Roxie Theatre

I recall Blumenfeld theaters operating this in the 1970's. It had been a first run theater until the late 1960's.

The architects were Charles Peter Weeks and William Day, also architects of the nearby Fox Oakland.

The Roxie Theatre in Oakland was located at 517 17th Street and it seated 1075 people.

When I lived in downtown Oakland in the late 1970's and 1980's, I used to go to Roxie to watch 3 movies for $2.00 and it used to show nothing but Black movies. The upper balcony was closed to the pubic.

But I remember going there once to watch a western movie and we used to go up the balcony to see it. That was around 1967.

The Roxie, with an entrance on a side street, was exceptionally well maintained at least through the 1960s. This was unusual, as most of the downtown Oakland theaters had fallen on hard times by then.

The Roxie was the exlusive run roadshow house of the 1960's. "West Side Story","Mary Poppins", "The Sound of Music", "Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolf","Hawaii", "The Great Race" and "Easy Rider" were many of the exclusive long runs that played the Roxie during the successful 1960"s for this house. The Roxie was rather plain compared to the Paramount, Fox-Oakland and The T&D in Downtown Oakland. The Roxie was also the smallest of the exclusive run Theatres downtown. My favorite feauture of the Roxie was there vertical neon marquee. The Roxie during the 1960's was the most successful of the downtown houses because they played all the big pictures. I will always have beautiful childhood memories of going to the the movies and the big department stores downtown.brucec

The Dufwin opened on October 8, 1928 and was named after Henry Duffy, a theater producer, and his wife, actress Dale Winter (combining the first syllables of their surnames). It was one of eight theaters owned by Duffy which featured the Henry Duffy Players. The opening play was Vincent Lawrence's "In Love With Life." Actor Leo Carrillo (who would years later be known as Pancho on "The Cisco Kid") served as Master of Ceremonies at the theater's opening. Sadly, Duffy went bankrupt in the early days of the depression, resulting in the Dufwin's closure (and subsequent rebirth as the Roxie).

The Roxie Theatre closed in 1983. It was totally gutted internally and converted into office space.

I don't know if/when it was called The Dufwin Towers, but it's called the Dufwin Theater Building now.

Man the Roxy-3 flicks for 2$. And me and my Mexican Patna form San Fran would hook up on the weekends and be there all day watching Black exploits & Fu Flicks. Ahh those were the days.

The Roxie was great and the Queen of B Triple Bills during the early seventies. It had a lobby with the snack bar in the center, stairs on both sides that went up to the balcony (it didn't have a loge) ) where everyone did pot and drank nite train. There were no murals or paintings, as the walls and the sides of the screen were curtained over. Fights were always going down in there. All of a sudden the screen would go blank, the lights would come on, and about 20 uniformed Oakland police would come in, snatch some guy sitting in the front for no reason an drag him out. the lights would go out and the movie would come back on, and everyone would be catcalling out loud and kackling, it was great fun.

I used to attend the Roxie in the early 1980's when I was in the United States Navy stationed at Naval Air Station in Alameda, California on the USS Kansas City (AOR 3). The majority of the movies had all black actors, and the patrons were mostly black. I remember watching "Superfly" for the first time and "Pipe Dreams" featuring Gladys Knight. I remember only paying 2 or 3 dollars to watch movies all afternoon and evening. The place used to get a good crowd on the weekend. I enjoyed the Roxie very much. Radioman third class, Anthony Jordan

Same thing went on at the Roxie that the Fox Grand Lake was doing. The Blumenfelds booked the Roxie at times like a road show house. had in the adds even 70mm listed. They didn't have 70mm even had mono sound till many people got upset. Disney made them put in 4 track stereo for Mary Popins.Most people went to San francisco to see Cinerama, Todd-Ao and the other 70mm systems. The poor guys who went to the small Roxie screen missed all the presentation that SF had. It wasn't till Ray S put in his Dome Century 21/22 big curved 70mm screens in San Jose that the 70mm hold had been let out of the SF theatres.

Here is a 1950 ad from the Oakland Tribune:
http://tinyurl.com/2st75n

Here is a 1956 ad:
http://tinyurl.com/2u9rxd

The year given for this photo is 1981.

Here are some 1928 photos:
http://tinyurl.com/nh3sx4
http://tinyurl.com/lgmrlw