St. Francis Theatre

St. Francis twin is closed, obviously put out of business by the nearby SONY METERON.

The St. Francis closed in May of this year.

At one time the St. Francis Theatre was part of the Paramount Pictures Theatre Corp. During the 50's Paramount Pictures Corp. operated three theatres in San Francisco. The Paramount Theatre and the St. Francis and the State.

Towards the end, the St Francis would show second-run double bills, quite a far cry from showing films in roadshow engagements as it did in the 1950's and 1960's.

Century Theaters will be building a multiplex in this general area as part of the Bloomindale's project--Within a block of this theater.

In the book "My Life in Pictures," Charles Chaplin is shown standing in front of five posters for the EMPRESS Market Street, advertising FRED KARNO'S "A Night in a London Club." It's dated Sunday 5th November 1911. Also clearly seen on the posters is "Sid Grauman Manager." As I am currently compiling information on the Chaplin/Karno Tours, I would be grateful for copies of any newspaper clippings covering Chaplin's appearances on this and subsequent visits to the San Francisco Empress.
Thanks in anticipation,
"A.J" Marriot e-mail: ajmarriot@hotmail.com

A 1910 photo of the Empress theater can be seen here:
http://webbie1.sfpl.org/multimedia/sfphotos/AAA-8672.jpg

A 1920's photo of the St. Francis theater can be seen here:
http://webbie1.sfpl.org/multimedia/sfphotos/AAA-9197.jpg

And a 1960's photo of the St Francis is here:
http://webbie1.sfpl.org/multimedia/sfphotos/AAA-9200.jpg

The karate movies at the St. Francis in the early 80's showed a special innocence in kids, back then. How we would go to get pop corn or use the rest rooms and all through the theater kids who didn’t know each other from adam (say-ages 9-17) would play fight on the first site of each other. We all had a goofy kind of air headedness. You do that now a days...Well you know the out come.

When they twinned the theatre in 1968 they used the same carpet design that the Pacific's Picwood Theatre in West Los Angeles had. Which was remodeled around that time too.

In his 1964 My Autobiography Charles Chaplin wrote of having performed at the Empress circa 1910:

"We played at the Empress, owned by Sid Grauman and his father, friendly, gregarious people. It was the first time I was featured alone on a poster with no mention of Karno. And the audience---what a delight! In spite pf The Wow-wows being a dull show, there were packed houses every performance and screams of laughter. Grauman said enthusiastically, 'Any time you're through with the Karno outfit, come back here and we'll put on shows together.' This enthusiasm was new to me. In San Francisco one felt the spirit of optimism and enterprise."

Marquee still up (even advertises "Bargain Matinee to 2 PM"), but else it's boarded up.

yeah, shame of a waste of good theatre space and retail space along Market Street.

Another photo, from the collection of J.E. Tillmany:

http://webbie1.sfpl.org/multimedia/sfphotos/AAA-9202.jpg

With that additional set of screens being installed into the San Francisco Shopping Centre by Century, guess this and Strand are long gone from being theatres again.

Photo of hte boarded up St. Francis Theatre.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mikek/46236556/

1950, from the SF Public Library:

http://webbie1.sfpl.org/multimedia/sfphotos/AAB-6473.jpg

An undated photo of the Loew's Empress:

http://webbie1.sfpl.org/multimedia/sfphotos/AAA-8671.jpg

Strand, 1919. Anyone know what a nabimbaphone is?

http://webbie1.sfpl.org/multimedia/sfphotos/AAA-9111.jpg

I suspect "Nabimbaphone" is fancy hype for a regular Marimba. (Or perhaps the marquee letter kid did not know how to spell?)

Once in a while, the very early Wurlitzer organs (1917 San Francisco California/State Theatre) would have a ventil-controlled repeating action "Marimbaphone" in addition to the regular single stroke/strike Marimba/Harp.

BTW, the St. Francis Theatre had an early 1917 3/17 Robert Morton organ. The last I heard, this organ was in storage in the Sacramento area. A photo of the St. Francis Morton console is in Vol. II of the Encyclopedia of the American Theatre Organ by the late David L. Junchen.

1937:
http://webbie1.sfpl.org/multimedia/sfphotos/AAB-6384.jpg

I enjoyed the St. Francis but I'm sad I missed the "heydey" of grindhouse cinema (horror movies, sci-fi flicks, kung-fu, blaxploitation). I preferred the smaller downstairs theater where I saw "Casino", "Jurassic Park" and..."Leprechan 2".
The last time I went, however, the picture wasn't so rosey> I was watching the horror film "Bad Moon" and the rodents were being especially noisy and there was a colony of cockroaches all over the backs of the seats in front of me. I had to go the restroom and shake out my jacket and shirt. As I was leaving, two tourists from NYC were complaining to the manager about the roaches.
I didn't mind (even though I didn't see the rest of the movie) but them being from New York City...I'm shocked they were surprised by this.
Regardless, had this theater been maintained with strict standards and lots of extermination...I would have went a lot more. You could tell the place was once really, really nice. I do miss this place.

This theatre was owned at end by someone like a Bob Lurie-type who bought most or all of the block with the intention of tearing it all down and building new apts and office buildings on the block.

He could not get the financing and the site stays vacant today.

I only went in there once and wasnt impressed.

It would be interesting if some theatre fans could go to some of these theatres and take some interior shots before they're torn down.

George Senda
Concord Ca

Photo (exterior) here :-

http://www.flickr.com/photos/12494104@N00/423219442/

This theatre was never owned or operated by Fox Theatres or National General Theatres Larry Goldsmith.

Larry is right, thia was leased by ABC THEATRES sold to Plitt and then Cineplex. I managed the St Francis Theatres from 1979, thru 1982 for Plitt Theatres, then they sold the lease to Harry Ho,
The theatre was a rat trap in the 80's cock roaches from the sewers on Market street all the time would come in thru the toliets in the restrooms, Plitt remodeled in the late 70's put drapes on the walls and made it look better , the basement connected to the five stores and they had seperate PG^E meters that were in the theatre basement
which i had to read and bill the tenants monthly. the orignial theatre when it was a single screen there were no signs of that when i went thru the building it was gutted and twined.The clientlle was mostly black we played against the Fox warfield for the Karate films since we had 2 screens we generally got first run, Downtown always played first run with the Avenues,if the warfield got the film the moved it over to the Crest witch was there dump next door, I use to walk thru the Warfield everyday to get to the parking lot were i parked behind the Warfield. after the St Francis was sold I managed the Northpoint and then went to work in the office at Mann's San Francisco office until the Fashion Island was built and then I opened that , I trained with Jim Scherlock at the Warfield and then was filling in at Manns Dublin six and then the Town and Country with Tannehill. until the sixplex in San Mateo opened.

This was great road show house at a time. Many 70mm prints played, I went to see Sweat Charity in 70mm. They had a flat screen to bad It didn't have a curve to it. Today someone thinks they can put condos on the site. Good Luck this is still one of the worst sections of Market St. I don't see change coming.

According to today's SF Chronicle, Cruising opened here on Feb 15, 1980. (It was to have opened at the Ghiradelli Square Cinema, but General Cinema backed out due to protests.) John, since you managed the St Francis at that time, do you have any recollections as to how it did at the St Francis. According to the SF Chronicle article, there were more protesters than patrons. (And even more interesting that Market Street got this as an SF exclusive during the time that moviegoing on Market was an adventure in itself.)

Larry Goldsmith posted "This theatre was never owned or operated by Fox Theatres or National General Theatres" on Aug. 4th. 2007.

If you go back to mid 1940's it was operated by Fox West Coast Theatres in their Metropolitan District where the District manager was H. Kersken. The Metropolitan District was made up of the following theatres in San Francisco at that time.
Fox Theatre
Loew's Warfield
Paramount
St. Francis
State
El Capitan
Rialto
Alcazar

The Paramount and St. Francis would later be operated again by Paramount Pictures Theatre Corp.. Some theatres at times were subleased to other chains during the 1930-50's.

I've always been fascinated with this theatre, but I can never find any good info on it's last incarnation, only on the original configurations of each theatre.

John Tarantino, you seem to be the man I want to talk to. I had no idea that Plitt/Cineplex ran this place, and I've always wanted more information on the Plaza, Daly City as well as other places around the bay.

Scott D. I have Pictures of all the Theatres I managed so if you want to chat you can e-mail me at Tarantex@yahoo.com

Here is a recent photo.

This is a recent article about the St. Francis Theater.