The first film shown here starred Jean Arthur and a baseball; a blind pianist improvised the score. The Screenland Armour at 408 Armour Road opened on 6 September 1928 as the Armour Theatre, North Kansas City's first community theatre building, designed by Kansas City architects Keene and Simpson in Spanish Revival style with 650 seats and a vaudeville stage. The silent era gave the house its best origin story: local pianist George Newell, blind from birth, accompanied the pictures while his wife read him the title cards so he could improvise the mood - a job talking pictures eventually erased. The name cycled with the decades - Commonwealth Theatres reopened it as the Centre on Christmas Day 1963, a 1984 change made it the Paradise with live entertainment and video rentals - before the building sat dark until Screenland founder Butch Rigby bought and restored it, reopening on 23 May 2008 with Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Operators Adam Roberts and Brent Miller took over in 2012 and built the modern identity: four screens, craft beer taps, a kitchen, and programming that mixes first-run titles with classics, cult nights, movie roasts and TV watch parties. The theatre co-founded Panic Fest in 2013 - the horror and science-fiction festival that has grown into one of the genre circuit's respected regional events - and added Rewind Video and Dive, a 90s-nostalgia bar and video store, in the basement in 2022. Likely the oldest continually operating theatre in suburban Kansas City, the Armour anchors its namesake road's small-business strip - a 1928 neighbourhood house that survived by becoming the city's best-loved independent cinema. The 2018 expansion took the house to four screens with digital projection and Dolby sound throughout, while the 20-tap bar pours local craft beer and the kitchen runs pizzas and sandwiches to the seats - and the auditoriums rent for weddings, birthdays and corporate screenings between the regular calendar's film festivals and live roast nights.

Type: Theater / Concert Hall

Address: 406 Armour Road, Kansas City, MO, United States, 64116

Telephone: 816-994-7380

Website: https://www.screenland.com

Cover Charge: 1

Capacity: 385

Opening Date: 06/09/1928

Serves Food

Accessible