UNITED Theater on Broadway
929 S. Broadway,
Los Angeles,
CA
90015
929 S. Broadway,
Los Angeles,
CA
90015
44 people
favorited this theater
Showing 101 - 125 of 179 comments
Interesting. To me, everything about the UA seems very ‘Grauman-ish’ in its' class and style. I have to rate it on the same quality level as Sid’s late and lamented Metropolitan (aka: Paramount) – which I never saw, but can only dream about.
And the Fox West Coast chain too.
A majority of the United Artists theatres were operated in conjunction with other theatre chains during this time. During the early 30’s the UA had ties to the Publix Theatre chain.
I wasn’t aware that Sid Grauman was involved with the UA. Perhaps in company name only?
Another example of a tangled ownership history?
Here are two 1934 ads for Grauman’s United Artists:
http://tinyurl.com/2ucbu4
http://tinyurl.com/2w4tac
Here is an April 1929 ad from the LA Times:
http://tinyurl.com/26kr3f
Brucec, Most exclusive runs happened in the 30’s to 40’s. Like many large cities it was the 1950’s that it all changed in Los Angeles area. The chains would book a Downtown run and play it with their Hollywood house. Since the studios put out many pictures during this time. Many of the theatres did not play really long runs. When Downtown died those booking went to the Beverly Hills houses till the mid 70’s and then to Westwood till the early 90’s. The large chains started dumping their Downtown locations in the early 60’s. During that time National Theatres were dropping many of their large downtown area houses around the country. In Los Angeles Metropolitan Theatres picked up the leases on the former Fox West Coast houses and former UA and Warner and RKO houses in that area. So at one time they ran almost every house along Broadway till the mid 80’s. Those houses ran full during that time. The late 80’s it all changed and they closed up and were changed into retail. Their last exclusive would have been in the mid to last 1950’s. to early 1960.
This question is for Warren and William. How long did the Downtown theatres such as the United Artists,Orpheum,State,Los Angeles,Warner,etc play exlusive runs.I know they often played with Hollywood Blvd and some of the Wilshire Blvd theatres. When did this come to an end and people from the burbs stopped going Downtown.LA was different than most large Cities having a few entertainment zones such as Hollywood Blvd,Downtown,Wilshire Blvd and later Westwood.It would be interesting to see when each of the large Downtown theatres played there last exclusive run and became a theatre for the large Hispanic population which carried these theatres into the 1980’s.brucec
Warren, some of these introductions were re-edited by the staff of this site and some of it was not written by the author. I have had many of my intros rewritten on this site. So you should take your attack to some one else.
Well, that’s the internet for you. You can’t believe everything you read. However, verification leads to more research.
Just some thoughts:
I think that the name association throws people, so they make assumptions. Theatre ownership in the US is about as complicated as business gets, with more name changes than Zsa Zsa Gabor marriages. Though many of the big chains had/have studio names mixed in, any direct connection was fleeting in most cases. I remember that the Paramount in Seattle (which I naturally thought was owned by Paramount Pictures) was operated by Fox Westcoast at the time, and many a big 20th-Fox picture played there. I quickly learned about the early 50s studio/theatre chain bust-up, and how, since that time, nothing in that sense can be taken at face value. But of course, as Warren points out, the studio/theatre relationships have always been messy. I was always impressed by the Walter Reade chain,(mostly in NYC, but saw one in Vancouver BC), though films released by Reade’s distribution division, Continental, did not necessarily play there, although I think the Russian ‘War and Peace’, distrib by Continental, played at the DeMille or Ziegfeld in NYC. I know I could look that up for sure, but I’m not quite that ambitious right now!
Another example of mix and match: on the post card linked above, the ‘Texaco’ sign up on the UA’s water tower grille. Chief tenant of the office section of the building gets that privilege, I guess? It would have been cool to see ‘United Artists’ glowing up there.
The United Artists Theatre opened on 26th December 1927 with Mary Pickford & Buddy Rogers in “My Best Girl”.
An old post card DEPICTING the UNITED ARTIST THEATER ON Broadway.
View link
Indeed, Barrymore’s Ruritanian (well, Russian, actually) costume in the group portrait links with a photo from ‘Tempest’ (1928), seen at IMDb. The picture obviously played at the UA, but did it open the house, I wonder? Surely a ‘Pickfair’ picture had that honor.
Warren, thanks for the Joe Schenck/UATC info. Schenck was one of the most colorful personalities in Hollywood. The guy did it all.
The other man on the left with the hat looks like Cecil B. DeMille.
If not JB, I wonder who? Doug Jr. would have been too young…
That’s not John Barrymore on the top left of the picture.
Here is a June 1953 ad from the LA Times:
http://tinyurl.com/34z3w2
Thanks, Ken. I knew there was a family resemblance there.
Glad to see the mighty UA still looks largely the same outside since the last time I was there in 1987, pre-Rev. Scott.
John Barrymore is at the top left. I don’t know who the man on the bottom left is.
In ken mc’s photo of some of the united artists plugging the UA theatre, I recognize Mary Pickford, Doug Fairbanks, and D.W. Griffith, but does anyone know who the other two are? The man in the upper left (either an actor or the head usher!) looks a bit like Lionel Barrymore (?), while the other strikes me as a money man/producer. Chaplin must be late.
Here are some photos from the USC archive. Some were posted before, but the USC link has been changed:
http://tinyurl.com/2erugt
http://tinyurl.com/2yyxhy
http://tinyurl.com/2bu8w3
http://tinyurl.com/27gczv
http://tinyurl.com/28r4tg
http://tinyurl.com/yuarf3
Here are the united artists plugging the opening of their theater:
http://tinyurl.com/3x3clv
Take your pick, salvation or damnation, all accessible by freeway.
The adult entertainment billboard right next to the UA in Ken’s first July 2007 photo is pretty funny. I wonder what the church officials think of that?!?
This church was behind the LA library on Hope Street. It was replaced by an office building. The “Jesus Saves” signs were attached to the UA when it became a church:
http://jpg1.lapl.org/pics41/00040103.jpg