Does the movie smell like Colin Farrell? That’s a disturbing thought. I’ve never seen him in person, but in his appearances on T.V. talk shows, he usually has sort of a seedy, boozy look. Now I’m imagining a nice, tidy Japanese theatre being filled with a smell redolent of one of those old skid row grind houses where bums used to sleep off their drunks.
ken mc: I thought I’d replied to your question about the State Theatre long ago, but I must have hit the “preview” button instead of the “Post” button. D'OH!
Anyway- The Stockton Empire was in a fairly suburban location some distance north of downtown Stockton. The pictures of the State show it being in a dense, urban area, with a tall building next door, so it must not be the same theatre.
Jim’s mention of stock photos reminded me that for several decades in Los Angeles, the commercial photographer Dick Whittington documented a great many of the city’s businesses. The collection consists primarily of negatives, and is one of several collections currently held by the University of Southern California Archival Research Center. I’m not sure how large the collection is, or how it is indexed, but it’s one more option to consider.
Carey: I’ve never searched for anything in the L.A. Building and Safety Department’s records, so I don’t know how their filing system is set up. Did you search by the theatre’s name, or by address? Sometimes bureaucratic filing systems are inconsistent over the years. There might be records filed under the name of the retail tenants, or the name of the building owner (personal or corporate), or by the address of the retail store rather than the address of the theatre. Many times, an institution’s initial claim that they don’t have a particular bit of information turns out to be wrong, and digging deeper will unearth it.
ken mc: Are the directories in that room on open shelves? It’s possible that they keep the L.A. directories in a closed area, and available only on request, as they’d probably be the most popular, and thus the ones most likely to become damaged or lost if kept on open shelves. Also, a lot of the old reference materials in the library have been put in storage after being made available on microfilm or microfiche. The library’s web site contains a City Directories Index search page, but I haven’t figured out how to use it.
Carey: The L.A. Public Library’s on-line photo database contains at least these two pictures of the Palace, c1928, with the “Broadway Palace” name on it:
The information about the name “News Palace” (adopted in 1939) is covered in my comment of Dec. 8, 2004, near the top of this page. I’ve never seen the Daily Variety article itself; only the index card displayed in the California Index section of the L.A. Library web site.
Carey: Though I undoubtedly saw the facade before 1952, I don’t remember what it looked like. My mom tells me that we went to the Los Angeles a couple of times in the late 1940’s and early 1950’s, but my only early memories of any downtown theatres are of the Warner Brother’s and the RKO Hillstreet. My first memory of the facade of the Los Angeles is from about 1960.
I don’t remember what retailers were in the north wing storefronts in 1960, but by 1963 I know there was one of those cheap electronics dealers in one of them, because I bought a radio from them. Whatever company had caused the remodeling to be done was probably gone by then. I’ve always suspected that the owners of the building had allowed the remodeling to be done by a tenant- probably some time in the 1940’s, as that plain style of facade was popular with retailers during that decade. An old city directory (many are available at the downtown library) would give the name of the store’s occupant(s) during that time.
I’m glad to hear that you intend to restore the facade. It’s always bothered me that the north and south wings don’t match.
DanW: “The 2wenty” is the name Regal Entertainment Group has given to the twenty minutes of ads and movie trailers that precede the feature in almost all of their theatres. By giving it what they appear to think is a hip&trendy name, they can pretend that it’s part of the show instead of just a bunch of advertising. They even have a web site for it.
Bill Kallay: The relationship of Southern California’s Edwards theatres and the Los Angeles Times goes back for ages. I remember seeing the Times ad (about 15 seconds long) every week at the various Edwards theatres I attended in the San Gabriel Valley in the 1950’s. It was the only ad the theatres ran (aside from their usual popcorn plug), and the word was that The Times gave free advertising space in the paper for any theatres that ran Times ads on their screens.
I’ve come across a card displayed in the L.A. Public Library’s California Index which refers to an article in the Los Angeles Times of May 14, 1922, which says that the Gore Brothers were going to lease the Omar Theatre on Main Street. That’s the latest date for any reference to the Omar name that I have found so far.
cmcc: As operators of the Cairo, I suspect that the Hansens were owners of the business, though not necessarily of the building (many theatres were built by speculators and then leased to operators.) Most small suburban theatres such as the Cairo were not operated by circuits, but by independent business people. ronp’s comments on the Atlantic Theatre indicate that the Hansens actually owned that theatre building, but say only that they “operated” the Cairo. Whether they owned the Cairo building or not, it seems likely that they were the independent owners of the business, at least until 1941.
cmmc: The first comment above by ronp says that Ivan and Eula Hanson ran the Cairo for 12 years before they built the Atlantic Theatre in Long Beach in 1941, so they must have been the operators in 1933.
I didn’t know there was a Mickey Mouse Club as early as 1933. I searched on Google, and found that the first Mickey Mouse Club of the era was formed at the Fox Dome Theatre in Ocean Park, California in 1929. In 1932 the club reached one million members. (This information from an official Disney Company page.)
Here is a link to a PDF file (only 180K, so easily downloaded) which is mostly about copyright law, and apparently has to do with a court case, but which discusses the early Micky Mouse Clubs for several pages, beginning on page 10.
Just so everybody will know: I’m NOT related to Mike Vogel.
If the building the theatre is in has 40,000 square feet, then four million dollars doesn’t seem an excessive price. The citizens of Anchorage are passing up a bargain. Their descendants will regret this lost opportunity.
In case anyone looks this far back in the news archives: This is not the Alcazar Theatre listed on Cinema Treasures, located at 260 O'Farrell Street. The Geary Street Alcazar, originally built as the Islam Temple for the Shriners, only took on the name Alcazar some time after the demolition of the O'Farrell Street Alcazar. I have no information on whether or not the Geary Street Alcazar has ever operated as a movie theatre.
The photo at the Noe Hill web site, linked above by TC on Sep 27, 2005, depicts a different Alcazar Theatre, at 650 Geary Street, built in 1917 as a Shriner’s temple, designed by architect T. Patterson Ross. Some time after the O'Farrell Street Alcazar was demolished, the former Islam Temple on Geary Street became a legitimate theatre and took on the name Alcazar. I have no information on whether or not the Geary Street Alcazar has ever been used as a movie theatre, but as of 2006 it is still in operation as a live theatre.
Harkins Bricktown Cinemas will be one of the venues for Oklahoma City’s deadCENTER film festival again this year, June 7-11, 2006. Harkins may be a megaplex corporation, but they do give some support to independent films.
ken mc: I just saw you question from last December. The Cairo would have been in the block just south of 110th Street, which was almost ¾ of a mile south of Century- in fact, only a few blocks north of Imperial Highway.
Ken Roe posted a list of the 24 theatres being operated by the Edwards Circuit in 1950, and the Cairo (unless there were two theatres of that name in Los Angeles at the time) was among them. The list as in one of the comments on the page for the El Cameo Theater.
Will, the Historic American Buildings Survey data on the Tivoli goes so far as to say that the theatre was “…reputedly one of the first five public buildings in the United States to be air conditioned.” The claim sounded a bit extravagant to me, which is why I softened it to “…one of the first in the nation….” As the survey was done in 1974, perhaps not much information on the early history of air conditioning in America had yet been compiled. I do know that it was not yet a commonplace feature of public buildings at the time, but it also seemed unlikely that the Tivoli would have had only the fifth plant ever installed in an American public building.
According to this article, the first public building in the U.S. to have a modern air conditioning plant was the J.L. Hudson department store in Detroit, in 1924. I don’t know how rapidly air conditioning spread in the following years, but I do know that it remained a fairly costly luxury until after WWII. As late as the 1950’s, I recall that among the dozen or so theatres in the area where I lived a few miles east of downtown Los Angeles, none were yet air conditioned. The nearest air conditioned theatre I knew of was the United Artists in Pasadena.
William, are you sure about the Skouras-ization of the Palace in 1947? When I began going to the theatre in the early 1960’s, the auditorium had the same, ornate Renaissance decor seen in old photographs of it (and the style “Renaissance” needs to be added to the theatre’s information at the top of the page, buy the way.) I don’t remember the lobby as clearly, but I certainly don’t recall it having any of the art moderne style for which Skouras was so famous. I do know that the ticket foyer had had its ornate decoration largely covered over by then, but it wasn’t particularly art moderne, either- just sort of bland. If Skouras was responsible for that, it wasn’t one of his better designs.
Does the movie smell like Colin Farrell? That’s a disturbing thought. I’ve never seen him in person, but in his appearances on T.V. talk shows, he usually has sort of a seedy, boozy look. Now I’m imagining a nice, tidy Japanese theatre being filled with a smell redolent of one of those old skid row grind houses where bums used to sleep off their drunks.
The Century Theatres Evanston megaplex was designed by the San Diego architectural firm, Fehlman LaBarre. It contains 3400 seats.
ken mc: I thought I’d replied to your question about the State Theatre long ago, but I must have hit the “preview” button instead of the “Post” button. D'OH!
Anyway- The Stockton Empire was in a fairly suburban location some distance north of downtown Stockton. The pictures of the State show it being in a dense, urban area, with a tall building next door, so it must not be the same theatre.
Jim’s mention of stock photos reminded me that for several decades in Los Angeles, the commercial photographer Dick Whittington documented a great many of the city’s businesses. The collection consists primarily of negatives, and is one of several collections currently held by the University of Southern California Archival Research Center. I’m not sure how large the collection is, or how it is indexed, but it’s one more option to consider.
Carey: I’ve never searched for anything in the L.A. Building and Safety Department’s records, so I don’t know how their filing system is set up. Did you search by the theatre’s name, or by address? Sometimes bureaucratic filing systems are inconsistent over the years. There might be records filed under the name of the retail tenants, or the name of the building owner (personal or corporate), or by the address of the retail store rather than the address of the theatre. Many times, an institution’s initial claim that they don’t have a particular bit of information turns out to be wrong, and digging deeper will unearth it.
ken mc: Are the directories in that room on open shelves? It’s possible that they keep the L.A. directories in a closed area, and available only on request, as they’d probably be the most popular, and thus the ones most likely to become damaged or lost if kept on open shelves. Also, a lot of the old reference materials in the library have been put in storage after being made available on microfilm or microfiche. The library’s web site contains a City Directories Index search page, but I haven’t figured out how to use it.
Carey: The L.A. Public Library’s on-line photo database contains at least these two pictures of the Palace, c1928, with the “Broadway Palace” name on it:
Front View
Side View.
The information about the name “News Palace” (adopted in 1939) is covered in my comment of Dec. 8, 2004, near the top of this page. I’ve never seen the Daily Variety article itself; only the index card displayed in the California Index section of the L.A. Library web site.
Carey: Though I undoubtedly saw the facade before 1952, I don’t remember what it looked like. My mom tells me that we went to the Los Angeles a couple of times in the late 1940’s and early 1950’s, but my only early memories of any downtown theatres are of the Warner Brother’s and the RKO Hillstreet. My first memory of the facade of the Los Angeles is from about 1960.
I don’t remember what retailers were in the north wing storefronts in 1960, but by 1963 I know there was one of those cheap electronics dealers in one of them, because I bought a radio from them. Whatever company had caused the remodeling to be done was probably gone by then. I’ve always suspected that the owners of the building had allowed the remodeling to be done by a tenant- probably some time in the 1940’s, as that plain style of facade was popular with retailers during that decade. An old city directory (many are available at the downtown library) would give the name of the store’s occupant(s) during that time.
I’m glad to hear that you intend to restore the facade. It’s always bothered me that the north and south wings don’t match.
DanW: “The 2wenty” is the name Regal Entertainment Group has given to the twenty minutes of ads and movie trailers that precede the feature in almost all of their theatres. By giving it what they appear to think is a hip&trendy name, they can pretend that it’s part of the show instead of just a bunch of advertising. They even have a web site for it.
Bill Kallay: The relationship of Southern California’s Edwards theatres and the Los Angeles Times goes back for ages. I remember seeing the Times ad (about 15 seconds long) every week at the various Edwards theatres I attended in the San Gabriel Valley in the 1950’s. It was the only ad the theatres ran (aside from their usual popcorn plug), and the word was that The Times gave free advertising space in the paper for any theatres that ran Times ads on their screens.
I’ve come across a card displayed in the L.A. Public Library’s California Index which refers to an article in the Los Angeles Times of May 14, 1922, which says that the Gore Brothers were going to lease the Omar Theatre on Main Street. That’s the latest date for any reference to the Omar name that I have found so far.
cmcc: As operators of the Cairo, I suspect that the Hansens were owners of the business, though not necessarily of the building (many theatres were built by speculators and then leased to operators.) Most small suburban theatres such as the Cairo were not operated by circuits, but by independent business people. ronp’s comments on the Atlantic Theatre indicate that the Hansens actually owned that theatre building, but say only that they “operated” the Cairo. Whether they owned the Cairo building or not, it seems likely that they were the independent owners of the business, at least until 1941.
cmmc: The first comment above by ronp says that Ivan and Eula Hanson ran the Cairo for 12 years before they built the Atlantic Theatre in Long Beach in 1941, so they must have been the operators in 1933.
I didn’t know there was a Mickey Mouse Club as early as 1933. I searched on Google, and found that the first Mickey Mouse Club of the era was formed at the Fox Dome Theatre in Ocean Park, California in 1929. In 1932 the club reached one million members. (This information from an official Disney Company page.)
Here is a link to a PDF file (only 180K, so easily downloaded) which is mostly about copyright law, and apparently has to do with a court case, but which discusses the early Micky Mouse Clubs for several pages, beginning on page 10.
Just so everybody will know: I’m NOT related to Mike Vogel.
If the building the theatre is in has 40,000 square feet, then four million dollars doesn’t seem an excessive price. The citizens of Anchorage are passing up a bargain. Their descendants will regret this lost opportunity.
The Alhambra Theater was designated an official San Francisco landmark on February 21, 1996.
In case anyone looks this far back in the news archives: This is not the Alcazar Theatre listed on Cinema Treasures, located at 260 O'Farrell Street. The Geary Street Alcazar, originally built as the Islam Temple for the Shriners, only took on the name Alcazar some time after the demolition of the O'Farrell Street Alcazar. I have no information on whether or not the Geary Street Alcazar has ever operated as a movie theatre.
The photo at the Noe Hill web site, linked above by TC on Sep 27, 2005, depicts a different Alcazar Theatre, at 650 Geary Street, built in 1917 as a Shriner’s temple, designed by architect T. Patterson Ross. Some time after the O'Farrell Street Alcazar was demolished, the former Islam Temple on Geary Street became a legitimate theatre and took on the name Alcazar. I have no information on whether or not the Geary Street Alcazar has ever been used as a movie theatre, but as of 2006 it is still in operation as a live theatre.
There is a link to a virtual tour of this theatre on the Coronado page of the Rockford Centre Events web site.
Address: 2535 Pacific Coast Highway (per stevorini’s comment of April 14, 2005, now about midpoint on this page.)
The U.A. Torrance was located at 2735 Pacific Coast Highway, according to the theater listings in The Los Angeles Times of February 10th, 1971.
Harkins Bricktown Cinemas will be one of the venues for Oklahoma City’s deadCENTER film festival again this year, June 7-11, 2006. Harkins may be a megaplex corporation, but they do give some support to independent films.
The opening day of the Edwards Alhambra Place Cinemas was May 24th, 1985, according to the ad displayed at the Making Movies web site.
ken mc: I just saw you question from last December. The Cairo would have been in the block just south of 110th Street, which was almost ¾ of a mile south of Century- in fact, only a few blocks north of Imperial Highway.
Ken Roe posted a list of the 24 theatres being operated by the Edwards Circuit in 1950, and the Cairo (unless there were two theatres of that name in Los Angeles at the time) was among them. The list as in one of the comments on the page for the El Cameo Theater.
Here is the official web site of the Vine Cinema. No pictures of the theatre, unfortunately, except a small shot of the marquee.
Will, the Historic American Buildings Survey data on the Tivoli goes so far as to say that the theatre was “…reputedly one of the first five public buildings in the United States to be air conditioned.” The claim sounded a bit extravagant to me, which is why I softened it to “…one of the first in the nation….” As the survey was done in 1974, perhaps not much information on the early history of air conditioning in America had yet been compiled. I do know that it was not yet a commonplace feature of public buildings at the time, but it also seemed unlikely that the Tivoli would have had only the fifth plant ever installed in an American public building.
According to this article, the first public building in the U.S. to have a modern air conditioning plant was the J.L. Hudson department store in Detroit, in 1924. I don’t know how rapidly air conditioning spread in the following years, but I do know that it remained a fairly costly luxury until after WWII. As late as the 1950’s, I recall that among the dozen or so theatres in the area where I lived a few miles east of downtown Los Angeles, none were yet air conditioned. The nearest air conditioned theatre I knew of was the United Artists in Pasadena.
William, are you sure about the Skouras-ization of the Palace in 1947? When I began going to the theatre in the early 1960’s, the auditorium had the same, ornate Renaissance decor seen in old photographs of it (and the style “Renaissance” needs to be added to the theatre’s information at the top of the page, buy the way.) I don’t remember the lobby as clearly, but I certainly don’t recall it having any of the art moderne style for which Skouras was so famous. I do know that the ticket foyer had had its ornate decoration largely covered over by then, but it wasn’t particularly art moderne, either- just sort of bland. If Skouras was responsible for that, it wasn’t one of his better designs.