Roxie Theatre

The architect of the Roxie theatre was J.M. Cooper.

The last major theatre built downtown, it is notable for its zigzag & streamline moderne style.

The Roxie was built on the site of an older theatre, Quinn's Superba.

By 1915, three theatres were doing extremely well just south of 5th & Broadway: Quinn's Superba, Clune's Broadway(aka Cameo) and the Pantages(aka Dalton's, Arcade), than were all still in operation into the early to mid 90's. Like its predecessor, the new Roxie was equipped for live stage performances, but its long narrow auditorium was best suited for viewing movies. The last chain to operate the Roxie was Metropolitan theatres. In it's last years of operation it was a Spanish language house. Today the Roxie's lobby is used as a store.

Roxie's architect was John M. Cooper.

The Roxie's address is 518 S. Broadway, it opened on Nov. 25, 1931.

Though I'm familiar with many other Broadway theaters, I never visited the Roxie. Unfortunately, all the photos I've ever seen have been of the exterior. Does anyone recall details about the auditorium, such as the design or the decor?

Actually, the photos I've seen of the lobby and auditorium, it was a very simple version of deco design using stencils and simple ornament and light fixtures. Most likely due to Depression-era budget...

This close up cuts out the huge vertical marquee on the roof:
http://www.gmrnet.com/graphics/theatr1h.jpg

This is another view of the Roxie Theater.

Here's a little about the Roxie from the LA Times, June 21, 1931:

Constuction work on a theater and store building at 516 South Broadway (maybe the address was changed later) began last week, the playhouse to be known as the Roxie and the building to contain four storerooms. The cost is estimated at $100,000.
Announcement of the project was made by G.A. Metzger and Harry Srere, who, with associates, are the lessees. The contract for construction has been awarded the J.M. Cooper Company. G.Y. Ridenbaugh of the Charles G. Andrews Company, realty broker, and P.L. corrigan represented the lessor and lessees.
The structure will have a frontage on North Broadway of eighty-one feet. The depth of the property is in excess of 165 feet. The theater will have a seating capacity of 1600.

Is it a typo that the article say North Broadway?

Frightening....

(Aug. 5, 1943)
FILM THEATER MANAGER DIES IN BOX OFFICE
A customer stepped up to the box office of the Roxie Theater, 518 S. Broadway. "One ticket, please," he said. There was no response. The man in the glass enclosure, Harry R. Metzger, 37, mangager, seemed coldly unconcerned. His eyes stared straight ahead. The customer called attendants. Metzger, they found, was dead, apparently of heart disease.

Vintage ESPN?

(Dec. 17, 1932)
Complete pictures of the Trojan-Notre Dame game will be shown for three days, starting tomorrow at the New Roxie Theater. The film is in both slow motion, and ordinary speed, with all of the important plays being shown at the slow pace.

Another death in this theater, I wonder if it is haunted....

(Dec. 25, 1954)
Only clues to the identity of a woman who slashed her wrists and died early yesterday between a row of seats in a downtown all-night theater were a Canadian dollar bill and a telephone number written on a cafe receipt, homicide detectives reported. The body was found by a patron, Claude R. Williams, 2108 S Maple St., when the house lights went up at 5 a.m. yesterday after the last show in the Roxie Theater, at 518 S Broadway.
Police said both the woman's wrists were deeply slashed and blood had flowed down the sloping floor of the theater past several rows of seats. Beside the body detectives found a double-edged razor blade which evidently was the intrument of her suicide. The woman wore a brown wool suit and brown suede shoes. Beside her lay a black nylon raincoat. Her brown leather purse held only $2.62 in cash, the Canadian bill and a receipt from a cafe at 10113 W Washington Blvd. Detectives said the telephone number handwritten on the receipt was the number of the cafe. The cafe propietor, Dave Brandt, told police, however, that he could recall no woman answering the description of the suicide. Detectives said the woman apparently slashed her wrists, slumped to the floor and died without attracting any notice in the dark theater. No patrons reported hearing an outcry. The night manager, Clarence Warner, said the house, which was showing "Crossed Swords," starring Errol Flynn and Gina Lollobrigida, and the psychological adventure, "Track of the Cat,"...
had been in

Here's the rest of that article, my computer froze up or something:

"Track of the Cat," had been in the darkness since a break on the previous day at 3:30 p.m. The body was taken to the County Morgue. The victim was described as 5 feet 1 inch in height, about 138 pounds, of stocky build, about 40 years of age. She had auburn hair, hazel eyes and false teeth.

The stories of Mr. Metzger and the anonymous suicide sound like they could have been scenes out of noir movies of the era. But at least nobody ever came crashing through the roof of the Roxie.

The Roxie was one of the Broadway theatres I never got around to attending. It was already a grind house when I began going downtown, and I preferred going to the first or second run theatres farther south, or on Hill Street. All the theatres north of 6th street except the Million Dollar were a bit sad and run down by the 1960's.

Of course, since the building is still there, there's always a possibility that it will be renovated and re-opened some day, so I might still get a chance to add it to my list of theatres I've attended.

I can't remember if those stores that are in the Roxie only take up the lobby or if they use the whole space. I hope they didn't level the floor like they did at the Westlake Theater.

I worked the Roxie about April or May in 1976 for two weeks when the projectionist took a vacation. There was three movies on the program. During those two weeks I remember running Kingdom of the Spiders, Deranged, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Nightmare Honeymoon and several kung fu movies. The booth was small and narrow with three super simplex projectors and two of the simplex arclight lamphouses were converted to xenon. Even with this setup we still made change-overs on two thousand foot reels. I never went into the auditorium but only saw it through the booth ports. The auditorium had a balcony and the screen was kinda small. The decor color was crimson red. I worked the day shift.

Here is a 1968 photo from the LA Library:
http://jpg2.lapl.org/spnb1/00017157.jpg

Denny, your last line sounds like the beginning of a Mickey Spillane novel..."I worked the day shift out of the Roxie. The walls were red. My eyes were redder, probably because of the cheap gin I had for breakfast. One night, this dame walked into my projection booth..."

Great, ken!! there's a novel in this!

We didn't go inside the Roxie during our recent Conservancy tour. I am wondering what the auditorium is used for. Is it storage, like the Cameo and the Arcade? Or is it no longer recognizable?

Here is another photo of the Roxie Theater for your viewing enjoyment.

Recent pic:
http://i85.photobucket.com/albums/k79/hollywood90038/dwntwnRoxieMar22200701.jpg

Here are some July 2007 photos:
http://tinyurl.com/23lwwc
http://tinyurl.com/2f5adp
http://tinyurl.com/yqcqgl

This is another 2007 photo of the Roxie Theater.

I also worked at this theatre back in the 1970s a couple of times but don't recall what the interrior of the theatre looks like. Does anyone have any interior shots?

Matt Spero

About 6 or 7 years ago I sweet talked one of the shop owners to let me explore the building. I was able to walk up the left staircase up to a second level lobby area. Their are two staircases on either side of the lobby, and at the second level I saw some fantastic Art Deco neo-classical pillars with a very stylized modern Ionic capitols. I got into the men's room, but the smell was bad, and the shop owner said it was time to leave. As We made out way back down the stairs, I saw a white double door that I assume lead into the Auditorium. I've only seen two photos of the interiors, but they showed a very handsome restrained Deco design.

does anyone know who owns the Roxie now?

I'm told the owners are called the Helen family, and own the full row - the Cameo and Arcade too. Not sure if they're on board this new revitalization scheme announced today, but there's a slightly odd mockup of the Roxie included in their pictorial.

Why is there so little about the opening of the Roxie in the Los Angeles Times? The owners don't seem to have had much of a sense of PR. Who were G.A. Metzger and Harry Srere? I have found that they also opened the Fairfax Theater in 1929; and Metzger headed the Independent Theater Owners of Southern California in 1933. But why is there so little coverage of the Roxie?

A tidbit: Metzger seems to have had a brief spell in the news in 1928 as the head of a syndicate which procured the Broadway Palace Theater. He became the Palace's supervising manager and instituted a policy of double feature attractions: a musical comedy plus a photoplay. (A month later the Times reported the policy a success: 'every attendance record has been shattered.')

From yesterday:
http://i243.photobucket.com/albums/ff204/hollywood90038/RoxieFeb16200809.jpg
http://i243.photobucket.com/albums/ff204/hollywood90038/RoxieFeb16200804.jpg

Breaking news for those who wondered what the Roxie's auditorium looks like! There are two interior shots here:

http://www.laconservancy.org/images/theatres/index.htm

(I found this gallery through the link in "Photos online of downtown Los Angeles theaters" in today's Theater News on the Cinema Treasures home page.)

Wow! It's much as I expected -- certainly more restrained than the unrelentingly lavish art deco of the Hollywood Pantages or even the Wiltern, but quite lovely and quite impressive nonetheless. (It reminds me of the Fox Pomona, which I had the good fortune to see in a Last Remaining Seats event almost 30 years ago.)

The gallery has lots of pictures of most of the other downtown theaters, including many photos that I'd never seen before. Check it out!

Here is a 2008 photo of the Roxie.

Now that my curiosity about the Roxie's auditorium has been satisfied (thanks to the LA Conservancy's recent gallery of downtown theater pics), I'm wondering what the original marquee looked like. Surely the red plastic letters superimposed on white plastic boxes can't predate the 1950s, but I can't recall seeing any earlier pictures.

Here's a b&w photo of Broadway in 1943. Click on it to get to a page with an enlarging feature. There is a high-angled view of the Roxie's marquee at far right, and it's probably the original marquee. Click it a few times to make it big enough to see the detail. It's all covered in neon.

Wow, thanks, Joe! I just knew there had to be neon. And that photo is of such high resolution that it can be highly magnified, too, to show some great details.

I haven't seen very many pictures that show the Fifth Street Store's (aka Walker's, Milliron's, Ohrbach's) vertical sign -- nice surprise there.

And how beautiful the street lamps were along Broadway then! I never understood why they were replaced with the plain ones (i.e., with the lights hanging in a downward position) by the 1960s, while that earlier, more ornate variety persisted for many years on other downtown streets.

Here's a photo from the Public Library of Broadway at Fifth. You can see the Roxie with what looks like a rectangular marquee. The Library's holding page says the theatre features Mickey Mouse (and dates the photo as circa 1920s, but hey).

This is another recent photo.

We've been inside the auditorium last week (thanks to the owner), which is behind a clothes store and not used as storage like the Cameo and Arcade. There is still the original ornamentations on the stage, light fixtures on the sides were certainly modified in the 50's and there is no remaining seats on the orchestra (we've not been on the balcony). The curtain is still there too.

Yves, did the owner show any interest in opening the theater at some point? Did they allow you to take any photos? I'd love to see the inside of the theater.

Vokoban, I had permission from the owner to take a look at the auditorium by the support of the LA Conservancy.
I'll send you the contact info by email.

I posted a diptych of the Roxie and the Palace on my Flickr page:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/achangeinscenerymovies/2713629883/in/photostream/

Here is a September 2008 photo:
http://tinyurl.com/4zo35j

Here is an October 2008 view of Broadway.

Here is a November 2008 photo:
http://tinyurl.com/64y89v

Here is the Roxie sizzling in the February heat of Los Angeles:
http://tinyurl.com/cjblpc

Another photo of the Roxie is here.

Here and here are photos of the Roxie that I took last week.

Here are some views of the Roxie in the early 1980s:
http://tinyurl.com/dce8wa
http://tinyurl.com/d76xt2
http://tinyurl.com/czkqmn

The exterior of this theater has not changed much in the last 45 years yet there is 22 views of the same exterior! Just wondering why...

A couple curent interior photos of this theatre can be seen at flickr.com.
Just type in Roxie Theatre, Los Angeles.
Go to page 3 and scroll down and click on the second picture for a shot on the main auditorium with a partial view of the left side of the proscenium and screen.
Click on the first small picture on the right to see a nice side wall view of the Roxie auditorium.
These are the first current color interior photos that I have seen of the Roxie.

Those are pretty neat. The box office being dropped in the middle of the orchestra section is a unique touch:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/motel_bible/3412579019/

Here is an August 1974 ad from the LA Times:
http://tinyurl.com/pepvd4

Here is a night shot from 1983:
http://tinyurl.com/qpwdb5