Comments from terrywade

Thanks Neeb for the flyer. Must have been a busy time in the booth with 3 35mm films going each day. Theatre is still there but has ACT plays now and has been fixed up. It’s to bad that they tore down the Embassy Theatre next door. No more movies playing now on Market St except the Century 9 multiplex, when at one time many cinemas were all up and down downtown SF on Market St like the Fox, St Frances, Esquire, Pix, Hub,Guild,State and many more.

This is to bad. Now the theatre will just sit and rot for many more years. With all the money in this area from very well to do people someone or a local company needs to come on board and get the place open again.

Good news the new manager ‘Kyle’ will again start putting up on the giant neon marquee what is playing in side the Regal 9. The retro nice plastic letters have been missing the last month. A new letter changing pole is on It’s way to the cinema. No more lift each week to change all the letters on the marquee. This will take a little longer but may be safer to use. The movie times for this cinema will soon also be in the Good Times free magazine each week again. Now when you go by the giant lighted sign you can see what is playing and buy a ticket.

Thanks Rudy for this photo. It was always fun landing at the airport In San Francisco at night and watch what was playing at this old Syufy Drive In. The airplanes came very close to the screen towers overhead. I wonder If they ever showed the film ‘Airport’? I don’t think It was built when the'High & Mighty' was released.

The curtains as of the first week in Dec 2016 are broke and Landmark won’t fix them. The neon marquee has many letters and light bars off and not working. Seems Landmark does not care to fix anything at this time. They blame It on the city of Santa Cruz that owns the Del Mar, Landmark just pays the lease each month. Soon nothing will light up when all the neon goes out.

Visited this cinema today and they are busy putting in the new recliners in about half of the cinema’s at one end of the building. Cinema #13 (the largest screen non Imax in the theatre) is being turned into SF’s fist Dolby Vision Cinema. They removed the small candy counter they never used in front of the new Dolby Cinema entrance. Go visit in the next few weeks to see the old worn seats before they are removed in cinemas #7-#12. Be ready for noisy hammering going on during your movie from the next door cinemas they are working on. Many people left and got a refund! They need to put a sign up in the lobby on the remodel noise going on. Once a former Loews/Sony large complex theatre the seating will be way reduced by the larger seats at the SF Metreon. Same old problem in Cinema#7 and most of the spaces, the red aisle lights shine on the bottom right and left part of the curved screen. At least AMC still has masking that moves not like Cinemark/Century that keeps everything open with boring white screen shown. Things hope to ready with the new seats in some auditoriums by Christmas. They have turned up the sound I think to drown out all the hammering. Bring the workers in at night to do the work please.

$75,000 is a good price to have all that work done with the front and marquee. In California the work would run about $300,000 dollars plus!!

Turns out after doing some more investigation the Cinerama Warnors had a metal gate surrounding the outer boxoffice area but the vandals shot out the boxoffice glass with a gun thru the gate. Bullet holes are still in parts of the glass that did not shatter. They may have to put in something on the gate to prevent more bullet danger in the future.

In this day you need to roll down a metal gate at night and put cameras up in front of this former classic Cinerama theatre like the Warnors. Same with the neon It all needs to have a plastic cover over the neon glass tubes. At least they did not get inside?

Thanks Gran for the photo. This great neon marquee for the long gone Capitol was used in many Golden State Theatres, United California Theatres and then UA Theatres in the 40’s and 50’s. They just changed the neon letters with a different theatre name in each city. Theatre DelMar in Santa Cruz CA has one almost just like this one and It lights up every night with flashing semi working color neon.

Thanks to the Syufy brothers for keeping this little movie gem in the West Portal SF neighborhood still going strong. The downstairs larger cinema is the best.

Was just at the Chinese Theatre Hollywood this past week. To bad the fountain on the left is not working and not lit up. The whole courtyard needs come color lights. Like put in some orange lights to light up the main pagoda above the door. Same inside years ago many color lights were used before the movie and when a movie was on. Now everything is turned off. No nice blue/red bulbs under the balcony. A little color is on the main light in the ceiling and a red light on the side but everything goes dark when the movie starts. Looks like they just have boring white led’s in most of the ceiling lights. You would think after spending all the money to put in a semi large curved Imax screen with curtains and install new seats plus dig down with a new slope you can’t see the screen If someone sits in front of you that is tall or If they lean forward,the image is semi blocked. Someone did not do the proper measurements when they put in the seating rows. The best thing about the place is the stereo sound with speakers up in the ceiling now. I liked the smaller cinemas in the back, two of them are a very good size with nice curved screens. Like so many theatres they don’t bother to close the curtains these days in the back cinemas.

Thanks Bruce for the photo. Looks like this old Hollywood theatre will be open again. I never thought I’d see the day when the Ritz would show movies.