Photo: Chris Emeott
It’s the Edina Theatre’s 90th anniversary. After surviving multiple renovations, a tornado, COVID-19 and Barbenheimer, this iconic local landmark celebrates nine decades of presenting movies in Edina since opening on August 31, 1934. Its first movie was Many Happy Returns, starring George Burns and Gracie Allen.
The largest theater in suburban Minneapolis when it opened, the new art deco movie house featured the latest technology (including air-conditioning and auditory devices to assist audience members who were hard of hearing), as well as a balcony, seating for 1,000 on the main floor, a fireplace in the lobby, interior murals, depicting scenes from Edina, and a nursery for children. One writer described the architecture of the original building as “a suburban temple of sharp-angled zigzag deco style.”
The Edina Theatre was designed by Liebenberg and Kaplan, which had established an outstanding reputation for updating movie house acoustics after the transition from silent films to talkies in the late 1920s. This Minneapolis architectural firm designed more than 200 movie theaters throughout the Midwest, including the Granada Theater (renamed Suburban World) in Uptown, the Varsity Theater in Dinkytown and the Uptown and Riverview Theaters—along with hospitals (Hennepin County Medical Center), hotels, churches and synagogues (such as Temple Israel) and houses in the Country Club Historic District in Edina.
The theater has experienced substantial renovations. Now, only the exterior Edina sign is a historic landmark. After being destroyed by a tornado in 1981, the sign was entirely rebuilt in its original style and received an Edina Heritage Award in 2004. The theater closed in 2020 because of the pandemic. It was then acquired by Bloomington-based Mann Theatres and underwent another extensive remodel, this time with an intriguing cinematic theme. The building was updated with a focus on the Mann family’s favorite film, The Shining. Dramatic red bathrooms, the glamorous Gold Room bar and scenes from the movie installed throughout three levels pay tribute to the classic horror film, and the Edina Theatre emerged after the pandemic to reopen in September 2022—showing, of course, The Shining.
Unlike the Westgate Theatre in Morningside (notorious for its yearslong run of Harold and Maude) which is now only a memory, the Edina Theatre remains a bright and active beacon on 50th and France. It is a prominent symbol and has been a center of entertainment in our community for 90 years.
Laura Westlund is an arts writer and editor in the Twin Cities and an art hound for Minnesota Public Radio.
