Warfield Theatre

I remember seeing Thank God It’s Friday at the Fox Warfield in 4 track mag stero. The place turned into a huge disco when it played. Gary needed to add a mirror ball when Donna Summer sang.

As a teen during the late 70s an oilman would sometimes take me along with him on business trips to San Francisco. One of the many things we did while there was to go see double features at the Warfield Theatre.
A lavish building, but since the Warfield lot is pie shaped the floor lay out is a bit disorienting. Standees curve around the auditorium and are actually located in bulding rear, with stage housing abutting the office bulding.
On one trip to SF we saw as one half of a double bill at the Warfield an old Marion Davies film entitled “Paging Miss Glory”. This was a goofy type movie centered around an absurb plot that claimed if the beauty and personalities of Joan Crawford, Bette Davis, Greta Garbo, Jeanette MacDonald, Ginger Rogers, Norma Shearer, and Ann Sothern could be combined the end result would result in Marion Davies.
In the 12/20/05 posting, that 1948 unidentified photo is later labelled the Esquire Theatre. Could this movie house have originally been named Marion Davies? The Esqure would have sat cattycornered from the Hearst Bldg, and I’ve heard W.R. Hearst built a theatre in her honor across from his office suite so he could see from his desk the name Marion Davies' spelled out in pink neon.

Ah, the Warfield Theater… It brings back memories of seeing monster movies as a kid back in the 1970s. When the Warfield originally started to host live music in the 1980s, the theater seats were all still there, and the security tried to keep us little punk rockers in our seats — “I’m not staying seated for Siouxsie & The Banshees, no way!” (I also saw DEVO there on New Year’s ‘83 or '84). I lived in Tokyo during the mid-to-late 1980s, and when I returned, the seats were taken out of the auditorium and it was turned into a short-lived nightclub called “Downtown”.

When they folded — they must have lost their shirts on the work they did to the venue — it was leased by Bill Graham Presents, who had just closed down Wolfgang’s (formerly “Dance Your Ass Off, Inc.”) in North Beach, due to a “suspicious” fire. Bill must have invested in the Warfield around this time, and was a silent partner in another live music venue, Slim’s in the South of Market district. Legally, Boz Skaggs was the owner on paper, since BGP was under investigation by the SFPD concerning the Wolfgang’s fire. You can fill in the blanks from there.

Anyhow, I did Security for BGP at the Warfield from ‘92 to '93, and was working the night of the Rodney King Riots on Market St. — why were we even open? It was sheer madness. We saw several people being jumped, booted and otherwise assaulted right in front of the Warfield! Even my roommate at the time, Nanda, was jumped — she went down there to apply First Aid to the injured, and that’s the thanks she got. Guess who was playing that night? Jerry Garcia.

In the words of William Shatner from AIRPLANE II: THE SEQUEL, “Irony can be pretty ironic, sometimes.”

In ken mc’s post from Dec 20th 2005 8:06pm.

The unidentified theatre in the foreground is the Esquire Theatre at 934 Market Street.

Here are photos of the exterior and the box office from 1922:

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This 1948 photo from the SFPL shows the Warfield in the distance and an unidentified theater in the foreground:

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That would be the San Francisco Public Library, of course. I am going for some coffee to wake up.

Must have been a good flick…

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Uh, brucec—– The Golden Gate is on Golden Gate (Avenue) and Taylor; Jones and Taylor are one block parallel to each other.

The Warfield has a speakeasy down stairs any photos of the Platinum before bart was put in. .Or anything else you can dig up.Would help
Thanks for responding
B

Yes Indeed – Mike Thomas, a dear friend of mine – operated The Warfield and The Crest (next to the Warfield) during the late 70’s.
Mike had a very tough time getting good grossing pictures for the
place and had to bid against the big circuits. I recall one title
that brought the house back to life, a moveover off the now
closed Plitt NORTHPOINT THEATRE – of “CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE 3RD
KIND.” The film did great downtown on Market Street and brought
in alot of folks who hadn’t been there in years. Unfortunately
it still cost Mike so much money in bidding fees that he had told me
a sale was eminent. Thus, Bill Graham took the house and its success
has been non-stop. I am so pleased THE WARFIELD stands protected and appreciated by many folks in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Warren — This site always lists the current name of theaters so that they can be more easily found today, whether they are still operating, converted into retail stores, etc.

You are absolutely correct about the Warfield Theatre. Tt did open as the Loew’s Warfield on May 23, 1922 and was named for People’s Vaudeville Company co-founder David Warfield (born David Wohlfeld), who was born in San Francisco on November 28, 1866.

He died in June 1951, 23 years after Marcus Loew passed away.