Central Theatre

Over in the post for the Cozy, Tillmany wrote:
"'The Killer That Stalked New York' is a 1950 film about a woman with the bubonic plague loose in New York City. Much of it was filmed there. But the finale, in which the woman, played by Evelyn Keyes, is out on the ledge of a building, threatening to jump, was filmed on South Broadway in Los Angeles, right above the Central Theatre, and in the same block as the Cozy. Although the Central is not easy to identify, the flashing neon of the Cozy is unmistakenly visible in several scenes."
posted by Tillmany on May 15, 2004 at 8:43am

I went by there recently and it's now an All in Bridal & Tuxedo shop.

Not in South Central L.A., but right downtown, across the street from the Million Dollar Theatre, near the very northern end of the Broadway theatre district. I don't remember ever seeing this building when it was still a theatre, but it must have been almost next door to the Bradbury Building.

The status of the Central needs to be changed to 'Closed'. Function 'Retail'

It still remains, although the All in Bridal & Tuxedo shop has now closed as seen in January 2005.

Joe;
You are correct, it is located almost next door to the historic Bradbury Building which has a #304 address.

Here is a map circa 1950 that shows the Central and Cozy theaters on Broadway:
http://www.uncanny.net/~wetzel/subwayarea.htm

Here is a January 2007 photo:
http://tinyurl.com/yaoccp

kenmc: Either the building has had two floors lopped off its top, or that is a different building than the one the Central was in. I'm inclined to think its a different building. I have a vague memory of a parking lot being on that site in the 1960s. I have another vague memory of a scene in the movie "Chinatown" when Jake is fetching his car from a parking lot and we see the Million Dollar Theatre in the background across the street.

You can see the Central's marquee (through a haze of smoke) in the picture I linked to last October from the CT Cozy Theatre page.

I actually asked my wife that when I was taking the picture yesterday. We agreed that it vaguely looked like a theater but that it was probably not the original building.

This is a 1968 photo. As Joe accurately recalls, there is a parking lot where the building at 314 S. Broadway stands today. Ergo, the current building is not the theater.
http://jpg2.lapl.org/spnb1/00017091.jpg

OK, dialing the wayback machine to 1940, you will see Joe's building at 314:
http://jpg3.lapl.org/pics30/00064857.jpg

Status should be closed/demolished.

Yes, that is not the original building. If you exit the Bradbury from the back exit, heading into Biddy Mason Park, you can see the back of this building at 314. It's a smooth wall of concrete cinder blocks with absolutely no ornmentation at all. Dates from the 1970's at the earliest, probably later.

So the original building was demolished some time before 1968.

Featured on 1/22/50: "Chicago Deadline" and "Roughshod". Phone number was MU9-2851.

Here is an article from the LA Times dated 7/6/42. I was glad to see that the projectionist did not get flambeed this time as they seem to have when the film would routinely explode, compelling them to leap from the projection booth.

THEATER MANAGER AVERTS FIRE PANIC

Cool, quick action of a theater manager yesterday averted a possible panic among 450 spectators at the Central Theater, 314 S. Broadway, when a small fire sent clouds of smoke billowing through the auditorium. Manager Louis Levine stepped up to the stage and announced to the audience that there was no danger and the patrons filed out of the theater in an orderly fashion.

It doesn't seem like anyone ever wanted to shoot the east side of Broadway south of the Bradbury building. This 1918 photo is one of the few I found, but no theater is in evidence:
http://tinyurl.com/3dw5t8

Note the predecessor to the Million Dollar on the left.

The Central was already gone by 1960, according to this LOC photo:
http://tinyurl.com/2mh2fs

This 1973 photo shows the theater building, sans theater:
http://helios.library.ca.gov/soca/reagh/1990-0017.jpg

The Central can be seen to the north of the Cozy in this 1955 photo:
http://tinyurl.com/369yjh

OK, there's some contradiction there between my two comments, but I think the 1973 building is in fact the Central theater location. I can't explain the 1960 photo.

Ken: The 1973 picture is not the Central's building. It has arched windows on the top floor, while the Central's building had square-topped windows. Also, the building to the left of it is too low to be the 5-floor Bradbury Building, and the building to the right has a light well on the side, which the Cozy's building didn't have. The State library probably mislabeled this photo.

The movie on the Cozy marquee in the 1955 photo appears to be "Little Egypt" with Rhonda Fleming. That movie was released in September of 1951.

OK, Joe, I'll buy that. The theater was around in 1955, but gone by 1960, apparently.

I'm now wondering where that building with the arched windows was (or is) located. It looks familiar, but I can't quite place it.

Perhaps it was on the other side of Broadway. I know there was a caption originally, but I would have to dig through the site to find it.

The Central Theatre can clearly be seen in the 1933 movie 'FOOTLIGHT PARADE', starring James Cagney, Ruby Keeler, & Joan Blondell.
In this film chorus girls change costumes in buses while traveling from theatre to theatre, and pass by the Central and Million Dollar.

The Central Theatre is listed at this address in the 1929 Los Angeles City Directory. I don't have access to any earlier directories, so that's the earliest I can confirm that it was open.

That 1973 photo was 354 S. Broadway, not 314. That's one of the two that burned down in Feb. 2007, exposing their original façades that were hidden behind a late-'70s remodel.

A thread at the L.A. ModCom preservation board, http://www.lottaliving.com/bb/viewtopic.php?t=8572, has before and after photos of that building, and the L.A. Times article about the fire.

You can see the Cozy and the empty spot where the Central was in the background of another early '70s photo from that thread illustrating where the fire was.
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/186/381969966_0ad4317673_o.jpg