St. Francis Theatre & Baronet Theatre

I’ve always been fascinated with this theatre, but I can never find any good info on it’s last incarnation, only on the original configurations of each theatre.

John Tarantino, you seem to be the man I want to talk to. I had no idea that Plitt/Cineplex ran this place, and I’ve always wanted more information on the Plaza, Daly City as well as other places around the bay.

According to today’s SF Chronicle, Cruising opened here on Feb 15, 1980. (It was to have opened at the Ghiradelli Square Cinema, but General Cinema backed out due to protests.) John, since you managed the St Francis at that time, do you have any recollections as to how it did at the St Francis. According to the SF Chronicle article, there were more protesters than patrons. (And even more interesting that Market Street got this as an SF exclusive during the time that moviegoing on Market was an adventure in itself.)

Larry is right, thia was leased by ABC THEATRES sold to Plitt and then Cineplex. I managed the St Francis Theatres from 1979, thru 1982 for Plitt Theatres, then they sold the lease to Harry Ho,
The theatre was a rat trap in the 80’s cock roaches from the sewers on Market street all the time would come in thru the toliets in the restrooms, Plitt remodeled in the late 70’s put drapes on the walls and made it look better , the basement connected to the five stores and they had seperate PG^E meters that were in the theatre basement
which i had to read and bill the tenants monthly. the orignial theatre when it was a single screen there were no signs of that when i went thru the building it was gutted and twined.The clientlle was mostly black we played against the Fox warfield for the Karate films since we had 2 screens we generally got first run, Downtown always played first run with the Avenues,if the warfield got the film the moved it over to the Crest witch was there dump next door, I use to walk thru the Warfield everyday to get to the parking lot were i parked behind the Warfield. after the St Francis was sold I managed the Northpoint and then went to work in the office at Mann’s San Francisco office until the Fashion Island was built and then I opened that , I trained with Jim Scherlock at the Warfield and then was filling in at Manns Dublin six and then the Town and Country with Tannehill. until the sixplex in San Mateo opened.

Photo (exterior) here :–

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I enjoyed the St. Francis but I’m sad I missed the “heydey” of grindhouse cinema (horror movies, sci-fi flicks, kung-fu, blaxploitation). I preferred the smaller downstairs theater where I saw “Casino”, “Jurassic Park” and…“Leprechan 2”.
The last time I went, however, the picture wasn’t so rosey> I was watching the horror film “Bad Moon” and the rodents were being especially noisy and there was a colony of cockroaches all over the backs of the seats in front of me. I had to go the restroom and shake out my jacket and shirt. As I was leaving, two tourists from NYC were complaining to the manager about the roaches.
I didn’t mind (even though I didn’t see the rest of the movie) but them being from New York City…I’m shocked they were surprised by this.
Regardless, had this theater been maintained with strict standards and lots of extermination…I would have went a lot more. You could tell the place was once really, really nice. I do miss this place.

I suspect “Nabimbaphone” is fancy hype for a regular Marimba. (Or perhaps the marquee letter kid did not know how to spell?)

Once in a while, the very early Wurlitzer organs (1917 San Francisco California/State Theatre) would have a ventil-controlled repeating action “Marimbaphone” in addition to the regular single stroke/strike Marimba/Harp.

BTW, the St. Francis Theatre had an early 1917 3/17 Robert Morton organ. The last I heard, this organ was in storage in the Sacramento area. A photo of the St. Francis Morton console is in Vol. II of the Encyclopedia of the American Theatre Organ by the late David L. Junchen.

An undated photo of the Loew’s Empress:

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Another photo, from the collection of J.E. Tillmany:

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In his 1964 My Autobiography Charles Chaplin wrote of having performed at the Empress circa 1910:

“We played at the Empress, owned by Sid Grauman and his father, friendly, gregarious people. It was the first time I was featured alone on a poster with no mention of Karno. And the audience—-what a delight! In spite pf The Wow-wows being a dull show, there were packed houses every performance and screams of laughter. Grauman said enthusiastically, ‘Any time you’re through with the Karno outfit, come back here and we’ll put on shows together.’ This enthusiasm was new to me. In San Francisco one felt the spirit of optimism and enterprise.”

The karate movies at the St. Francis in the early 80’s showed a special innocence in kids, back then. How we would go to get pop corn or use the rest rooms and all through the theater kids who didn’t know each other from adam (say-ages 9-17) would play fight on the first site of each other. We all had a goofy kind of air headedness. You do that now a days…Well you know the out come.

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.

The St. Francis closed in May of this year.