El Capitan Theater
6838 Hollywood Boulevard,
Hollywood,
Los Angeles,
CA
90028
6838 Hollywood Boulevard,
Hollywood,
Los Angeles,
CA
90028
71 people
favorited this theater
Showing 126 - 150 of 301 comments found
I just picked up a copy of the 4th Edition of Lucille Ball: A to Z by Michael Karol and in it on page 114 there is mention of this theatre….“This is the Hollywood Boulevard theater in which Desi Arnaz and his band played for Bob Hope’s radio show in 1947.”
This is a long string. So forgive me if this has been posted.
I went looking for a photo taken after the 40’s conversion, and found this:
View link
Photo is about halfway down on right.
i remember when they were remodeling it.my mom worked in the office building next door to it and we would go to hamburger habit for lunch.the last movie i saw in the paramount was “the new pippi long stalkings”(i think,i was only 9),after resto i saw a screening of dumbo,we sat in the balcony.now lets hope someone does something like this with the warners/pacific 123!
Hollywood90038…great pictures, thanks for posting them.
Kirk, the move-over for “Earthquake” from the Chinese was to the Paramount Cinema as what the ad that Ken MC posted on Nov. 21, 2007 for March 1975.
Ironic you should post these photos….I saw 101 Dalmations on the marquee….and that’s the movie I saw in the El Captian, the only time I was ever inside….only difference was it was the “live” version of 101 Dalmations. This has to be almost 10 years ago or so.
Earthquake with Heston did open in Nov 1974 but at the Chinese across the street.
The link to the Paramount photo still works for me. Okay, have fun.
I tried that. After a few minutes, it switches to another page with no photos. This is the only way to do it.
That is one slow website. It might be a little faster if you link directly to the photo.
View link
There is a 1961 photo on this page:
http://tinyurl.com/28y78r
The Man Who Knew Too Much was released in June of 1956.
Here is a view of a 1956 premiere at the Paramount:
http://tinyurl.com/2oyuft
What was going on?
Lorne Greene played Ava Gardner’s father. I think they were about five years apart. A classic.
Earthquake with Charlton Heston and Ava Gardner was released in November of 1974.
Here is a March 1975 ad:
http://tinyurl.com/yu5t22
Here is a June 1934 ad from the LA Times:
http://tinyurl.com/2x7y5q
This is a recent night view of the El Capitan.
It’s a kind of soap bubbles. Very very light, they burst on contact and they’re gone. Disney uses it in the Holiday Fireworks at Disneyland. Just like a rain effect, the stuff shoots upward, then breaks up and scatters as it falls. If you look carefully you can see where it shoots from. This is an easy way to create a goosebump inducing effect, like blasting confetti, sparklers, or streamers. Pretty much every stage show at the El Capitan uses some form of this, except the sparklers and snow don’t require any cleanup.
When Chronicles of Narnia was playing, during the pre-show presentation, I remember the El Capitan had “snow” fall from the ceiling over the main floor. And with the theatrical lighting it looked very impressive.
Anyone know did they did the effect? The “snow” never reached the floor (at least nothing fell on me in my seat’s location), so I don’t think it was real man-made snow.
Maybe tiny particles of dry ice that completely evaporate while falling? (I’m assuming some standard theatrical showcraft technique)
Here is a recent photo of the El Capitan.
Thanks for some history on the CineMiracle system. I am so glad I got to see all the 3 proj Cinerama films in San Francisco at the Orpheum Theatre and some at the Warner Hollywood. At least like the El Captian these theatres are still around. Now lets get someone with a lot of $$$ and buy the Warner Hollywood from the Formans at Pacific Theatres and put back in Cinerama/ Todd AO and show all the 70mm roadshows with new prints for the out of town tourists that go by the chained up Warner. What a place for Cinema history. The tourists have money to spend in Hollywood and are tired of what is out on the streets of Hollywood in 2007. Bring back the 50’s experience for a new generation that is getting bored staying at home watching DVD’S. Bring on the Cinerama Pink curtains and put in the largest curved screen in the world in Hollywood. The out of town tourist crowd walks past the Warner Hollywood most don’t even go down to the Cinerama Dome complex or even know about the Dome Theatre on Sunset Blvd.
sorry about that last snip of this posting…
Terry: “Cinerama Stanley Warner was so upset that someone came along ‘National General’ and made a better Cinerama type system.”
That began way back in history. In brief: originally, the patents for the CineMiracle camera optical system were offered to Cinerama, Inc. which didn’t have the $ to pay (this was before the C'rama Inc, C'rama Prod., & SW-Cinerama trio was formed). On the projection side, R. McCullough of Nat'Gen'l who held the patent for a CineMiracle mirror-type projection had borrowed Act 2 of “This Is Cinerama” to run his projector tests. All was happy and Cinerama wasn’t too concerned about a future rival when, at the LA preem of “Cinerama Holiday,” Louis deRochemont, who had produced “C..Holiday,” got into a shouting match between the C'rama folks and the Nat'l Gen'l people and decided to take his next project over to the CineMiracle camp, claiming that the latter process was superior to what Cinerama could offer. This project is what eventually became “Windjammer.” When Cinerama’s 4th outing “Search for Paradise” tanked at the boxoffice, and “South Seas Adventure” was not yet ready for release, everybody concerned kissed and made up, and petitioned the Dept. of Justice to allow leased Cinerama houses to run non-Cinerama films, namly the CineMiracle “Windjammer” now “presented in Cinerama;” and over the next few years Cinerama incorporated a lot of CineMiracle’s innovations, particuarly on the projection side.
As for your next item, “…people brought the new DVD and didnt know about the preshow music,” in the Ziegfeld Theatre pages there’s a post about one customer at the “Lawrence” showing last year who complained to the
manager during the overture that the sound was on but there was no picture.
to the
manager during the overture that the sound was on but there was no picture.