TCL Chinese Theatre

Pretty sure Yes Man will be at the ArcLights.

I’d guess Yes Man. Mann is real big on the Warner Bros. titles.

Seems like the Arclight these days is grabbing all, holding it for at least 2 weeks since that is when most of the income for a film happens and then getting rid of them quicker than usual

The Chinese should have attempted to get Che instead of The Landmark. A true epic in a roadshow release should be getting the deluxe treatment in one of Los Angeles’s premiere houses instead of a megaplex with small auditoriums.

However it’s getting the Ziegfeld in New York, one of that city’s last premiere houses.

It reminds me of the Grove in Los Angeles-a fake city. I prefer the real thing.

This sounds like a bad B-movie script, but it’s a real story in the LA Times, dated July 2, 1952. I’ve condensed it somewhat.

Minutes after a red-haired girl robbed a Grauman’s Chinese Theater cashier of $55.91 last night, she was arrested a mile away and confessed, police say. “You can’t live on love alone”, police say she explained.

The say she confessed not only to the theater hold-up but also to the hold-up last Friday of a candy store on Wilshire Boulevard, netting $6, and to the attempted hold-up of another candy store two blocks from the theater yesterday afternoon.

The girl’s sweetheart, a 20 year-old Frenchman, here on a visitor’s visa, was arrested about the same time she was arrested but half a mile away. Each was booked on suspicion of robbery.

The girl talked freely, saying romance between the two blossomed when she was a salesclerk and he a stock boy and elevator operator in a downtown department store. Both left their jobs about two weeks ago.

At the theater, the girl walked up to the cashier, handed her a paper bag and said, “Put all the money in the bag. There’s a man down the street with a gun, making me do this.” When the cashier tried to temporize, the redhead became excited and snapped,“Don’t pick up the phone or call police. Put the money in the bag.”

She was arrested by cruising police who saw her walking on Hollywood Boulevard. She was still carrying the paper bag containing the money. Police quoted her as saying, “I was hungry. I have been days without food or a place to go. I decided I would pull the robberies to try to get some money for a place to sleep and something to eat.”

Thanks for the clarification on that, Mark; having never seen a film at the Chinese, I had no idea the newer six screens had stadium seating. Still, I wonder why Mann Theatres doesn’t try to negotiate for product-splitting with the Arclight. I’d have to think, based on the history of the Chinese and the quality moviegoing atmosphere at the Arclight (where I have been fortunate enough to see a couple of films), that such an agreement wouldn’t hurt either theatre greatly, if even by any negligible margin…

Is there any possibility that the Chinese 6 auditoriums could be converted to stadium seating and/or that the Chinese and the Arclight could share product, much as the Landmark and the AMC Century City 15 did last summer with ‘The Dark Knight’ and ‘Mamma Mia!’?

So, was that protest just a publicity stunt or were they serious?

Protest in front of the Chinese in 1983, from the LAPL:
http://jpg1.lapl.org/00077/00077889.jpg

IN the Sunday LA times it appears that the Chinese and Chinese 6 get the new Ridley Scott film next Friday with Leonardo DiCaprio and Russell Crowe, so I guess there is some life left.

Here is a January 1928 ad from the LA Times:
http://tinyurl.com/4hx4kc

Someone needs to start up Fox West Coast Theatres again and bring in stage shows at the Chinese with the movies like Disney is doing across the street. The place went down when they got rid of the neon dragons out front! The theatre is so dark and cold out front. Mann needs to add some color lights to the front. If they can’t get good first run films then book some 70mm classics and open up the big curved screen to it’s full width. Have some movie stars that are still around for the showing. Let’s get Doris Day to fly down and show Pillow Talk! or Kim Novak with a new 70mm print of Vertigo! The tourists will come in the doors not just stand out front and take photos. Lets get some SHOWMANSHIP back at the Fox Graumans Chinese Hollywood. The Place To Go!