The Malco Theater – Haunted?

I ran across a website yesterday about the Malco Theater and the ghost that allegedly haunts it. Back in the 1880s there was a vaudeville theater on the site called The Palace. According to the story, a magician pulled a local girl from the audience, made her disappear, and then couldn’t figure out where she went to, or how to get her back. Hmmm!

The Palace was torn down and replaced by an Opera House; the Opera House was torn down and replaced by the Princess Theater; the Princess burned and was rebuilt as the Malco in the 1930s. Now people claim that the ghost of the magician’s lost girl haunts the theater, appearing in the basement and screaming at the most inopportune times. Hmmm!

The Malco was a big deal back in the 1960s when I was a kid. I had a wonderful aunt who always took me to see all the Disney movies. I remember standing in line to see movies at the Malco lots of times. When we went to see “The Jungle Book” the line from the box office on Central stretched so far around the corner of the building it went halfway to Broadway. Imagine all those kids packed into the theater.

Today, The Malco is called the “Historic Malco” and it houses the Hot Springs Documentary Film Institute and their library of over 17,000 documentary films. Be sure to mark your calendar for the 17th Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival, October 17th through 26th, 2008. It’s sure to be a screaming success!