Malco Theatres - Beginnings

Beginnings

Malco Theatres' history began during World War I when Morris A. Lightman, Sr., (known as M.A.) the son of a Hungarian immigrant, left his hometown of Nashville, Tennessee, and went to Colbert County, Alabama, to work on the Wilson Dam project as an engineer. Although he held a degree in engineering from Vanderbilt University, he thought of himself more as a showman and entertainer. Lightman decided it was time to try something new one day while in Northwest Alabama, when he came upon a long line of people waiting to get into a local theatre. He decided he wanted to operate a movie theatre. Lightman traveled to Atlanta where he had made a contact in the theatre business and sought to learn the art of movie exhibition.

Upon his return two months later to Northwest Alabama, in February 1915, Lightman formed The Sterling Amusement Company and opened his first theatre in a storefront he had rented in Sheffield, Alabama. Lightman named this storefront theatre "The Liberty Theater", and later opened a 400 seat theatre, "The Majestic" across the river in Florence, Alabama at 204 North Court Street, in August 1919. Lightman opened a third theatre in the area before accepting an offer from another local theatre owner to buy out his theatres in the area. In return, Lightman received a 50 per cent stake in a theatre in North Little Rock, Arkansas.

After leaving Northwest Alabama, M.A. Lightman, Sr., partnered with his father, Joseph Lightman, a stone construction contractor, to build the Hillsboro Theater in Nashville, Tennessee. They opened the Hillsboro on May 18, 1925, with the D.W. Griffith film America. Three months later, Tony Sudekum, founder of Crescent Amusement Co., opened a competing theater at the opposite end of the same block. The competition with Sudekum forced M.A. and his father to close the Hillsboro Theater. The theater was used as a live production venue for many years until being converted back into a cinema and renamed the Belcourt Cinema in 1966 by a new group of owners.

The former Hillsboro Theater is still standing today and is operated by a non-profit organization as an independent art house. M.A. Lightman, Sr. left Nashville in 1926 after the Hillsboro failed and went to North Little Rock. Joseph Lightman died in 1928, in Nashville. His passing was covered on the front page of the Tennessean.

It was in North Little Rock that Lightman partnered with M.S. McCord and M.J. Pruniski forming the Malco Amusement Company. They began building a theatre chain by buying and building single screen cinemas throughout Arkansas.

In September 1926, Malco Amusement Company took on two more partners, W.F. McWilliams and L.B. Clark, in El Dorado, Arkansas. This led to the formation of Arkansas Amusement Enterprises, Inc. with a total of 32 theatres in Arkansas with locations including Little Rock, North Little Rock, Camden, Hope, and Smackover. Not long after the formation of Arkansas Amusement Enterprises, McWilliams and Clark left the partnership and bought the five El Dorado locations from the company.

In 1929, Arkansas Amusement Enterprises became Malco Theatres, Inc. This is also the year that the company started installing Vitaphone and Movietone equipment to add sound for the first time in their theatres.

Malco Theatres began acquiring cinemas not only in Arkansas but also in West Tennessee, Louisiana, Northern Mississippi, Western Kentucky, and Southeastern Missouri. It was in 1929 that Malco Theatres purchased its first location in Memphis, Tennessee, the Linden Circle Theatre.