Inside the Bagdad Theater's Portland legacy
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In 1927, people dressed to the nines to go to the movies. It's a more hoodie-coded experience now. Photo: Meira Gebel/Axios
Over the last century, the Bagdad Theater has survived the end of vaudeville, the multiplex boom and the rise of streaming to remain one of Portland's most enduring local cinemas.
Why it matters: Now, the Hawthorne landmark is celebrating another milestone: 35 years since McMenamins bought and restored it in 1991.
The Bagdad's story mirrors Portland's own anti-establishment, preservation proclivities — embracing the old and fiercely maintaining the character of places that might otherwise disappear.
- I got a behind-the-scenes tour of the theater last week. Here's the lore I learned.
Flashback: The Bagdad opened in 1927 during the twilight of vaudeville performances, when Hollywood studios were racing to build movie palaces around the country to showcase their new talking pictures technology.
- The site was previously home to Cochran Cider Co. in what was a largely undeveloped stretch of Southeast Portland.
- The theater's aesthetic leaned hard into the era's fascination with the Middle East — thanks to Lawrence of Arabia and films like "Kismet." But it decided to drop the "h" from "Baghdad" to make the name more "Americanized," McMenamins historian Caitlin Popp told Axios.
By the 1970s, the Bagdad was carved into a multiplex, with the balcony and former backstage converted into screening rooms.
- The original owners decided to close the theater at the end of the decade. It sat empty until McMenamins took it over in 1991.
- Brothers Mike and Brian McMenamin restored the Bagdad into a single-screen, 500-seat auditorium — scrubbing decades-old cigarette smoke off of the walls while preserving much of the original hand-painted artwork, chandeliers and moldings.
The intrigue: The Bagdad is also the site of entertainment history. Sammy Davis Jr. performed there as a child in vaudeville acts, while "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" and "My Own Private Idaho" both premiered there.
- Meanwhile, author Chuck Palahniuk sold out a screening of "Fight Club" there for its 25th anniversary last month.
- Much of this history is depicted in a two-story-tall mural inside the adjacent Back Stage Bar, where other Portland relics — like vintage neon signs and a giant, ornate bar from the since-shuttered Lotus Card Room, complete with a bullet hole — have also found second lives.
Somehow, it all fits.
If you go: The Bagdad Theater & Pub (3702 SE Hawthorne Blvd.) will host an all-day block party Saturday to celebrate its 35th birthday.