that, early in his career he had been as a salesman for Balcom and Vaughan, a small Northwest company specializing in organ sales and repair.

Although Lou DuMoulin’s stint with Balcom and Vaughan came after the silent era, when the company was focused on selling and servicing church organs, he was nonetheless captivated by instrument and its sound.  He taught himself to play and, in 1960, had the company install a unit in his West Seattle home – a modified Smith instrument that had originally been installed at the Liberty Theatre in Enumclaw.^[1]  He didn’t just play at home, either.  DuMoulin also got his hands on a portable unit and was known for giving lunchtime organ concerts in downtown Seattle at Westlake Park, where passers-by got to see and hear his unique talent.  “DuMoulin gets more music from an organ with his unorthodox style (he cannot read music and has never taken a lesson) than most experts,” columnist John Reddin once wrote about him.  “To get the desired total effect, Lou doesn’t hesitate to use the butt of his hand or elbow on the keys.”^[2]

With the Granada sitting idle near his West Seattle home, in early 1963 Lou DuMoulin got to work putting together a group he would eventually call the Granada Organ Loft Club.  Formed in late February that year, the Club was envisioned as a nonprofit organization open to anyone with an abiding interest in pipe organ music. There was no shortage of fans.  In 1963 there were thousands of people in and around Seattle who had grown up in the silent era and fondly remembered the old days of moviegoing.  On top of this a new generation of moviegoers, with a greater appreciation for different types of cinema experiences, was helping broaden the moviegoing experience in Seattle and elsewhere. Moreover, whereas the theatre organ had not been a fixture of the local movie house for over a quarter century, it was experiencing a renaissance of sorts in a number of area restaurants, skating rinks and other venues, helping raise awareness of and interest in this this long-forgotten instrument.  Whether he was conscious of this or not, DuMoulin was tapping into a treasure trove of popular nostalgia.  “‘Our big organ will be available for use by hobbyists, teachers or persons wanting to practice,’” he promised from the outset, “‘but especially, for the persons who never have had the pleasure of touching the keyboard of a mighty organ.’”^[3]  As a nonprofit, any funds earned by the Club, DuMoulin noted, would go to provide musical scholarships for young people who wanted to pursue studies in organ or piano playing.^[4]

Getting into the Granada Theatre was easy. Because it had been dark for some time, Sterling Theatres was delighted to rent it out, as DuMoulin’s project offered them a little something on the property.  Obtaining an organ was also easy, since DuMoulin not only had one in his West Seattle home, but also owned a spare.  (The Granada sold its original Wurlitzer to Seattle’s KOMO radio in 1939.)  This was a second Wurlitzer he purchased two years earlier and stored in a Ballard warehouse; it was originally installed in 1928, at a cost of $85,000, in Portland’s Liberty Theatre.  But getting that Wurlitzer from Ballard to West Seattle, all 86 tons of it, installing the instrument and cleaning up the Granada was going to cost money.  The group estimated it would need at least $10,000 for start-up costs.

Raising that much was a tall order, but Lou DuMoulin was a good promoter and his initial group of organ enthusiasts, about 50 people, began swelling in numbers.  By the time the Granada Organ Loft Club held their initial meeting, in late February 1963, almost 700 people attended – the theatre was almost filled to capacity, more than demonstrating that Seattle was eager for an organization of its type.^[5]  The initial members raised about $1,000 on the spot, but additional funds came in quickly, at least fast enough for the Organ Loft Club to clear the first hurdle: hiring a semitruck to make three separate trips between the Ballard warehouse and the Granada and transport the Wurlitzer to its new home.  The next task?  Get a group of volunteers, unskilled and unpaid, to assemble it.   The organ arrived in pieces (there were over 5,000 pipes alone), all of which was spread out on the floor of the Granada.  “We began cleaning and redecorating the theatre…,” clubmember LaVelle McLaughlin remembered years later.  “The organ was moved in from storage. There were parts and pipes all over. Then, like a large jigsaw puzzle, the pieces started going together. Many members gave thousands of hours. It was a labor of love. Everyone working toward one goal, to get that pipe organ playing.”^[6]

While the full unit would go in over time, enough of the Wurlitzer had been installed that the Club held their first formal event on Wednesday, March 27, 1963. This was a fundraising concert, the first of a series of organ concerts (the club envisioned two or three per month) that would showcase both local and nationally-known musicians.  For the March 27^th event, Al Bollington played a “pop” organ concert for $1.50 per person, with proceeds split between the Granada Organ Loft Club and a second organ guild.^[7]  A second fundraiser was held the following week, when Dick Schrum helmed the old organ at Seattle’s Paramount Theatre, where the Club sponsored a special midnight show on April 6^th. “All proceeds from this Midnight Pipe Organ Frolic will go to the Granada Organ Loft Club to further their plans of renovation at the Granada Theatre building and installation of the club’s celebrated pipe organ,” read the Paramount’s advertisement.^[8]  Like the Bollington show, the Schrum engagement was mainly an organ concert.  But, as an added attraction, some unidentified “old time, silent movies” were shown as part of the program. It was a sign of things to come.

Although the group began hosting concerts as soon as the organ was up and running, there was plenty of other work being done at the theatre.  Volunteers organized work parties throughout the spring and summer; there was always something going on at the Granada, but Wednesdays and Sundays were when most club members put in time.  “All of the theater seats have been rebuilt and refinished,” Laura Emory Gilmore reported in September 1963.  “Tons of gum have been removed, metal work newly painted, and naugahyde covers stapled on.  Walls are being prepared for redecorating in a Spanish motif, and the carpets have been overhauled and shampooed.’”  But there were still a lot of gaps to fill.  The group was desperately looking for furniture to fill out the house, and they couldn’t afford new velvet curtains, so they accepted a hand-me-down from the auditorium of nearby Mt. View Elementary School.  But there was a real sense of camaraderie as things came together, with volunteers from all walks of life gathering for potlucks at the end of their Sunday work parties.  “‘Many of the members work for ten hours at a stretch without a cent of compensation,’” Lou DuMoulin remarked, “‘but satisfaction is its own reward and we have plenty of that.’”^[9]

For the first nine months of its existence the Granada Organ Loft Club stayed close to its musical roots, organizing a series of musical engagements but not, at least initially, tapping into moving pictures as an audience draw.  But that changed in January 1964, when the Club decided to branch into new territory.  For two nights only, on the 24^th and 25^th, they booked the 1926 Rudolph Valentino film The Son of the Sheik, headlining a bill that included the 1917 Keystone comedy Teddy at the Throttle, starring Wallace Beery and Gloria Swanson, and a compilation of old silent footage called The Gay Nineties Live Again.  Lou DuMoulin himself played the Granada’s Wurlitzer for these shows, accompanied by a pianist and drummer hired for the event.

Since this was a new undertaking the Club put some extra effort into promoting the shows, in particular because they weren’t sure how the screenings would be received.  Thanks to years of things like Fractured Flickers – where cinemagoers were treated to old films projected at incorrect speeds, then paired with sarcastic narration – silent movies hadn’t necessarily aged well with the public.  Seattle Times arts and entertainment editor Lou Guzzo got on board to help promote the shows, but in doing so had to assure readers that everything was on the up and up.  “[The Son of the Sheik] will not be treated as a comedy as most of the early-vintage flickers are in the smart-aleck compilations of today.”^[10]

As it turned out, there was a huge problem with these Valentino screenings.  Not in how the shows would be received, mind you, but the fact that the Granada didn’t have enough seats to accomodate everyone who wanted to attend. Much to the Club’s surprise, the response was not just overwhelming, but overwhelmingly positive.  The Friday night screening was completely sold out, and folks were turned away from Saturday’s repeat as well. What seemed like a risky proposition turned out far better than anyone could have imagined.  “..[N]obody is more surprised than the club members themselves,” said Guzzo, reporting back on the event.  “The trick seems to be authenticity of presentation. Oldies make a hit whenever the exhibitors show them exactly as produced and run 40 or 50 years ago, complete with piano and/or organ accompaniment…The flickers fail when the wise guys take hold and inject their own gags and dialogue.”^[11]

While it had always been the Club’s aim to eventually host concerts and movies, they were genuinely surprised by reaction to The Son of the Sheik.  The Club’s initial program of musical concerts had done well, but this experiment in silent film programming had done infinitely better.  Their concert programs would continue, but the group began making plans to expand their film programs, possibly with screenings every month, attempting to replicate the financial success of The Son of the Sheik.  It had been almost a year since the Granada’s Wurlitzer had been partially installed and it still wasn’t completely done – Lou Guzzo made mention of this in his follow-up column.  But now there was a strong push to get the instrument fully operational and book additional films as soon as possible. The Club was also actively promoting the Granada Theatre, which was now being marketed as the Granada Organ Loft, as a venue where a variety of community events could be held.  “‘We are equipped to produce a variety of programs – organ concerts, piano recitals, fashion shows, [and] exhibitions of silent films.’”^[12] In the Club’s eyes the Granada was not only continuing as a moving picture venue, but also as a social and civic center for West Seattle – the same role it played for much of its history.

The Club’s initial attempt at film programming started modestly, with a monthly series of pictures beginning in February 1964 that tapped into some of the silent era’s most popular releases.  These engagements played on equal footing with the Club’s concert and other musical programs, still their primary focus.  Just a few weeks after the successful Valentino program, for example, the Granada booked the Lon Chaney film The Hunchback of Notre Dame, which they paired some Fatty Arbuckle comedy shorts.  This effort continued regularly into the summer of 1964 – Cecil B. DeMille’s The King of Kings, Chaplin’s The Gold Rush, The Mark of Zorro, starring Douglas Fairbanks, and Buster Keaton’s Civil War comedy The General.

These monthly screenings, which began as somewhat of an experiment, demonstrated that the public had an appetite for silent film when presented in an authentic setting – that was apparent both in the praise the Club was receiving as well as the box office receipts.  Interest was such that in August 1964 the Organ Loft shifted gears and began booking films on a more frequent basis, gradually building toward a weekly program that presented shows every Friday and Saturday night.  While their program of organ recitals (which sometimes preempted the weekly films) remained a focal point, it became very clear that the nonprofit could raise more funds by operating the Granada as a specialty film house rather than a musical venue.  Both types of events co-existed for the next decade, but there was no question that the pictures were not only more profitable but went further in bolstering the Granada Organ Loft’s reputation within the community.  “We ended the week in a happy frame of mind,” columnist Dorothy Brandt Brazier wrote in May 1966, “because we went out to the Granada Organ Loft Club to see an old silent picture, Marie Dressler in Tillie Wakes Up, which, if memory serves, put her in the eye of the talent scouts and led to her later success. What was fun, especially, about the evening, was that Lou DuMoulin slipped in a bunch of old newsreels, and we saw the President, Calvin Coolidge, watching some repair on the White House roof.”^[13]

The Granada Organ Loft was using an old venue and an old format to offer Seattle moviegoers something entirely new.  “Seldom has there been such a variety of films on Seattle screens as there is right now – old or new, silent or blue, 3-D or 70 millimeter, classic and/or camp…,” wrote Times movie critic John Hartl in 1972.  “[The city] is particularly lucky to have its own silent-movie theater, complete with musical accompaniment…This 750-seat theater has been [showing silent films] for nine years. How many American cities can boast the same?”^[14]

Hartl wasn’t wrong – how many other places could boast having a venue like the Granada Organ Loft?  The Club didn’t rest on its laurels, either; early on they even engineered a small-time publicity coup.  This occurred in September 1965 when they pulled off a first (and apparently, a last) for the Club – not only did they book a two-day engagement John Ford’s 1924 western The Iron Horse, but they arranged for the picture’s star, George O’Brien, to come up from southern California and introduce it.^[15]

O’Brien was a popular leading man in the mid- to late-1920’s, known largely for his star turns in The Iron Horse and F.W. Murnau’s Sunrise.  But he had a long career as a performer, acting into the 1940s (and with sporadic appearances thereafter), often in western roles.  The Iron Horse was his first leading role in a big picture.  As important as his motion picture acting, however, was his service to the country – not only did he fight in World War I, but he put his acting career on hold to reenlist in the Navy during World War II, then volunteered his services in the Naval Reserve during both the Korean and Vietnam Wars.  O’Brien ended his military career as a captain, though a possible promotion to admiral had been raised on more than one occasion.

At the time of his 1965 appearance at the Granada, George O’Brien was semi-retired and recovering from a recent cornea transplant in his Brentwood, California home.  “‘When I was young I had wanted to be doctor,’” he told journalist Dorothy Brant Brazier. “‘When I was in the hospital and saw how doctors work day and night, I thought we movie actors were overpaid!’”^[16]

O’Brien’s visit to the Granada Organ Loft wasn’t his first to the Northwest. In January 1930 he filmed on Mount Rainier for the picture Rough Romance, an early talkie that paired him opposite Helen Chandler.^[17] Then, in 1943, he passed through briefly on his way to Alaska, where he had been stationed by the Navy. Flying out of Seattle, his seatmate on that plane was W. Stewart Pope of Renton, whom O’Brien got to know during their flight and subsequent time in Anchorage, where everyone was briefly snowed in.  Pope and O’Brien were reunited at the Granada screenings, but that wasn’t an uncommon for the actor; he knew so many people from his Navy days that there was almost always an old friend to see wherever he traveled.

The Iron Horse played two nights at the Granada, accompanied by some unidentified short comedies.  Moviegoers were thrilled with the prospect of meeting George O’Brien, and the 66-year-old actor was definitely in his element, posing for pictures, signing autographs and addressing packed houses on both nights.  Warm and gregarious, O’Brien wasn’t even thrown when the DuMoulins picked him up from Sea-Tac Airport and Mrs. DuMoulin mistakenly referred to him as actor George Montgomery. “O’Brien thought it was very funny and reminded her there was still another George – Brent.”^[18]

This was the one and only time that the Granada Organ Loft brought in a living, breathing movie star to help sell a film, but it isn’t hard to understand why they never chose to repeat the stunt. Lou DuMoulin had the idea more than a year and a half earlier, in the spring of 1964, and entered into negotiations with several performers; later that summer, he travelled on his own dime to southern California to make personal pitches.  George O’Brien was the only one he was able to land, and even that took a full year.  DuMoulin reportedly had an early commitment from Francis X. Bushman, a semi-commitment from Stan Laurel and was still working to soften up Gloria Swanson.^[19]  Laurel’s death in early 1965 prevented him from visiting the Granada, and it’s not clear why talks with the other two fell through, although persuading Swanson was always going to be a bit of a stretch.  Given that level of effort, not to mention the cost, DuMoulin’s grand idea of having the stars on hand to introduce their own films was probably more trouble than it was worth.

By Eric L. Flom – November 2025

Notes:

[1] See “Lou DuMoulin,” Puget Sound Theatre Organ website (http://www.pstos.org/organists/wa/dumoulin.htm), accessed 16 February 2019; John J. Reddin, “Pipe-Organ Buffs Ren Home for Instrument,” Seattle Times, 24 February 1963, Social Section, Page 19; and “Service Set for Lou DuMoulin, Organist,” Seattle Times, 2 September 1982, Page F4.
[2] John J. Reddin, “Pipe-Organ Buffs Rent Home for Instrument,” Seattle Times, 24 February 1963, Social Section, Page 19.
[3] Lou DuMoulin to John J. Reddin, “Pipe-Organ Buffs Rent Home for Instrument,” Seattle Times, 24 February 1963, Social Section, Page 19.  Although it doesn’t appear to have been a long-running program, in the spring of 1966 the Granada partnered with organist Eddie Zollman to offer a six-week organ course every Wednesday night – $18.75 per person or $30 for two members of the same family.  “You need not own an organ to participate!” their ad exclaimed in large capital letters.  (See Granada Organ Loft advertisement, Seattle Times, 21 March 1966, Page 11.)
[4] In the spring of 1966 the Granada Organ Loft planned to host an organ concert by Steven Smedley, a junior from Chief Sealth High School, who was looking to boost his college fund with proceeds from the show.  “Steve hopes to finance part of his college education by using his abilities at the organ,” went the announcement.  “Though he plans to major in business, he hopes to achieve at least a part-time career in music.”  (Jim Warren, “Where the Action Is,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 29 January 1966, Page 18.)  Despite this announcement, it’s not clear that the Smedley show ever came together.
[5] See “Granada Organ Club Elects Mel Simpson,” Seattle Times, 1 March 1963, Section 3, Page 23.
[6] LaVelle McLaughlin, “Letter to the Editor,” reprinted on the Puget Sound Theatre Organ website (http://www.pstos.org/instruments/wa/seattle/granada-organloft.htm), accessed 16 February 2019.
[7] See Granada Organ Loft advertisement, Seattle Times, 24 March 1963, Section 2, Page 42.
[8] See Paramount Theatre advertisement, Seattle Times, 4 April 1963, Page 28.
[9] Laura Emory Gilmore, “Club is Renovating W. Seattle Theater,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 22 September 1963, Women Today Section, Pages 1 and 7.
[10] Louis R. Guzzo, “Son of the Sheik Coming Back,” Seattle Times, 21 January 1964, Page 17.
[11] Louis R. Guzzo, “Maybe Those Old-Time Movies Are Back to Stay,” Seattle Times, 27 January 1964, Page 18.
[12] Louis R. Guzzo, “Billy Liar is Long on Satire and Comedy,” Seattle Times, 29 January 1964, Page 11.
[13] Dorothy Brandt Brazier, “On Taking a Busman’s Holiday, Seattle Style,” Seattle Times, 17 May 1966, Page 19.
[14] John Hartl, “The Granada: Seattle’s ‘Pioneer’ Silent-Movie House,” Seattle Times, 16 January 1972, Magazine Section, Page 7.
[15] See “George O’Brien in Person at Granada Theater,” West Seattle Herald, 25 September 1965, Page 11.
[16] George O’Brien, quoted in Dorothy Brant Brazier, “Silent-Movie Star to Attend Showing, Seattle Daily Times, 20 September 1965, Third Section, Page 31.
[17] See “Villains do Their Stuff in Mount Tacoma Talkie,” Tacoma Daily Ledger, 29 January 1930, Page 1.
[18] George O’Brien, quoted in “What’s in a Name,” Seattle Daily Times, 30 September 1965, Fourth Section, Page 35.
[19] See Emmett Watson, “This Our City,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 6 May 1964, Page 15; Emmett Watson, “This Our City,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 3 August 1964, Page 18; and Emmett Watson, “This Our City,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 21 August 1964, Page 17.

Even without the star power, the Granada Organ Loft remained a popular destination based, in part, on its booking practices.  The house typically showed 16-millimeter prints, although it isn’t clear where these were being sourced.  There were any number of places they could have come from, including specialty distributors, museums or archives; even companies that skewed toward the home projection market, such as Blackhawk Films, could have been used. The quality of these prints varied from week to week, but this doesn’t seem to have been a complaint with Granada regulars, at least from the surviving accounts.

What’s particularly interesting about the Granada’s programming choices, however, was the fact that showing films on a weekly basis allowed (and perhaps required) a wide variety of pictures to be shown.

Initially, the monthly films shown in 1964 showed a typical bias, one that’s frequently seen in revival screenings today: an emphasis on popular features from the 1920s, often with marquee stars such as Valentino, Fairbanks, Chaplin, Keaton or Chaney.  That’s perhaps understandable, given that the Organ Loft was getting a feel for the type of shows that payed versus the ones that didn’t.  Even when they began showing pictures on a weekly basis, beginning in August 1964, they still leaned into the classics, with engagements of the Valentino pictures The Eagle and Blood and Sand, The Phantom of the Opera, Way Down East and John Barrymore in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. On the other hand, they also had the occasional engagement of a smaller feature like Dancing Mothers (starring Clara Bow and Alice Joyce), Lorna Doone or The Lost World, and even experimented, briefly, with foreign releases like Battleship Potemkin and The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari.  So as the Granada expanded their programming from monthly to weekly screenings, they started to move away, albeit slowly, from the overtly popular selections that most audiences would expect.

Their programming choices for 1965 demonstrate this diversity.  The Granada started the year with some smaller films, including Rubber Tires, a Bessie Love vehicle, The Pinch Hitter with Charles Ray, 1923’s The West-Bound Limited, Larry Semon’s The Wizard of Oz and the Rin Tin Tin feature Clash of the Wolves, before settling into an extended series of lesser-known Douglas Fairbanks films.  While they went big early, showing a special engagement of The Thief of Bagdad and having Gaylord Carter flown in to play the Wurlitzer, the Club created other programs around smaller Fairbanks releases such as The Americano (1916), When Clouds Roll By (1919) and The Nut (1921).  This series was followed by engagements for My Boy, starring Jackie Coogan, and the Ricardo Cortez swashbuckler The Eagle of the Sea, neither of which would have blown out the box office.

Moving into the summer months, however, the Granada inched back into more familiar territory.  This began with a second engagement of organist Gaylord Carter, who returned to the Granada to play alongside Harold Lloyd’s The Kid Brother, presentations (at the Granada and elsewhere) that had been blessed by comedian himself.  Following the Lloyd comedy, the next few weeks featured a who’s who of the silent era’s biggest stars and greatest releases: The Covered Wagon, The Big Parade, Greed, The Kiss, The Unholy Three, Sunrise and the Lillian Gish trifecta of The Scarlet Letter, The White Sister and The Wind.

And yet, right as this run neared its end in July 1965, the back half of the year went in an entirely different direction, showing smaller features with less prominent stars, the kind that aren’t typically seen in silent film revivals today.  With the exception of programs built around the William S. Hart western Tumbleweeds, plus an engagement of D.W. Griffith’s The Mother and the Law (the excerpted modern story from 1916’s Intolerance), the Granada’s programming for the rest of the year looked a lot like it would have when the theatre originally opened.  These films included an engagement of 1926’s The Still Alarm, starring Helene Chadwick; The Heart of a Siren, starring Barbara La Marr; Lucretia Lombard, starring Irene Rich and Monte Blue; The Little Giant, a vehicle for Glenn Hunter; Listen Lester with Louise Fazenda (“a typical farce of [the] 20’s”); and Sweet Adeline, a 1926 feature starring Charles Ray.  But 1965 also had some surprises, including an engagement for Lucrezia Borgia, a 1922 German production starring Conrad Veidt, plus a February bill headlined by a 1918 documentary America Goes Over, a film commissioned by the U.S. government to support mobilization during World War I.  This was on top of a December “triple bill” engagement featuring two 1925 features (Bebe Daniels’ Miss Bluebeard and Raymond Griffith’s The Night Club), along with D.W. Griffith’s 1913 release Broken Ways, starring Henry B. Walthall and Blanche Sweet.

The Granada’s feature film presentations were almost always supported by one or more short subjects, but these are harder to pinpoint since they were rarely identified by name.  Generally, however, these films (usually comedies) tended to draw from the pre-1920 releases from Chaplin, who was not only the era’s most popular comedian but whose output was widely available, since the comedian didn’t own the rights to many of those pictures.^[1]  Keystone comedies and other Mack Sennett shorts were also frequent, as were Hal Roach shorts.  The early two-reel films of Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd were conspicuously absent, at least during the first few years of the Organ Loft, although they became more prominent when the venue shifted its programming in the 1970s.  Charley Chase and Fatty Arbuckle films were quite popular.  No one, however, entertained Granada audiences as much as Laurel and Hardy, whose film work was almost always on heavy rotation.  While many of the Granada’s feature films and shorts were played and replayed over its 11 years in existence, no one seemed to tire of the Boys, at any time, and they (together with Chaplin) were far and away most popular figures on the Granada screen.

While the venue leaned heavily on comedies to round out the bills, other shorts were booked as well.  Westerns were common, though they often went unidentified unless a marquee name was attached (Tom Mix, Harry Carey or Hoot Gibson, for example).  Serials were shown on occasion; The Perils of Pauline, The Adventures of Tarzan and The Power God were all shown (one episode a week) in their entirety.  At another point they showed a highlight film featuring the key action sequences from The Iron Claw, but did not show the full serial and don’t appear to have run other selections from the genre, such as episodes of The Hazards of Helen or others.  Newsreels and newsreel compilations were shown on occasion, though these were usually fillers to build out a program and rarely advertised on their own merit.

But as much as one can praise the Granada’s programming as being diverse and innovative, there’s a counter-argument that it was still highly selective.  This was not entirely their fault. Some pictures simply weren’t available at the time or, in the cases of Chaplin and Lloyd, the stars themselves controlled the rights to their more popular releases, so those pictures were seen only when the performer wanted them to be seen.  Harold Lloyd released some of the biggest and best made comedies of the 1920s, but his feature work shown at the Granada was usually limited to The Kid Brother and Grandma’s Boy.  Full records don’t survive, but if his signature film, 1923’s Safety Last, with its iconic building climb, ever played, it didn’t play often.  Chaplin was no better, with only his early shorts, The Kid and The Gold Rush shown for many years, although the Granada eventually booked pictures like The Circus and City Lights.   With Chaplin the issue was availability; once the comedian began re-releasing the pictures for which he held the rights, they started turning up more often at the Granada – and sometimes never left.  The house showed Modern Times (technically, a sound film) for the first time in December 1968, and pretty quickly the question became when they would stop showing Modern Times.  It was booked five times over a two-year span (“back by popular demand”), and continued to be shown through the mid-1970s, screening at the expense of other Chaplin releases that were either never shown or shown only intermittently, such as City Lights.

Similarly, Lon Chaney’s films were generally limited to The Hunchback of Notre Dame or The Phantom of the Opera, while Buster Keaton’s 1920s output was seen only in The Navigator, The General and Steamboat Bill, Jr., although both College and Our Hospitality were eventually shown in 1974.  The Cameraman, Sherlock Jr. and Seven Chances were conspicuously absent.  Harry Langdon’s work was seen as part of the Granada’s short comedies, but only once was one of his features anchoring the Granada bill.  For as often as Granada audiences were treated to Douglas Fairbanks, they were usually seeing The Thief of Bagdad as opposed to Robin Hood, which doesn’t appear to have been shown.  (Although for at least one of the Bagdad screenings, in 1969, the Granada paired the Fairbanks movie with a 1925 short called Grief in Bagdad, a comic spoof in which all the “actors” were chimpanzees.)  And for as often as The Son of the Sheik appeared and reappeared at the Granada, the original Valentino film The Sheik doesn’t appear to have made the cut, nor was his breakout role in The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.

But don’t shed a tear for the men – they fared much better than the women.  One would be hard-pressed to know that Mary Pickford existed; when Sparrows was finally shown in December 1973, it was one of only a handful of times she was known to have appeared on the Granada screen.  Norma Talmadge and Greta Garbo were largely absent – Garbo’s The Kiss was shown a few times, but not her other films.  Gloria Swanson and Colleen Moore fared a little better, but not by much.  Bessie Love and Clara Bow were two of the more prominent women performers seen at the Granada, but only because their films Dress Parade and Dancing Mothers, respectively, where shown on several occasions.  Wings doesn’t appear to have been shown, and despite calling Bow “the It girl” in several print advertisements, it doesn’t appear that the Granada ever booked It for one of their shows.

In addition, most of the feature films shown at the Granada were produced in the 1920s, and it was indeed rare to see a feature that was made before World War I.  The comedy shorts went back a little further, but not by much, generally starting with Keystone-era Chaplin.  On only a few occasions did audiences see anything produced before 1915, though a D.W. Griffith Biograph like 1911’s Enoch Arden might turn up every couple of years.  At least two bills in 1964 showed the classic early films A Trip to the Moon (1902), by George Méliès, and The Great Train Robbery (1903), by Edwin S. Porter, but these were one-off screenings.  Audiences at the Granada typically saw corporate, studio-controlled Hollywood; cinema’s earliest films and stars were routinely overlooked.

And that was indeed a problem with the Granada Organ Loft’s programming – certain films kept turning up again and again (Dancing Mothers, Blood and Sand, What Price Glory? along with the 1922 Will Rogers comedy The Headless Horseman), while others weren’t shown at all.

These flaws, of course, are easily seen from a distance; at the time the Granada Organ Loft was proving successful with its modest, niche cinema operation.  But the faults were there, and devoted cinephiles could see what others could not.  Times critic John Hartl complained of this in mid-1968, noting that the theatre “never was an ideal setup for the weekly grind of presenting silent pictures. As a non-profit organization, it [depends] entirely on volunteer help and the extraordinary devotion of a few people like [Lou] DuMoulin.”^[2]  Part of the problem, in Hartl’s mind, was the fact that the Granada built its appeal on novelty and nostalgia as opposed to a love of cinema, something that contributed to a “circus, kiddie-matinee atmosphere” at their screenings.  As much as he could appreciate what the venue was trying to do, and despite its unique place in the Seattle movie spectrum, there were just too many programming holes to make it, in his opinion, truly effective.

          The most popular silent film ever made, D.W. Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation, is the most obvious [omission]. Although DuMoulin admits that the theater could probably be packed for two weeks straight if Griffith’s masterpiece were shown, The Birth of a Nation is still a controversial work that arouses racist passions.
          The other great Griffith films (Intolerance, Broken Blossoms, Orphans of the Storm), Erich von Stroheim’s Greed, most of the great German silents (Nosferatu, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari), and the Russian classics Potemkin and Ten Days that Shook the World are among those films that have been noticeably absent from the Granada’s agenda…DuMoulin and the volunteer staff that has kept the theater running week after week deserve the gratitude of Seattle film goers. But the Granada [serves] only a part of the need for a theatrical outlet for silent films in the city.^[3]

Hartl was a little tough with this criticism; while it’s true that several of these classic films never (or rarely) played the Granada, the Organ Loft also booked little-seen program films that showcased the era’s mid-level stars.  Still, similar criticisms of the Granada’s programming wouldn’t change in the coming years – if anything, time just made the flaws more apparent.  As the 1970s approached there were changes afoot at the Granada Organ Loft (and in the Puget Sound region) that would bring the venue’s programing issues into starker relief.

By Eric L. Flom – November 2025

Notes:

[1] In the early 1960s, roughly a decade after Charles Chaplin was barred from re-entering the United States and chose to live in Switzerland, reasserting the rights over his First National and United Artists films was an essential part of his public rehabilitation, which had taken a beating due to his alleged communist ties and moral transgressions.  Lawyers for the comedian went to court to claim those rights, after which these later films were reissued strategically to help remind the American public of Chaplin the comedian instead of Chaplin the controversial public figure.  The reissues, the publication of his 1964 autobiography and release of his final film, A Countess from Hong Kong, in 1967, helped paint a different picture of Charles Chaplin than the American public had not seen in some time.  This effort culminated in his return to the United States and receipt of an honorary Oscar in 1972.  See Charles J. Maland, Chaplin and American Culture: The Evolution of a Star Image (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press – 1989), Pages 326-329.
[2] John Hartl, “Organ Loft Given Reprieve (Of Sorts),” Seattle Times, 28 July 1968, Page 16C.
[3] Ibid. While DuMoulin here laments that he probably could not book The Birth of a Nation into the Granada due to its racial content, the film was a special engagement at the Music Box Theatre in downtown Seattle two years later, in 1970, where it played for two weeks. “The conclusions drawn by [D.W.] Griffith are badly suited for our time,” said Post-Intelligencer columnist Rolf Stromberg of the engagement.  “This film is securely rooted in the racial and social mores of its day. We have developed more dignified attitudes since then. But it is a historical document of distinction and deserves to be seen…If you care about films you must see it.” (Rolf Stromberg, “Griffith Epic Still Impressive Film,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 12 December 1970, Page 12.)