Warfield Theatre

Bill Grahm Presents. Not a thing has changed in this wonderful theater except there are no chairs. I have seen many concerts here and love every one L7, Gwar, Marilyn Manson, Chemical Brothers, A.F.I., The Offspring, Jerry Garcia band, Great place great shows.

The balcony area has chair seating. In the 1970's, National General Cinemas and later Mann theaters ran it, primarily showing second-run fare. "Dawn of the Dead" was shown first-run here in May 1979 and I had seen it here. Shortly after the run of "Dawn", the Warfield became an occasional concert venue and now runs concerts full-time.

The Warfield was always a first run house. The Warfield was given a beautiful renovation by National General in 1969. This is my favorite remaining movie palace in San Francisco.
At one time it was the Loews Warfield and the Fox Warfield. brucec

Mike Thomas did briefly operate the Warfield in the late 1970's-early 1980's before it sold to Bill Graham.

Loew's Warfield boasted one of the more impressive marquees of the Market St movie palaces. It was 3 sided with the street side arched. Full of lights and neon it also featured an inner marquee above the inside of the arch. The towering verticle sign was 6 stories high (like its neighbor around the corner, the Golden Gate). May West was there for the premier of her film "Sextette" in the 70's. Looking a little "waxy" and seated in a big chair, she was carted across the stage to a mic by a couple of oiled up bodybuilders. They propped her up and she said in her best Westian "Thanks for commin' to my picsha" and then was carted back to the wings. The sold out crowd went wild. Architecturally, I think this is one of the nicest of the remaining movie palaces in San Francisco. The beautiful fan-like ceiling made the theatre look wider than it was deep and it has a beautiful classically painted mural over the proscenium. The balcony has chandeliers hanging from blue-lit coves. The marquee and verticle sign had to be taken down in the late 60's when pile drivers came through building the side supports of the BART subway. The side walks were widened and street trees added when subway construction was finished - and the new "look" forbade putting back those big marquees and verticle signs on any theatre that faced Market St. That's why they all have flat, fixed to the building plastic marquees now.

The Warfield can be seen in the filmed version of Margaret's Cho's 2000 one-woman comedy show 'I'm the One that I Want-Live in Concert".

This should really be listed as Loew's Warfield because it was named in honor of the great American actor, David Warfield, who was one of Marcus Loew's best friends, as well as one of the first investors in the corporate empire that became Loew's-MGM.

Warren -- This site always lists the current name of theaters so that they can be more easily found today, whether they are still operating, converted into retail stores, etc.

You are absolutely correct about the Warfield Theatre. Tt did open as the Loew's Warfield on May 23, 1922 and was named for People's Vaudeville Company co-founder David Warfield (born David Wohlfeld), who was born in San Francisco on November 28, 1866.

He died in June 1951, 23 years after Marcus Loew passed away.

I currently maintain the Warfield Theatre as well as do security.I would like to find any and all info
on it.From my understanding it was used as speakeasy in the 20's any pictures or comments would be really helpful.
I know nothing of its history from when it opened to when Bill Graham took it over.
Hoping to get some insight on materials used in constuction.
And the people who worked there over the years.
Thank you

Yes Indeed - Mike Thomas, a dear friend of mine - operated The Warfield and The Crest (next to the Warfield) during the late 70's.
Mike had a very tough time getting good grossing pictures for the
place and had to bid against the big circuits. I recall one title
that brought the house back to life, a moveover off the now
closed Plitt NORTHPOINT THEATRE - of "CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE 3RD
KIND." The film did great downtown on Market Street and brought
in alot of folks who hadn't been there in years. Unfortunately
it still cost Mike so much money in bidding fees that he had told me
a sale was eminent. Thus, Bill Graham took the house and its success
has been non-stop. I am so pleased THE WARFIELD stands protected and appreciated by many folks in the San Francisco Bay Area.

I forgot an interesting story. Another friend of mine - won a radio contest in the early 70's. He got a pair of tickets to see the Joan Collins film TALES FROM THE CRYPT - at midnite - all by himself with
one guest - in THE WARFIELD THEATRE! Yup. He said it was the scariest and yet, most enjoyable experience of his life.

The Warfield has a speakeasy down stairs any photos of the Platinum before bart was put in. .Or anything else you can dig up.Would help
Thanks for responding
B

Here is a 1967 view of the Fox Warfield with "The St. Valentine's Day Massacre" on the marquee.

San Francisco is a great city despite itself. The city made the mearchants along Market Street take down all there vertical marquee's in an effort to beautify Market Street, and it had the reverse effect on the theatre district. Everyone put up these ugly flat plastic marquee's like the Warfield. The Golden Gate got lucky because its not right on Market its on Jones and Taylor but you can see it on Market Street. I think if Shorentstein and Nederlander can produce Broadway Shows which cost millions the least they could do was spend a little money and relight the two huge Verticlals which spell out Golden Gate which were always lit when it was a movie palace.brucec

The Loews Warfield from the 20's can be seen here:
http://webbie1.sfpl.org/multimedia/sfphotos/AAA-9180.jpg

The Fox Warfield from the 60's can be seen here:
http://webbie1.sfpl.org/multimedia/sfphotos/AAA-9186.jpg

Uh, brucec--- The Golden Gate is on Golden Gate (Avenue) and Taylor; Jones and Taylor are one block parallel to each other.

A Moller organ Opus 3141 Size 3/18 was installed in the Loew's Warfield Theater in 1922 at a cost of $9000.00.

There is a lawsuit now between the building owner & Clear Channel (tenant, who uses the theater under the Bill Graham Presents moniker). Clear Channel sold the naming rights (without the landlord's permission) to SF Weekly & it is now advertised as the SF Weekly Warfield.

Must have been a good flick...

http://webbie1.sfpl.org/multimedia/sfphotos/AAA-9178.jpg

Here is an interior photo of the Warfield, from the LA Library:

http://webbie1.sfpl.org/multimedia/sfphotos/AAA-9177.jpg

That would be the San Francisco Public Library, of course. I am going for some coffee to wake up.

Grand opening:

http://webbie1.sfpl.org/multimedia/sfphotos/AAA-9174.jpg

This 1948 photo from the SFPL shows the Warfield in the distance and an unidentified theater in the foreground:

http://webbie1.sfpl.org/multimedia/sfphotos/AAB-6450.jpg

Here is a photo of the Loew's Warfield from 1948:

http://webbie1.sfpl.org/multimedia/sfphotos/AAB-6453.jpg

Here are photos of the exterior and the box office from 1922:

http://webbie1.sfpl.org/multimedia/sfphotos/AAA-9172.jpg

http://webbie1.sfpl.org/multimedia/sfphotos/AAA-9173.jpg

1930s:
http://webbie1.sfpl.org/multimedia/sfphotos/AAB-6271.jpg
http://webbie1.sfpl.org/multimedia/sfphotos/AAB-6272.jpg

In ken mc's post from Dec 20th 2005 8:06pm.

The unidentified theatre in the foreground is the Esquire Theatre at 934 Market Street.

Vintage B & W photo of the Warfield can be seen on this link

http://businessimagegroup.com/sfimages/history/Rec_theaters.html

Here is another photo of the Warfield theater.

Does anyone out there have a photo of the interior of the Warfield from 1939 during the Gone with the Wind run? I own a portrait of Rhett Butler that hung in the lobby and was just curious.
thanks!

Ah, the Warfield Theater... It brings back memories of seeing monster movies as a kid back in the 1970s. When the Warfield originally started to host live music in the 1980s, the theater seats were all still there, and the security tried to keep us little punk rockers in our seats -- "I'm not staying seated for Siouxsie & The Banshees, no way!" (I also saw DEVO there on New Year's '83 or '84). I lived in Tokyo during the mid-to-late 1980s, and when I returned, the seats were taken out of the auditorium and it was turned into a short-lived nightclub called "Downtown".

When they folded -- they must have lost their shirts on the work they did to the venue -- it was leased by Bill Graham Presents, who had just closed down Wolfgang's (formerly "Dance Your Ass Off, Inc.") in North Beach, due to a "suspicious" fire. Bill must have invested in the Warfield around this time, and was a silent partner in another live music venue, Slim's in the South of Market district. Legally, Boz Skaggs was the owner on paper, since BGP was under investigation by the SFPD concerning the Wolfgang's fire. You can fill in the blanks from there.

Anyhow, I did Security for BGP at the Warfield from '92 to '93, and was working the night of the Rodney King Riots on Market St. -- why were we even open? It was sheer madness. We saw several people being jumped, booted and otherwise assaulted right in front of the Warfield! Even my roommate at the time, Nanda, was jumped -- she went down there to apply First Aid to the injured, and that's the thanks she got. Guess who was playing that night? Jerry Garcia.

In the words of William Shatner from AIRPLANE II: THE SEQUEL, “Irony can be pretty ironic, sometimes.”

Exterior pic from 2000 here :-

http://www.flickr.com/photos/12494104@N00/423219469/

As a teen during the late 70s an oilman would sometimes take me along with him on business trips to San Francisco. One of the many things we did while there was to go see double features at the Warfield Theatre.
A lavish building, but since the Warfield lot is pie shaped the floor lay out is a bit disorienting. Standees curve around the auditorium and are actually located in bulding rear, with stage housing abutting the office bulding.
On one trip to SF we saw as one half of a double bill at the Warfield an old Marion Davies film entitled "Paging Miss Glory". This was a goofy type movie centered around an absurb plot that claimed if the beauty and personalities of Joan Crawford, Bette Davis, Greta Garbo, Jeanette MacDonald, Ginger Rogers, Norma Shearer, and Ann Sothern could be combined the end result would result in Marion Davies.
In the 12/20/05 posting, that 1948 unidentified photo is later labelled the Esquire Theatre. Could this movie house have originally been named Marion Davies? The Esqure would have sat cattycornered from the Hearst Bldg, and I've heard W.R. Hearst built a theatre in her honor across from his office suite so he could see from his desk the name Marion Davies' spelled out in pink neon.

There was a 1,000 seat theatre at 13 Market Street called the Cameo, which opened in 1909. At a somewhat later date, it was re-named the Marion Davies, but I don't think that lasted too long. It was then re-named the Esquire, which it kept until demolition in July 1972, according to a report in Preston J. Kaufmann's mammoth book about the San Francisco Fox. You might be able to find more about the Marion Davies Theatre in her definitive biography, "Marion Davies," written by Fred Lawrence Guiles.

Warren the the address of that theatre was 934 Market Street.

http://cinematreasures.org/theater/3130/

Sorry! I misread Kaufmann's report. #13 refers to the theatre's place on a map of downtown SF theatres. And its original name was Market Street Theatre. Cameo came later.

I remember seeing Thank God It's Friday at the Fox Warfield in 4 track mag stero. The place turned into a huge disco when it played. Gary needed to add a mirror ball when Donna Summer sang.

Here is a photo from the USC archive, circa 1930:
http://tinyurl.com/27fgfv

Here is a 1954 photo:
http://tinyurl.com/3c6ahr

I will be taking a tour of the Warfield with THS in the summer of 2008. It was still showing movies the last time I was in the Warfield in the late 1970's and was in great shape. The Warfield was my favorite surviving movie palace in San Francisco. A good friend of the family danced in a chorus line at the Loew's Warfield during the 1940's.brucec

Bill Graham Presents lost there lease to this theater & will have their final shows there in May with a 4 night set of Phil Lesh & Friends (Lesh was a member of The Grateful Dead). Saw ad in yesterday's SF Chronicle Datebook section.

AEG Live (owned by Philip Anschultz, pardon my spelling) is taking over the venue after BGP departs.

Walked by the theater yesterday and it looks terrible. Hope they put some money into refurbishing the exterior. I recall in 1980 when Grateful Dead played a memorable string of shows here. Good times.

The Warfield is currently being renovated and work is to be done on the front of the theatre with a new marquee which Im am told will look like the original from the 1920's. I was in the theatre a few weeks ago and the upstairs looked beatiful but the downstairs looked awful. I hope AEG take better care of the theatre than BGP. When BGP took over in the late 1970's the theatre was in great shape.The Warfield is the most beautiful theatre still standing Downtown.brucec

Refurbished Warfield to open Saturday 09/13/2008:

San Francisco's baroque Warfield theater, a 1922 vaudeville and movie house that became a prime venue for Louis Armstrong, Bob Dylan, the Grateful Dead and countless other performers, was looking a little shabby when it closed in May after the lease changed hands. But the Market Street rock palace has a fresh glow after a four-month renovation that spruced up the ornate interior and installed permanent new lighting and sound systems.

Run for 30 years by Bill Graham Presents, then Live Nation, the Warfield, which reopens Saturday night with a show by comedian George Lopez, is now managed by Goldenvoice, a wing of the giant Anschutz Entertainment Group (billionaire Chairman Philip Anschutz owns the San Francisco Examiner). Among the changes: The mixing console has been moved downstairs from the front of the balcony, making space for 30 more prime reserved seats, the lobby walls were painted a deep blue to match the new carpets and the brass chandeliers got a polish.

The matadors and Spanish dancers that Albert Herter painted across the proscenium arch in 1922 were left alone. And a new set of Warfield concert posters, from shows by David Bowie, James Brown, David Byrne, Jerry Garcia and many others, line the lobby walls.

"We're looking to present a pretty broad range of artists," says David Lefkowitz, Goldenvoice's vice president for booking. "Everything from alternative bands like the Kooks to (jazz singer) Cassandra Wilson." Lefkowitz has also booked dates for Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds, Rancid, the Dandy Warhols and Bullet for My Valentine.


Warfield reopening: With comedian George Lopez. Tickets available for 8 p.m. Monday (Saturday and Sunday shows sold out). 982 Market St. Tickets: $57.50. www.ticketmaster.com or www.goldenvoice.com


http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/09/11/DDUN12Q9BQ.DTL

I would like to know how the renovation looks since the Warfield reopened. I hope they worked on downstairs which looked horrible when I was in the theatre in July. They need to work on the front of the house which I hope will happen in the near future. The Warfield is an example of why I cringe when they take out floor seating for rock shows. The Fox theatre restoration across the bay will have versatile seating which can be taken out and put back in depending on the type of show that is booked. The Warfield was by favorite surviving movie palace in San Francisco until what I saw the theatre looked like downstairs I hope this renovation restored the beauty of this theatre. bruce

The THSA 2008 Conclave has a large set of photos at:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/thsa/sets/72157606184953729/


Here are their photos of the Warfield Theater:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/thsa/2684994601/in/set-72157606184953729/ - Upper Proscenium
http://www.flickr.com/photos/thsa/2684995373/in/set-72157606184953729/ - Auditorium ceiling
http://www.flickr.com/photos/thsa/2684996231/in/set-72157606184953729/ - Auditorium ceiling at rear
http://www.flickr.com/photos/thsa/2684997567/in/set-72157606184953729/ - Auditorium ceiling - from balcony to proscenium
http://www.flickr.com/photos/thsa/2684998491/in/set-72157606184953729/ - Auditorium sidewalls - from balcony
http://www.flickr.com/photos/thsa/2684999365/in/set-72157606184953729/m- Auditorium Ceiling
http://www.flickr.com/photos/thsa/2685000345/in/set-72157606184953729/ - Auditorium
http://www.flickr.com/photos/thsa/2685819310/in/set-72157606184953729/ - Stage & Proscenium - from balcony
http://www.flickr.com/photos/thsa/2685819310/in/set-72157606184953729/ - Auditorium sidewall

1952 Photo

1972 Photo

1982 Photo

1983 Photo

1970 Interior

1982 Interior

these pics aint great but i like the architectural detail although i wish i took notes on the lion's head...no positive whether it is warfield, golden gate, or another building on the block...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/26541422@N04/sets/72157617799414838/

Here is a 1964 photo:
http://tinyurl.com/nane32

While this comment does not involve this site, I am not sure where else to go.

I just came back from a visit to San Francisco. While there, I had a few meals at Lefty O'Doul's Restaurant, which is situated at 333 Geary St. in the 94102 zip code. Looking at the building's fine facade, you could see that it had experienced a previous theatrical life. This was confirmed by a bartender will indicated that it had, in fact, served as both a theater and movie house. She even noted that some of the old dressing rooms still existed in the basement. Unfortunately, she did not know any of the theater's former names. Finally, while having breakfast in the dining room, I noted an opening in the current ceiling. Looking through, I could easily view the ceiling of what had definately been a theater.

Upon my return, I looked through the theaters listed under SF in CT but could not find a match. While I tried to be very thorough, I might still have missed it, though I doubt it.

So my question is: Does anyone have a record of a movie house that once existed on 333 Geary? While it is possible that this could have been a theater that was never turned into a movie house, the building looks exactly like that kind of theater that almost always experienced such a conversion during a portion of its life.

In any event, I hope someone can enlighten me on this - and I apologize for using this site.