Other theaters put out of business by Syufy(aka Century Theaters) over the years:
Fremont Hub 8 (and prior to that the Fox Fremont theater that was on that same site)
United Artists 6 in Hayward
AMC Milpitas 10 (since reopened by a different firm as a discount house)
UA Pavilion 8 in downtown San Jose (the failure of this theater largely had to do with Century locking up bookings for most of the major first-run films—This also hurt the Fremont Hub 8 as well)
I did some research today. The drive-in quit showing triple billed hard porn on June 20, 1978. On June 21, 1978, under the new policy, their first show was: “Great Smokey Roadblock” “Death Sport” & “End of the World”. Sometimes a 4th feature was added for Friday, Saturday, and Sunday nights. However, the new policy was a failure and by the time October 1978 rolled around, the drive-in was closed for good.
Towards the end, the St Francis would show second-run double bills, quite a far cry from showing films in roadshow engagements as it did in the 1950’s and 1960’s.
Century Theaters will be building a multiplex in this general area as part of the Bloomindale’s project—Within a block of this theater.
Prior to its full conversion to porn in 1972, the Guild did show I Am Curious (Yellow) in a moveover engagement from the Presidio theater and Without a Stitch, also moved over from the Presidio.
In 1969, the film The Stewardesses premiered here, which was a soft-X 3-D film that (for a time) became the largest grossing 3-D film! Shortly after it started its run, the theater was raided, but the prosecution attempt was unsuccessful. The film played at this theater for nearly a year!
During its hardcore days, it would often share film booking engagements with the Presidio theater in the Marina district. (And in the late 1970’s-mid 1980’s, the Towne theater in San Jose as well.)
Two notes: When it was the Egyptian, it was operated by Mike Thomas.
Also, when it was the Electric, it primarily showed triple bills, mostly of the horror/sleaze variety. Towards the end of its run as a theater, the Electric showed hard porn.
Mike Thomas operated this theater from 1977 until its end. During this time, Thomas also owned the Strand (next door), as well as The Warfield, and the Crest (renamed the Egyptian).
The article mentioned above also said some other information on Regal’s SF theaters (under the UA banner). It mentioned that the Alexandria is on the market for $6.5 million and that the leases for the Metro and the Galaxy 4 are on the market. The Vogue is on the market for $1.25 million. Their 280 Metro 6 screener in Colma was recently shut down due to competition from a new Century Theaters 20-screener in Daly City and that theater was sold to Best Buy.
The Southland 5 Cinemas (about ¼ mile away) has also been shuttered for the last few years and is still empty. The Festival Cinemas closed earlier this year. Hayward does not currently have a operating movie theater.
The theater has always been called the Burbank as the neighborhood surrounding it is also called Burbank. Someone had tried to buy the building for a community arts center, but apparently that had fallen through.
The fare being shown in the 1960’s sounds right, as Dowd was good friends with David Friedman, who produced Lucky Pierre, Thar She Blows, and the Ramrodder and who made Nature’s Paradise, Nature’s Playmates, and the Goldilocks films for Dowd (on-hire). Reportably, Lucky Pierre played here for well over a year and this film helped turn the fortunes of the Capri around(and also led to Friedman making some films for Dowd as well).
The Towne was not split yet again. The new operators are still using the IMC6 name from the theater that they were last operating, which was the (former) AMC Sunnyvale 6 in the Sunnyvale Towne Center mall. If there was any more splitting of the Towne, you would probably be left with 50 seat theaters!
Tom Dowd operated this theater in the 1960’s and he also was involved in producing “nudie cutie” films that would run at this theater. One of those films was a nudie musical version of Goldilocks & the 3 Bears, which is out on DVD.
The Gay showed arthouse fare until the late 1960’s, when it had switched to adult fare. Shaw Theaters ran it until about 1970, when Pussycat took over. (It was called the Pussycat II, the Pussycat I was the Camera One theater, which Pussycat operated in 1970-1971 after acquiring it from Shaw.) The city of San Jose had its share of battles with Pussycat (which included a July 1973 raid during a showing of Deep Throat as well as a late 1980’s lawsuit initiated by Pussycat over San Jose’s downtown revitialization). Pussycat gave up in 1989.
An update: Camera no longer operates this theater. A new operator has leased it and plans to show Bollywood(Indian) films here.
Other notes: Theater opened in 1926 as a neighborhood theater in the Rose Garden district of San Jose. Shaw Theaters operated this in the 1960’s to early 1970’s(along with the Burbank, Camera One, and the Gay). Shaw ran largely arthouse fare here. In the early 1970’s, the theater converted to showing porn, which it did until the mid-1980’s. Camera had reopened the Towne in 1990 and divided the original theater into 3 screens.
The operators of the Four Star will be re-opening this theater soon. It will be chopped up into 3 theaters and show some independent films and Hong Kong films as well.
Cinerama did operate this theater from 1965 to about 1970. In the 1970’s, it went from showing first-run “reserved seat engagement” films to showing blaxploitation and kung-fu films. It also showed some X-rated(non-hardcore) films in the late 1960’s-early 1970’s as well. DeSade(AIP’s only X-rated film) premiered here as well as Myra Breckinridge(on both screens playing “every hour on the hour”).
Did see the inside of this theater recently on a news station & it looks like a nice renovation was done.
Other notes: The theater was twinned in the 1970’s and then a few years before it closed as a theater, it was re-converted back to single screen. Blumenfeld ran this theater in the later years.
This was run by Walter Reade Theaters in the late 1960’s-late 1970’s (along with the Clay, Larkin, Bridge, and Stage Door). When Walter Reade Theaters went bankrupt in 1978, the Mitchell Brothers acquired this theater and the Larkin. The Larkin went to showing porn films for a year, then the Mitchells operated it briefly as a revival house before it switched to showing gay porn. The Music Hall was used by the Mitchells as an attempt to operate a live music venue which failed.
The major reason why the Mitchells acquired these two theaters was to keep the Pussycat Theater chain from moving into the area. (Pussycat wanted one of these theaters to compete against the Mitchell’s flagship O'Farrell theater nearby.)
Correction on last post—There was no Showcase theater in El Cerrito. It was in San Pablo, a twin that is now used as a clothing store & that is in the El Portal Center. The Alameda & Fremont theaters did have identical layouts.
Opened in 1949 showing mainstream, first run films. Went to porn in April, 1972 and continues to show porn today. Currently the last operating adult film(now video) theater in the San Francisco Bay Area.
This is currently the last operating adult film theater in the San Francisco Bay Area. (It shows video now.) Has been an adult theater since April, 1972.
Other theaters put out of business by Syufy(aka Century Theaters) over the years:
Fremont Hub 8 (and prior to that the Fox Fremont theater that was on that same site)
United Artists 6 in Hayward
AMC Milpitas 10 (since reopened by a different firm as a discount house)
UA Pavilion 8 in downtown San Jose (the failure of this theater largely had to do with Century locking up bookings for most of the major first-run films—This also hurt the Fremont Hub 8 as well)
I did some research today. The drive-in quit showing triple billed hard porn on June 20, 1978. On June 21, 1978, under the new policy, their first show was: “Great Smokey Roadblock” “Death Sport” & “End of the World”. Sometimes a 4th feature was added for Friday, Saturday, and Sunday nights. However, the new policy was a failure and by the time October 1978 rolled around, the drive-in was closed for good.
Towards the end, the St Francis would show second-run double bills, quite a far cry from showing films in roadshow engagements as it did in the 1950’s and 1960’s.
Century Theaters will be building a multiplex in this general area as part of the Bloomindale’s project—Within a block of this theater.
Prior to its full conversion to porn in 1972, the Guild did show I Am Curious (Yellow) in a moveover engagement from the Presidio theater and Without a Stitch, also moved over from the Presidio.
In 1969, the film The Stewardesses premiered here, which was a soft-X 3-D film that (for a time) became the largest grossing 3-D film! Shortly after it started its run, the theater was raided, but the prosecution attempt was unsuccessful. The film played at this theater for nearly a year!
During its hardcore days, it would often share film booking engagements with the Presidio theater in the Marina district. (And in the late 1970’s-mid 1980’s, the Towne theater in San Jose as well.)
Two notes: When it was the Egyptian, it was operated by Mike Thomas.
Also, when it was the Electric, it primarily showed triple bills, mostly of the horror/sleaze variety. Towards the end of its run as a theater, the Electric showed hard porn.
Mike Thomas did briefly operate the Warfield in the late 1970’s-early 1980’s before it sold to Bill Graham.
Mike Thomas operated this theater from 1977 until its end. During this time, Thomas also owned the Strand (next door), as well as The Warfield, and the Crest (renamed the Egyptian).
The article mentioned above also said some other information on Regal’s SF theaters (under the UA banner). It mentioned that the Alexandria is on the market for $6.5 million and that the leases for the Metro and the Galaxy 4 are on the market. The Vogue is on the market for $1.25 million. Their 280 Metro 6 screener in Colma was recently shut down due to competition from a new Century Theaters 20-screener in Daly City and that theater was sold to Best Buy.
Currently a religious group runs the Bal. Besides religious films, they do show second-run family films on the weekends.
The Southland 5 Cinemas (about ¼ mile away) has also been shuttered for the last few years and is still empty. The Festival Cinemas closed earlier this year. Hayward does not currently have a operating movie theater.
The theater has always been called the Burbank as the neighborhood surrounding it is also called Burbank. Someone had tried to buy the building for a community arts center, but apparently that had fallen through.
Tarantino worked at the one in Torrance, which was formerly the Stadium theater.
The fare being shown in the 1960’s sounds right, as Dowd was good friends with David Friedman, who produced Lucky Pierre, Thar She Blows, and the Ramrodder and who made Nature’s Paradise, Nature’s Playmates, and the Goldilocks films for Dowd (on-hire). Reportably, Lucky Pierre played here for well over a year and this film helped turn the fortunes of the Capri around(and also led to Friedman making some films for Dowd as well).
The Towne was not split yet again. The new operators are still using the IMC6 name from the theater that they were last operating, which was the (former) AMC Sunnyvale 6 in the Sunnyvale Towne Center mall. If there was any more splitting of the Towne, you would probably be left with 50 seat theaters!
Tom Dowd operated this theater in the 1960’s and he also was involved in producing “nudie cutie” films that would run at this theater. One of those films was a nudie musical version of Goldilocks & the 3 Bears, which is out on DVD.
The Gay showed arthouse fare until the late 1960’s, when it had switched to adult fare. Shaw Theaters ran it until about 1970, when Pussycat took over. (It was called the Pussycat II, the Pussycat I was the Camera One theater, which Pussycat operated in 1970-1971 after acquiring it from Shaw.) The city of San Jose had its share of battles with Pussycat (which included a July 1973 raid during a showing of Deep Throat as well as a late 1980’s lawsuit initiated by Pussycat over San Jose’s downtown revitialization). Pussycat gave up in 1989.
An update: Camera no longer operates this theater. A new operator has leased it and plans to show Bollywood(Indian) films here.
Other notes: Theater opened in 1926 as a neighborhood theater in the Rose Garden district of San Jose. Shaw Theaters operated this in the 1960’s to early 1970’s(along with the Burbank, Camera One, and the Gay). Shaw ran largely arthouse fare here. In the early 1970’s, the theater converted to showing porn, which it did until the mid-1980’s. Camera had reopened the Towne in 1990 and divided the original theater into 3 screens.
The operators of the Four Star will be re-opening this theater soon. It will be chopped up into 3 theaters and show some independent films and Hong Kong films as well.
Cinerama did operate this theater from 1965 to about 1970. In the 1970’s, it went from showing first-run “reserved seat engagement” films to showing blaxploitation and kung-fu films. It also showed some X-rated(non-hardcore) films in the late 1960’s-early 1970’s as well. DeSade(AIP’s only X-rated film) premiered here as well as Myra Breckinridge(on both screens playing “every hour on the hour”).
Did see the inside of this theater recently on a news station & it looks like a nice renovation was done.
Other notes: The theater was twinned in the 1970’s and then a few years before it closed as a theater, it was re-converted back to single screen. Blumenfeld ran this theater in the later years.
This was run by Walter Reade Theaters in the late 1960’s-late 1970’s (along with the Clay, Larkin, Bridge, and Stage Door). When Walter Reade Theaters went bankrupt in 1978, the Mitchell Brothers acquired this theater and the Larkin. The Larkin went to showing porn films for a year, then the Mitchells operated it briefly as a revival house before it switched to showing gay porn. The Music Hall was used by the Mitchells as an attempt to operate a live music venue which failed.
The major reason why the Mitchells acquired these two theaters was to keep the Pussycat Theater chain from moving into the area. (Pussycat wanted one of these theaters to compete against the Mitchell’s flagship O'Farrell theater nearby.)
Correction on last post—There was no Showcase theater in El Cerrito. It was in San Pablo, a twin that is now used as a clothing store & that is in the El Portal Center. The Alameda & Fremont theaters did have identical layouts.
Opened in 1949 showing mainstream, first run films. Went to porn in April, 1972 and continues to show porn today. Currently the last operating adult film(now video) theater in the San Francisco Bay Area.
This is currently the last operating adult film theater in the San Francisco Bay Area. (It shows video now.) Has been an adult theater since April, 1972.