Thanks to our partner Temple Theatre in Sanford, a new set of photographs, slides, and scrapbooks are now available online. Highlights from this collection include a series of black-and-white photographs from the theater’s renovation in the 1980s, over seventy slides from Temple Theatre’s grand reopening, and a scrapbook recording the theater’s early days as a movie venue. These fantastic records will join a pre-existing collection digitized early last year, which also includes scrapbooks, slides, and more!
The new scrapbook is an amazing record for anyone interested in film history. Within this book’s pages are meticulously collected newspaper clippings, licensing deals, and advertisements for movies released in the golden age of Hollywood cinema. Everything from classic noir to old-school westerns were featured at Temple Theater, and there were even rotating seasons of live performances. Reports on fiddling contests often share pages with advertisements for the newest Charlie Chaplin routine, and movies are often advertised with corresponding news reels or comedy routines. There’s even an extensive collection recording when Leo, the Metro-Goldwyn-Meyer lion, visited Sanford! Apparently he stayed in the town for a few days, and performed on-stage live as part of the studio’s partnership with the local movie theater.
You can find the new scrapbook, as well as the brand new photographs, online now at DigitalNC here. Interested in learning more about the historic Temple Theatre? You can find their partner page online at DigitalNC here, or visit the theater’s webpage here.
