I wonder if the Marcal was an early revival house at the time that photo was taken? DeMille’s The Godless Girl (banned in Finland!) was a 1929 release, and Capra’s American Madness dated to 1932. I’m pretty sure the photo is from a later date than either movie, because the parked car at far right is streamlined, and the earliest streamlined cars to go into production dated to the mid-1930s. I’m thinking the car might be a Chrysler or DeSoto Airflow.
The aka line at top says “Peerless” instead of the “Peerlex” seen on the vertical sign in the photo ken mc linked to and in this mis-dated photo from the Oakland Museum’s collection. Is that a mistake or was “Peerless” also the name at one time?
Here is an August, 2007 article from the Oakland Tribune about the Oakland Pantages theatre. It was quite a spectacular place in its day, as described in this excerpt: [quote]“Clippings in the history files reveal the excitement on a long ago August evening when Alex Pantages opened his second Bay Area live vaudeville theater. The date was Aug. 12, 1912. Local architects Matthew O'Brien and Carl Werner created the plans for the exterior shell, retail and office spaces, and Scottish-born Bernard Priteca (born in 1889) created the glamorous theater, according to files. Pantages and Priteca would go on to collaborate on several more theater projects throughout the West, through the 1920s.
“The masonry-clad building cost $130,000 to build, with completion of the theater space adding another quarter million. The theater seated 2,000 patrons, half on the orchestra floor, half on the balcony level. Patrons enjoyed mahogany and Russian leather backed chairs. At the sides were 11 proscenium boxes and 11 loges. The interior featured a color scheme of gold and ivory, with rose tint ionic-style plaster decorative elements. Marble mosaic panels decorated the vestibule, and separating the entry foyer from the theater were six pairs of 90-foot-tall gleaming bronze doors.”[/quote] I’m guessing that the “90-foot-tall” bronze doors were actually only nine feet high. Had they been 90 feet, they’d probably have been visible from San Francisco. But even with mere nine foot doors, the Pantages still sounds impressive.
*"Patrons eat and drink on actual beds while watching edgy performers (dominatrixes, opera singers, midgets on bicycles, etc.) during lavish multi-course meals."*
Does anybody else think this sounds like it could be some improv group’s parody of an arty, 1970s soft-core Euro-porn movie?
But it’s a real place, not a parody, and judging from their website, the reality is even sillier and more pretentious than I could have imagined. Take a look at this gem from their flash-based online “magazine” for example:
[quote][em]“hold fast to dreams
for if dreams die
life is a broken
winged bird
that cannot fly”[/em][/quote]
The poor Vogue!
Boyle Heights still had a large Jewish population in 1938 when a Los Angeles Daily News photographer took this photo of an anti-Nazi demonstration which took place on Brooklyn Avenue. The National’s marquee indicates that the theatre was closed for the night, in support of the protest.
The Google Maps link for the Norwalk Theatre won’t display the correct location unless the address is changed to that which the property has now: 12039 Firestone Blvd, Norwalk, CA 90650.
This entry duplicates this earlier CT page for the same drive-in. I don’t know how we’ve missed noticing the duplication for three years. Both pages have quite a few comments, but the other features more detailed information in comments by Ed Collins, assistant manager of the swap meet.
That’s what’s especially useful about the ZIMAS reports from the city’s zoning department. They have the latest information from the County Assessor, plus they include the years of construction for any buildings on the property.
I’ve come across several Cinema Treasures pages which erroneously listed theatres as closed/demolished when they were only closed. Now I always check the latest aerial photos from Google maps or TerraServer, and see if I can generate a report on the address from ZIMAS (if it’s in the City of Los Angeles) just to make sure.
The Granada’s building has been gone for quite a while. The site is now part of a parking lot for a blocky office building which I think was put up in the 1970s.
William Fox established what was probably the first Newsreel theatre in the U.S. in 1929, when he converted the Embassy Theatre in Times Square to an all-newsreel operation. The Fox company closed the house in December, 1933, and it was re-opened in 1934 by Newsreel Theatres, Inc., a company founded by two former employees of Fox’s Movietone News division.
While Fox and his partners had planned to open a nationwide chain of newsreel houses following the success of the Embassy, I don’t know that this ever happened. The depression hit, and not long after that William Fox lost control of the company. Fox Movietone News, though, continued to be a major supplier of footage to the companies such as Telenews that did operate specialized newsreel houses. This Cinema Treasures page is the only place I’ve ever heard of the Oaland Telenews having been called the Fox News Theatre.
The Telenews chain opened its first theatre, the San Francisco Telenews, in September, 1939. Telenews ran footage from the newsreels of all the five major companies, but they were cut together and supplemented with local footage by the managers of the individual theatres. An article about the Telenews company was published in a scholarly journal a couple of years ago, but I’ve never read it as you need a subscription to do so.
However, an interesting bit of background dug up by the Dallas Historical Society for one of the authors of the article can be read online right here.
Aside from being too small, and not looking at all like something that would date to the 1920s, the church building in Ken’s photos from last August faces on 64th Street, and shows no signs of ever having had an entrance on the West Boulevard side. Surely it was never the Seville Theatre. I don’t know about the building across the street and parking lot to the north, but unless there was some serious inconsistency in the numbering system, or we’ve got the Seville’s address wrong, I don’t see how it could be the Seville either. Can we get a confirmation of the address as 6405?
The Inglewood News of January 18, 1924 announced the clearance of the site where the Granada Theatre would be built. Southwest Builder & Contractor had announced in its issue of January 11 that architect Leonard L. Jones was preparing the plans. The owner was Arthur Bennett. The construction contract was awarded to General Construction Company, of Glendale, according to SwB&C’s issue of May 9 that year. I’ve been unable to find the opening date, but would surmise late 1924. The photo showing the Granada to which ken mc linked above is dated November 10, 1925.
Here is a 1940 William Reagh photo of the view west along 3rd Street, the block west of Hope Street in the foreground. Though I’ve seen this photo many times, I never before realized that the single-storey building with the ornate facade at near left could have been (and probably was) the Tunnel Theatre.
Assessor info in the ZIMAS report for the existing building at this address says it was built in 1912. It must be the theatre, remodeled beyond regognition.
Though there are some Internet sources which say that the State Theatre was built on the site of the Marysville Theatre, it was actually the Tower which was erected on the Marysville’s site. Links to photos of the Marysville can be found on its Cinema Treasures page.
Prior to the mid-1920s fire which destroyed it, the Marysville had been operating under the name Atkins Theatre. After the fire, for some time a small movie house called the Liberty Theatre occupied the location. There is a photo of the Liberty ca.1927 on page 121 of the Arcadia Publishing Company book Marysville, part of its Images of America series. The Tower, with its moderne design, apparently dates to the 1930s or early 1940s.
The California Index contains a card citing an article in Motion Picture Herald, issue of September 1936, which says that Edwin Atkins had plans for remodeling the Lyric Theatre in Marysville.
About 1920, the former Marysville Theatre, one block south of the Lyric, had been operating under the name Atkins Theatre. Same guy, perhaps? The site of the Atkins Theatre eventually became the site of the Tower Theatre.
According to a card in the California Index, an item on page 114 of Architect & Engineer, September 1926, mentions a theatre in Chico designed for the Valley Empire Theatres Company by Sacramento architects Starks & Flanders. I wonder if this could refer to the Empire? In the 1940 photo linked above, the building looks too old fashioned to have been built as late as 1926, but the card doesn’t indicate that the house was newly built at that time. If anybody has access to a copy of that issue of A&E, please check it and see what it says.
The Online Archive of California provides this 1908 photo of the Marysville Theatre, from the collection of the Yuba County Library. The date on the facade above the name (and note the “Theatre” spelling) shows that it was built in 1907. The architectural style is Mission Revival. The information page for this photo, however, gives the location as the NE corner of 1st and D Streets, which does not match the address above. After poking around on the Internet, I’ve found confirmation of this.
I found one web page which says that the Tower Theatre was built on the site of the Marysville Theatre, and then I found this ca.1920s photograph of D Street, looking north from 1st Street, with the Marysville Theatre building on the right. This page provides the additional information that the Marysville Theatre was by that time called the Atkins Theatre. The name Atkins Theatre is also found on this page at Architect DB.
So, Marysville Theatre; built 1907; aka Atkins Theatre; on D Street at NE corner of 1st (probably 103 N. D Street, the current address of the Tower); succeeded by the Tower Theatre, not the National/State.
Now I note the banner hanging near the vertical sign. Does it read “Marcal’s 3rd Year Revival Pictures”?
I wonder if the Marcal was an early revival house at the time that photo was taken? DeMille’s The Godless Girl (banned in Finland!) was a 1929 release, and Capra’s American Madness dated to 1932. I’m pretty sure the photo is from a later date than either movie, because the parked car at far right is streamlined, and the earliest streamlined cars to go into production dated to the mid-1930s. I’m thinking the car might be a Chrysler or DeSoto Airflow.
The aka line at top says “Peerless” instead of the “Peerlex” seen on the vertical sign in the photo ken mc linked to and in this mis-dated photo from the Oakland Museum’s collection. Is that a mistake or was “Peerless” also the name at one time?
Here is an August, 2007 article from the Oakland Tribune about the Oakland Pantages theatre. It was quite a spectacular place in its day, as described in this excerpt: [quote]“Clippings in the history files reveal the excitement on a long ago August evening when Alex Pantages opened his second Bay Area live vaudeville theater. The date was Aug. 12, 1912. Local architects Matthew O'Brien and Carl Werner created the plans for the exterior shell, retail and office spaces, and Scottish-born Bernard Priteca (born in 1889) created the glamorous theater, according to files. Pantages and Priteca would go on to collaborate on several more theater projects throughout the West, through the 1920s.
“The masonry-clad building cost $130,000 to build, with completion of the theater space adding another quarter million. The theater seated 2,000 patrons, half on the orchestra floor, half on the balcony level. Patrons enjoyed mahogany and Russian leather backed chairs. At the sides were 11 proscenium boxes and 11 loges. The interior featured a color scheme of gold and ivory, with rose tint ionic-style plaster decorative elements. Marble mosaic panels decorated the vestibule, and separating the entry foyer from the theater were six pairs of 90-foot-tall gleaming bronze doors.”[/quote] I’m guessing that the “90-foot-tall” bronze doors were actually only nine feet high. Had they been 90 feet, they’d probably have been visible from San Francisco. But even with mere nine foot doors, the Pantages still sounds impressive.
Does anybody else think this sounds like it could be some improv group’s parody of an arty, 1970s soft-core Euro-porn movie?
But it’s a real place, not a parody, and judging from their website, the reality is even sillier and more pretentious than I could have imagined. Take a look at this gem from their flash-based online “magazine” for example:
[quote][em]“hold fast to dreams
for if dreams die
life is a broken
winged bird
that cannot fly”[/em][/quote]
The poor Vogue!
Boyle Heights still had a large Jewish population in 1938 when a Los Angeles Daily News photographer took this photo of an anti-Nazi demonstration which took place on Brooklyn Avenue. The National’s marquee indicates that the theatre was closed for the night, in support of the protest.
The Google Maps link for the Norwalk Theatre won’t display the correct location unless the address is changed to that which the property has now: 12039 Firestone Blvd, Norwalk, CA 90650.
This entry duplicates this earlier CT page for the same drive-in. I don’t know how we’ve missed noticing the duplication for three years. Both pages have quite a few comments, but the other features more detailed information in comments by Ed Collins, assistant manager of the swap meet.
That’s what’s especially useful about the ZIMAS reports from the city’s zoning department. They have the latest information from the County Assessor, plus they include the years of construction for any buildings on the property.
I’ve come across several Cinema Treasures pages which erroneously listed theatres as closed/demolished when they were only closed. Now I always check the latest aerial photos from Google maps or TerraServer, and see if I can generate a report on the address from ZIMAS (if it’s in the City of Los Angeles) just to make sure.
The Granada’s building has been gone for quite a while. The site is now part of a parking lot for a blocky office building which I think was put up in the 1970s.
Heh! The asbestos curtain was decorated with a painted curtain!
William Fox established what was probably the first Newsreel theatre in the U.S. in 1929, when he converted the Embassy Theatre in Times Square to an all-newsreel operation. The Fox company closed the house in December, 1933, and it was re-opened in 1934 by Newsreel Theatres, Inc., a company founded by two former employees of Fox’s Movietone News division.
While Fox and his partners had planned to open a nationwide chain of newsreel houses following the success of the Embassy, I don’t know that this ever happened. The depression hit, and not long after that William Fox lost control of the company. Fox Movietone News, though, continued to be a major supplier of footage to the companies such as Telenews that did operate specialized newsreel houses. This Cinema Treasures page is the only place I’ve ever heard of the Oaland Telenews having been called the Fox News Theatre.
The Telenews chain opened its first theatre, the San Francisco Telenews, in September, 1939. Telenews ran footage from the newsreels of all the five major companies, but they were cut together and supplemented with local footage by the managers of the individual theatres. An article about the Telenews company was published in a scholarly journal a couple of years ago, but I’ve never read it as you need a subscription to do so.
However, an interesting bit of background dug up by the Dallas Historical Society for one of the authors of the article can be read online right here.
Aside from being too small, and not looking at all like something that would date to the 1920s, the church building in Ken’s photos from last August faces on 64th Street, and shows no signs of ever having had an entrance on the West Boulevard side. Surely it was never the Seville Theatre. I don’t know about the building across the street and parking lot to the north, but unless there was some serious inconsistency in the numbering system, or we’ve got the Seville’s address wrong, I don’t see how it could be the Seville either. Can we get a confirmation of the address as 6405?
The Inglewood News of January 18, 1924 announced the clearance of the site where the Granada Theatre would be built. Southwest Builder & Contractor had announced in its issue of January 11 that architect Leonard L. Jones was preparing the plans. The owner was Arthur Bennett. The construction contract was awarded to General Construction Company, of Glendale, according to SwB&C’s issue of May 9 that year. I’ve been unable to find the opening date, but would surmise late 1924. The photo showing the Granada to which ken mc linked above is dated November 10, 1925.
Mark: Just upload your video to YouTube and link to it from here.
Here is a 1940 William Reagh photo of the view west along 3rd Street, the block west of Hope Street in the foreground. Though I’ve seen this photo many times, I never before realized that the single-storey building with the ornate facade at near left could have been (and probably was) the Tunnel Theatre.
Assessor info in the ZIMAS report for the existing building at this address says it was built in 1912. It must be the theatre, remodeled beyond regognition.
Though there are some Internet sources which say that the State Theatre was built on the site of the Marysville Theatre, it was actually the Tower which was erected on the Marysville’s site. Links to photos of the Marysville can be found on its Cinema Treasures page.
Prior to the mid-1920s fire which destroyed it, the Marysville had been operating under the name Atkins Theatre. After the fire, for some time a small movie house called the Liberty Theatre occupied the location. There is a photo of the Liberty ca.1927 on page 121 of the Arcadia Publishing Company book Marysville, part of its Images of America series. The Tower, with its moderne design, apparently dates to the 1930s or early 1940s.
The California Index contains a card citing an article in Motion Picture Herald, issue of September 1936, which says that Edwin Atkins had plans for remodeling the Lyric Theatre in Marysville.
About 1920, the former Marysville Theatre, one block south of the Lyric, had been operating under the name Atkins Theatre. Same guy, perhaps? The site of the Atkins Theatre eventually became the site of the Tower Theatre.
JMAX Productions now features upcoming El Rey events on its website. They’re few and far between, but at least something is going on there.
According to a card in the California Index, an item on page 114 of Architect & Engineer, September 1926, mentions a theatre in Chico designed for the Valley Empire Theatres Company by Sacramento architects Starks & Flanders. I wonder if this could refer to the Empire? In the 1940 photo linked above, the building looks too old fashioned to have been built as late as 1926, but the card doesn’t indicate that the house was newly built at that time. If anybody has access to a copy of that issue of A&E, please check it and see what it says.
An aerial view of Bruen’s Sundown Theatre, apparently from about the time of its opening in 1954, given the freshness of the blacktop.
The Online Archive of California provides this 1908 photo of the Marysville Theatre, from the collection of the Yuba County Library. The date on the facade above the name (and note the “Theatre” spelling) shows that it was built in 1907. The architectural style is Mission Revival. The information page for this photo, however, gives the location as the NE corner of 1st and D Streets, which does not match the address above. After poking around on the Internet, I’ve found confirmation of this.
I found one web page which says that the Tower Theatre was built on the site of the Marysville Theatre, and then I found this ca.1920s photograph of D Street, looking north from 1st Street, with the Marysville Theatre building on the right. This page provides the additional information that the Marysville Theatre was by that time called the Atkins Theatre. The name Atkins Theatre is also found on this page at Architect DB.
So, Marysville Theatre; built 1907; aka Atkins Theatre; on D Street at NE corner of 1st (probably 103 N. D Street, the current address of the Tower); succeeded by the Tower Theatre, not the National/State.
LOL!