Fox La Brea Theatre

Opened in 1926, this former movie house was designed by Richard D. King. It is located at 857 South La Brea Avenue.

The Fox La Brea Theatre is located at La Brea & 9th Street.

Here's and article about the original plans for this theater from the LA Times.

(March 15, 1925)
BLUMENTHAL TO PUT THEATER ON LA BREA STREET
La Brea avenue is soon to boast its first. Announcement of plans for the new playhouse, which will cost $150,000, were made yesterday by A.C. Blumenthal, who has just completed negotiations for the purchase of the northwest corner of Ninth street and La Brea avenue. The site has a frontage on La Brea of 140 feet, with a Ninth-street frontage of 134 feet. According to architectural and engineering plans which Mr. Blumenthal is now having prepared, the new structure will contain a theater auditorium to seat 1200 people in addition to nine large store rooms. The theater will be of the latest "Class A" construction containing the latest theatrical inovations, including a fifty-foot stage. A.C. Blumenthal & Co. Inc., also announce leases closed for the account of William Fox on the Norton leasehold on Hill street, between Sixth and Seventh streets. Calling for a gross rental of $125,000, Leighton Industries, Inc., has secured a five-year lease on the store-room at 618 South Hill street.

This 1931 photo from the LA library is captioned "Wilshire & La Brea". Is that close enough to 9th to assume that this is the theater?
http://jpg1.lapl.org/pics19/00009304.jpg

Ken: The view in the picture to which you linked is east along Wilshire, and the theatre depicted is the Fox Ritz.

OK, thanks, Joe.

I actually posted that photo on the correct page a while ago. My bad.

I took some good photos of this building a few weeks ago. If anyone wants them I'll send. jeff@vokoban.com

The blank La Brea marquee was briefly featured in a 1960s television documentary (maybe "Hollywood and the Stars"?) about the effects of television on movies.

Advertised as Toho La Brea on 9/15/74 - feature was "Sword of Vengeance, Part 5".

This is a Korean church now.

I live near here and walk by this building frequently...maybe someday I'll get up my nerve and walk in there on a Sunday just to see what's left inside.

I did that with the State theater downtown, even took a few pictures until I was admonished. That was on a weekday, though.

I've been in the State on the walking tour but they were very serious about NO CAMERAS.....probably because they painted everything white and put up those disgusting stained glass crucifixes where the organ pipes should be!

I did ask if I could take pictures, but no one spoke English. How am I supposed to know cameras are prohibited?

When our little group went in the docent told us to hide our cameras because the church people would freak out but you're a rebel.

I should put the photos on a disk today or tomorrow. Yesterday I went down Pico and then up Western. The most interesting theater was the Union on 24th Street. A nice little theater in the middle of nowhere.

Here are the photos:
http://tinyurl.com/2xun4b
http://tinyurl.com/2yjj9k
http://tinyurl.com/yrvomt
http://tinyurl.com/yq6cur
http://tinyurl.com/ywcl3y
http://tinyurl.com/yr2zqs
http://tinyurl.com/2zrzen

Paging vokoban - it looks like the loophole has been closed on the LA Library archive. Let me know if there's another way in. Thanks.

ken mc....you're right but i still was able to connect. When I did the dropdown to Historical LA Times it went to a strange log in page and automatically put the account name of IPAUTO in the box. I just put any password and hit 'connect' and it worked. There's a bunch of stuff about copyright issues on the log in page, so maybe they just want to force people to read it before they can log in. Let me know if you're successful.

Great. I assumed that I needed a password. I will check it out.

That was easy enough. Thanks.

Here is a 1970 ad from the LA Times:
http://tinyurl.com/yo4el6

are you taking photos of your computer screen? you know there's a little camera icon in adobe reader that lets you select any part of the pdf and saves it as a jpg....just thought it would be less work for you.

I will check it out. Thanks.

Here is an early 70s ad from the LA Times:
http://tinyurl.com/38tzqz

The Gordon Theater was listed at 614 N. La Brea in the 1942 city directory. I will add it if it's not on CT under another name.

In the 1950's I lived on Sycamore near 9th & La Brea. My friends and I would walk over to the La Brea Theater for the Saturday morning matinees ("kiddie show"). It was wonderful! Cartoon, Movietone News, & a feature film. We paid 10 cents, and were upset when the price was eventually raised to 12 cents! Sometmes between the films, they gave away door prizes. I actually won a plastic wallet, which was pretty exciting (plastics were the "big thing" then). My parents & I also went to the movies there in the evenings. I remember "skipping" home happily, after seeing "Singing in the Rain". Wish I had a photo of this theater from the 1950's!

The Gordon Theatre is listed under Regent Showcase Theatre on CT.

This theatre was owned by Dan Sonney at one point. He and his daughter discuss this in the documentary Mau Mau Sex Sex.

Here is a photo taken today:
http://tinyurl.com/y9kty7z

There once was a rooftop sign that said Fox La Brea Theatre.

Here is an interesting article about the re-opening of the theater in June 1960, from Boxoffice magazine:
http://tinyurl.com/yd776gp

You should add to the also known as Art La Brea above.