Egyptian Theatre

Here are photos from 1980 and 1983:
http://tinyurl.com/chwoco
http://tinyurl.com/dhmdrt

Here is a 1926 ad from the LA Times:
http://tinyurl.com/c93arc

Here and here are photos of the Egyptian Theatre that I took last week.

I suppose, if you were prescient enough to know about the series. Otherwise it might come and go, and you would miss Earthquake, one of my favorites.

It’s disaster movie week at the Egyptian! Friday night is Poseidon Adventure, the original. Saturday is Earthquake in Sensurround. The rest of the films are Towering Inferno, China Syndrome, Black Sunday and Hindenburg. Go on the American Cinematheque site for more info and tickets.

Hollywood Boulevard, December 2008:
http://tinyurl.com/5h5ov5

Here is a photo of the marquee taken last night. Bonus photo is the creepy Scientology Christmas party next door.
http://tinyurl.com/5q4xum
http://tinyurl.com/6q96ua

Here is a 1928 photo from the USC archive:
http://tinyurl.com/49zscu

Spirit of St. Louis premiere
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I’ve been waiting for what seems like forever to find a movie to get me over to the Egyptian (sorry, but the homosexual cinema of the Ukraine isn’t exactly in my demographic). Got to go to the premiere of The Clone Wars today and after all of the doom and gloom in this thread I was fearing the worst. Much to my great surprise, I really enjoyed the theater. No, it doesn’t have the opulence or grandeur of the Chinese, El Capitan, or even the Cinerama Dome, but I found it to be quite a bit better than just a typical “screening room.” Now I certainly understand the complaints of this theater not being restored to match its original design and that’s something I can’t argue with. It’s going to come down to personal preference… the pre-show presentation versus the feature presentation. As for screen size, I would say the screen is comparable to the screen at the Village. I found it quite large and certainly more so than the average multiplex. Does it match the size of the theater’s former incarnation? Probably not, but it’s certainly larger than the screen at the El Capitan. I also found the sight-lines in the theater to be excellent. It’s kind of half traditional/half stadium, with another half devoted to the balcony (yup, three-halfs). I would actually say that the screen is bit TOO high (although it ensures unobstructed views for everyone).

I think that in our passion and appreciation for these theaters, we sometimes forget that the films are supposed to be the reason we’re there in the first place. While I can appreciate and mourn the loss of what this theater might have once been, I have a deeper appreciation for what this theater currently represents. After the loss of The National, this hits home especially hard. This is a state of the art facility that has reminders of its history everywhere you look. It’s a wonderful place to see great films in a town that has more than its fair share. Go just about anywhere else in the country and see if you can find something as good as The Egyptian, even in its current form. I will certainly have no hesitation visiting this theater again and again (including next week during the double feature of Alien and Aliens).

It should be noted that in ken mc’s 2005 post linking to photos of the Egyptian, there are three which are of other theaters. There is one exterior shot of the Egyptian in Long Beach, and the last photo is of its interior. There is one other interior shot of some other Egyptian (maybe Pasadena?) also. The corbelled proscenium and sunburst ceiling grille of Grauman’s were imitated many, many times in subsequent Egyptian style movie palaces. The sunburst grille even appears on a small scale in Oakland’s Parkway Theatre, still extant and running movies.

This is a circa 1923 view of the Egyptian Theater usherettes.