The GCC photos above were taken when I went to see U-571 there in the main house. (So sometime in APR or MAY of 2000).
I would have loved to take a bevvy of really nice photos, but that place was crawling with managers, and theatre managers usually freak out when they see people taking pictures, so I try to be discreet.
Oh and Ed — thanks for the permission for your photobucket pictures. We’ll be sure to give you proper credit when we get a chance to post them up on Cinematour.
I have from time to time been known to take pictures of the theatres without the management knowing about it. I’ll do that when I absolutely hafta gotta needta have pictures of a place, but I prefer to be able to setup a tripod and take some good steady un-blurry shots.
I’ve also taken detailed pictures inside various chain theatres that friend of mine have worked at. The photos aren’t published for the public to view at Cinema Tour since their corporate offices might be upset about it, but should the theatre ever close, we’ll be able to have record of what it looked like.
Well that’s always been an option, but sometimes people never take the time to take pictures of the theatres in their own backyard, whether it’s time constraints or technological constraints. That’s where we can help.
And how many times have you clicked one of those photobucket or flickr links, eager to see what picture is on the other end, only to get an error message?
Ed’s photos can be viewed over at CinemaTour. It doesn’t seem as though we could photoshop the interior auditorium photos as well as I had hoped, but hey, it’s something!
Ross Melnick, Adam Martin and I have all met and had lunch a few times. Both websites certainly compliment each other and we recognize the same strengths you mention above.
Ed, if you e-mail all your photos to me at we can do our best to Photoshop them to a viewable level. I’m sure anybody who liked this theatre would be happy to see ANY photos, no matter how blurry or limited they may be.
I found (by working for them) that Syufy/Century built a lot of their theatres in a very standard way: cinderblock walls, pepto-pink paint, crazy-acid red carpet. Though certainly not a nationwide presence, if you walk into a pre-1995 Century multiplex, you’ve walked into just about EVERY pre-1995 Century multiplex.
This is truly an awesome theatre. If somebody lives nearby, please please please set something up with the manager to take pictures on the last day. Most GM’s are happy to do this. I was irritated I couldn’t get any good shots of the big theatre witout a tripod, but I can tell that this theatre had evolved from an awesome single screen.
I’m pretty sure that a branch of Pacific was called Cinerama Theatres. I was under the impression that the theatres they operated in Marin County were all operated by Cinerama Theatres Inc.
Do you think Pacific may dislike the Cinerama name because their entire chain was called “Cinerama” in the past? Perhaps they’re just tired of hearing it.
All 16-theatres can show scope films. The newer theatres likely just have top masking so that the width of the screen stays the same. Just because the width stays the same doesn’t mean they can’t show scope films.
I agree. And from a preservation stand point, they [porn theatre owners] kept a number of theatres from meeting the wrecking ball until such a time that the public began to care about preservation and restoration. I know of a number of first run theatres, performing arts venues and Drive-Ins that ran porn at one time.
As far as applauding the death of a “smut peddler” – that’s a whole different debate and not one I think should be raised on this website.
It’s sadly ironic that I worked for the company that caused this theatre to close, and that were it not for my job with Century, I wouldn’t even know it existed in the first place. I can only say in my defense that had Century have built downtown, it would have been somebody else, possible even Loews themselves.
The pictures of the goodbyes on the electrical panel / heating duct is so sad. When I closed the theatre I started at, it was a very sad day indeed.
I’d love to see more pictures of this place. Something that shows off how odd yet appealing it was as a movie house.
Is this actually the same building or did Century rebuild an entirely new theatre? If so, it’s somewhat misleading to re-name the information about the OLD Stratford Square to include the new theatre.
The GCC photos above were taken when I went to see U-571 there in the main house. (So sometime in APR or MAY of 2000).
I would have loved to take a bevvy of really nice photos, but that place was crawling with managers, and theatre managers usually freak out when they see people taking pictures, so I try to be discreet.
We must get in there to take photos of every last detail. Those sloped roofed houses always make me giddy.
This was operated by Syufy Enterprises / Century Theatres and was designed by architect Vincent Raney.
Oh and Ed — thanks for the permission for your photobucket pictures. We’ll be sure to give you proper credit when we get a chance to post them up on Cinematour.
I have from time to time been known to take pictures of the theatres without the management knowing about it. I’ll do that when I absolutely hafta gotta needta have pictures of a place, but I prefer to be able to setup a tripod and take some good steady un-blurry shots.
I’ve also taken detailed pictures inside various chain theatres that friend of mine have worked at. The photos aren’t published for the public to view at Cinema Tour since their corporate offices might be upset about it, but should the theatre ever close, we’ll be able to have record of what it looked like.
Well that’s always been an option, but sometimes people never take the time to take pictures of the theatres in their own backyard, whether it’s time constraints or technological constraints. That’s where we can help.
And how many times have you clicked one of those photobucket or flickr links, eager to see what picture is on the other end, only to get an error message?
We’re hoping to re-open the Santa Barbara Twin Drive-In at some point, hopefully you could make the rediculously long trek next year.
I’ve never seen Spartacus… maybe this will be a good excuse.
Ed’s photos can be viewed over at CinemaTour. It doesn’t seem as though we could photoshop the interior auditorium photos as well as I had hoped, but hey, it’s something!
http://www.cinematour.com/tour/us/2704.html
Mark,
Ross Melnick, Adam Martin and I have all met and had lunch a few times. Both websites certainly compliment each other and we recognize the same strengths you mention above.
Ed, if you e-mail all your photos to me at we can do our best to Photoshop them to a viewable level. I’m sure anybody who liked this theatre would be happy to see ANY photos, no matter how blurry or limited they may be.
Please do. We cross link to CinemaTreasures wherever possible.
We’d get a few others.
I found (by working for them) that Syufy/Century built a lot of their theatres in a very standard way: cinderblock walls, pepto-pink paint, crazy-acid red carpet. Though certainly not a nationwide presence, if you walk into a pre-1995 Century multiplex, you’ve walked into just about EVERY pre-1995 Century multiplex.
Does anybody have pictures of ANY of the GCCs in Southern California? Sadly, my love for GCC started too late. :(
Ed – I’ll let you know if my company gets high speed color scanners again. I scanned just about every issue of Box Office I owned this way.
And I meant to say as well, that if you have any photos of ANY theatres back from the day, we can scan them for you and return them unharmed.
Ed — If you managed to scan your SRO newsletters I’d be happy to try and get them archived over at Cinematour. We go nuts for that stuff over there.
This is truly an awesome theatre. If somebody lives nearby, please please please set something up with the manager to take pictures on the last day. Most GM’s are happy to do this. I was irritated I couldn’t get any good shots of the big theatre witout a tripod, but I can tell that this theatre had evolved from an awesome single screen.
Roadshow,
I’m pretty sure that a branch of Pacific was called Cinerama Theatres. I was under the impression that the theatres they operated in Marin County were all operated by Cinerama Theatres Inc.
Do you think Pacific may dislike the Cinerama name because their entire chain was called “Cinerama” in the past? Perhaps they’re just tired of hearing it.
All 16-theatres can show scope films. The newer theatres likely just have top masking so that the width of the screen stays the same. Just because the width stays the same doesn’t mean they can’t show scope films.
I agree. And from a preservation stand point, they [porn theatre owners] kept a number of theatres from meeting the wrecking ball until such a time that the public began to care about preservation and restoration. I know of a number of first run theatres, performing arts venues and Drive-Ins that ran porn at one time.
As far as applauding the death of a “smut peddler” – that’s a whole different debate and not one I think should be raised on this website.
It’s sadly ironic that I worked for the company that caused this theatre to close, and that were it not for my job with Century, I wouldn’t even know it existed in the first place. I can only say in my defense that had Century have built downtown, it would have been somebody else, possible even Loews themselves.
The pictures of the goodbyes on the electrical panel / heating duct is so sad. When I closed the theatre I started at, it was a very sad day indeed.
I’d love to see more pictures of this place. Something that shows off how odd yet appealing it was as a movie house.
Is this actually the same building or did Century rebuild an entirely new theatre? If so, it’s somewhat misleading to re-name the information about the OLD Stratford Square to include the new theatre.
I need to contact them to take photos before they do too much to the theatrey-ness of it all.