CineArts 5 at Pleasant Hill
2314 Monument Boulevard,
Pleasant Hill,
CA
94523
2314 Monument Boulevard,
Pleasant Hill,
CA
94523
13 people
favorited this theater
Showing 1 - 25 of 39 comments
Another ad:
Century 22, 23, 24 and 25 opening 25 Dec 1973, Tue Contra Costa Times (Walnut Creek, California) Newspapers.com
1973 grand opening ad also posted.
The Century 21 opened on February 21st, 1967. Grand opening ad posted.
Saw so many movies there. Even continued when they would play mainstream new releases, after converting to an art house, simply because it was the largest screen in the area. I saw a lot of movies in the smaller theaters, behind the Dome, too, but those auditoriums, frankly, were mostly sub-par. Sad to see the Dome go.
The 4-screen addition opened on 12/25/1973
Sometime between December 21st and 28th of 1973 the Century theatre expanded from (1) screen to (5) screens. These were the films that were playing:
1) Papillon (playing in the dome)
2) Ash Wednesday (with co-feature Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice)
3) American Graffiti
4) Paper Moon (with co-feature Harold & Maude)
5) The Sting
On or around December 20th 1974 the Century theatres opened a major motion picture into multi-theatres. Although this is standard practice today, I believe this was the first time the Century theatres had done it. Here are the films that were playing:
1) The Trial of Billy Jack (with co-feature Five Easy Pieces)
2) The Towering Inferno
3) The Towering Inferno
4) The Towering Inferno
5) Earthquake
During the week of December 20th 1976 the Century theatres held a special sneak preview of the Peter Bogdanovich film NICKELODEON. Price of admission for one was just a nickel (I believe all the proceedings went to charity).
Now there’s a Dick’s Sporting Goods in its place. It makes it look just like every other off-highway shopping center.
I remember the Century dome theatre at the Cross Road Shopping Center,(Monument and Buskirk)it was gigantic in side and a huge screen. Back in 1975 I watched ‘Jaws’ there with my brother for the first time and in ‘79’ saw ‘Apocalypse Now’ then afterwards going to Leatherby’s creamery to get a Banana Split with my girlfriend. The shopping center had a bunch of stores to like Montgomery Wards and Thirfty’s. Will never be the same not seeing the art house dome anymore while driving to work.
Man they didn’t waste any time :(
Mark it as demolished, please. Happening right now. :(
This was never a Cinerama ie. three strip theater. It was built as a Dimension-150 theater.
Now that the Dome is closed let the legal fight to save It go on. Someone needs to check to see who SYWEST is. I beleive Its the same company that is ownded by the owners of what was Syufy Theatres. When the father died many years ago Ray Syufy the two brothers got the theatres. A few years ago they sold most of them to Cinemark. They did keep most of the old Drive Inns under the WESTWIND name. The Syufy brothers are only into cash for the land that the old theatres they still run and own are on. They are trying to make money off the land that the Century 21 Dome is on in Pleasant Hill CA. Out of respect for their dad they need to fix up the Dome, put back the huge Dimension-150 curved screen or call it EX and keep this Dome theatre a center piece of any new stores in the area. Tear down the junky other 4 theatres behind the Dome and build the stores but please keep the Dome for a new generation to enjoy.
The “Save The Pleasant Hill Dome Theater” organization is working to keep this theater as a historical and sustainable community resource. More information is on the Web site: http://savethedome.org/
Good sized crowd for its final show last night. Time to mark this one as closed, and time to add the Century 16 across the freeway to CT.
The final engagements at the theatre: The Place Beyond the Pines, special engagements of Jaws (Friday), The Sound of Music (Saturday) and 2001: A Space Odyssey (Sunday), The Company You Keep, Trance and The Sapphires.
The CineArts domed theater may be facing closing and demolition: View article
I’ve posted information and photos from a recent visit here.
Visiting friends over the weekend of March 19, 2010 and overheard them making plans for “dropping the teenagers off at CineArts.” Went by the theatre later on and they appear to be doing just fine. Long may it be so! In architecturally nondescript Concord, even this relatively later (though I must say very nice) theatre building provides the community landscape with some interest!
Here is a June 2004 photo from Michael Moore’s website:
http://tinyurl.com/7qhov7
Under Century, all the CineArts were @ somewhere. The original CineArts were:
CineArts @ Evanston (Evanston, IL)
CineArts @ Sequoia (Mill Valley, CA)
CineArts @ Palo Alto Square (Palo Alto, CA)
CineArts @ Empire (San Francisco, CA)
CineArts @ Pleasant Hill (Pleasant Hill, CA)
CineArts @ Santana Row (San Jose, CA)
CineArts @ Marin (Sausalito, CA)
Eventually they started calling whatever art film was playing at any theatre the “CineArts @ [Theatre Name]” much like AMC has AMC Select and Regal has Regal Arts.
Advertised on its website as CineArts @ Pleasant Hill
Wow. Was at the CCC Jewish festival. We have got to save this place.
I was an auditor for Century Theatres and was always intrigued by the dome theatres. I had a bit of projection background so was also interested in the technical side of the older buildings. I don’t know if the lense is still on site, I would assume that it is not. I know that the D-150 automation panel is still mounted on the wall at this location, as well as some of the other older dome locations.
Scott, are/were you a projectionist? Also, do you know if the ‘Dimension 150 Lens’ View link is still there, or was it likely returned to the company. Also, wonder what size the original screen was.
Though the domed theatre in the Cine Arts complex superficially resembles the earlier Cinerama Dome in Hollywood, they are very different structurally, and they were not designed by the same architect. Pacific’s Cinerama Dome was designed by Welton Beckett & Associates and was intended to be the prototype for a chain of concrete, geodesic dome theatres in which to show Cinerama movies. The building proved more costly to erect that was expected, and the demand for Cinerama movies proved less than the company had hoped, and thus the Hollywood dome remains the sole example of its kind.
The CineArts dome, on the other hand, was one of several non-geodesic domed theatres designed for Syufy’s Century Theatres by San Francisco architect Vincent G. Raney. Through the 1960s the Syufy brothers erected domed theatres in many western cities, and at least as far east as Utah, where their seventh Century 21 dome was opened in 1967. From the description of South Salt Lake’s Century 21 on this page, it was typical of Century’s Raney-designed domed theatres. Click on the “Photos” link in the left panel of that page to see how Raney’s domes were put together.