TCL Chinese Theatre

That photo dates from around mid August of 1929. From when the MGM film “Hollywood Revue of 1929” played the theatre. Up until that time there was only 14 footprint ceremonies held at the theatre. The next one was scheduled on Sept. 14th with Joan Crawford (#15). The first one being of Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks on April 30th 1927. The theatre opened to the public on May 19th. 1927.

Two big crowd-pleasing 1960’s hits at the Chinese:

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Shane, come back, Shane….
http://tinyurl.com/rurwh

does anyone know how many subwoofers the Chinese has?

All the major Hollywood film palaces are open and being used. The smaller theatres are the ones that are either closed or have been demolished. Every major theatre has been restored or renovated with the exception of the Pacific(Warner).brucec

College Student should go to Google and type in “Raymond M. Kennedy”, there is a Wikipedia bio about him and it gives some info on the theater design.

The theme of the CHINESE was not chosen to ‘honor’ China any more than the many Spanish-themed movie palaces were so decorated to honor Spain. And so for all the other themed theatres, aside from truly ethnic theaters such as the Germanic PABST in Milwaukee.

College Student would do well to read such as the landmark book at libraries: THE BEST REMAINING SEATS, THE STORY OF THE GOLDEN AGE OF THE MOVIE PALACE by the late Ben M. Hall in 1961. It is available at amazon.com as used copies. This book will show the genesis of these theatres, and while great attention to authentic detail was expended, it was to create a theatre type that had no precedent in China at the time, hence the auditorium is necessarily much larger in scale than the original throne room in the Imperial Palace in (then) Peiking. I can’t imagine that any of the theatre is an insult to the Chinese, but also we must not be so naive to think that it was designed as a ‘monument’ to the Chinese. It was designed to strike the fancy of the Los Angeles public as a theatre for maximum profit.

Hello all, I’m a college student in southern California doing a research paper on Grauman’s Chinese Theater. I was hoping I could get a few questions answered, preferably by someone Chinese-American, who knows China’s cultural art, and has personally seen the theater. But anyone is free to answer any questions, any answers are greatly appreciated. Please respond ASAP.

Do you think the theater depicts China’s culture accurately? Please explain.
Do you the global exchange of Chinese architecture was a great idea for Hollywood? Why/why not?
What was it like for you when visiting the theater?
Anything else you would like to add.

Thank you for your time and I can’t wait to see your response.

“Duck Dodgers in the 24th ½ Century” was shown in 70mm with “Star Wars” at the Cinema 21 in San Francisco.

I just read some of the Star Wars stuff up above, I saw the original Star Wars in 70mm at the Chinese way back when and thought I’d get someone else’s memory going! I seem to recall that they were running a 70mm copy of “Duck Dodgers” (remember that great Daffy Duck Cartoon!) along with the film, and someone told me that it was a request of George Lucas. I also remember Star Wars as having been one of the first films to use the full 20th Century Fox “CinemaScope Fanfare” in years, it was really a knock-out in 70MM Dolby!!! The Chinese is another one of those wonderful theatres where even a “crappy” movie some how looks and sounds great! Not living in or near LA I have only seen a few films there, but seeing Star Wars there was outstanding, unfortunately, when I got home I had to run the film in 35MM mono, we did get Dolby several weeks into the run but no 70mm.

So have they announced which films will play at the Grauman’s Chinese during May? There are 4 big films opening in May (MI3, Poseidon, The DaVinci Code, and X-Men 3), and only two big-screen theatres in Hollywood that can play them: The Grauman’s Chinese and the Dome at Arclight Hollywood. And isn’t it shocking that Grauman’s Chinese showed a trailer for ‘United 93’ nearly a month ago, and it would cause a lot of bad feedback from patrons?

The original rendering of the Chiinese Theater by Raymond Kennedy just went on eBay! If you want to see what the original colors of the theater were, go to eBay. Click on “Buy”(you wont be committed to buy anything) then Art>Drawings> Modern(1900-1949). It went on a few days ago so there are a lot of things that have gone on sale since that time so the easiest way to find it is by “sorting by price-highest” or some other search in that category. I was surprised it is so valuable. It is being sold along with the drawing for the construction of the theater curtain that was interestingly made of woven ASBESTOS fibers! There are some good pictures of that original curtain. Both are quite beautiful drawings!!