Mann Festival Theater

This theatre opened as the UA theatre in Westwood. It was remodeled into the UA Egyptian Westwood (UA operated the Egyptian in Hollywood at the same time). When UA's lease was up a bidding war, happened for this theatre. Note this was the last theatre north of Wilshire Blvd. that was not a Mann. All theatres north of Wilshire were operated by Mann Theatres. All the theatre companies started to bid for this theatre (Mann,Pacific,GCC,Cineplex) This after being remodeled again would become The Cineplex Odeon theatre. After Cineplex's lease ended it became a Mann theatre.

The theatre opened in 1970. The first film to play was Watermelon Man.

When this was the UA Westwood I was working for UA. I was fortunate enough to attend the re-premiere of "Animal Crackers" at this theater and I met Groucho Marx. He arrived in a limo with non other than Alice Cooper.

i love the festival! it has a beautiful balcony that makes you watch the movies as if you were right at home.

In high school I watched "1984" here in the balcony. This was the first time I ever sat in the balcony to watch a movie. Sadly this theater is now closed.

The Festival is open and currently playing a double feature of "Bad Santa" and "Mystic River."

It is still a very nice theatre. Nice sized screen and comfortable balcony. It is a much better theatre than when UA ran it. I remember it being a real dump when they ran it. They remodled it and later Cineplex Odeon did a refurbishing. It remains pretty much as Cineplex had it except for the marquee and they changed the seats.

What do they play here now?

First-run Hollywood product, Robert; their current offering is 'Team America: World Police'.

Oops, my mistake... 'Team America' is showing at the National; the Festival, which appears to mostly be a move-over house, is currently screening 'Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow', with 'Napoleon Dynamite' scheduled to open Friday.

The Cineplex Odeon Westwood Theatre reopened on Wednesday June 15th, 1988 with the feature "Bull Durham". After taking over the theatre from UA and remodeling the entire theatre.

http://boxoffice.thepodcastnetwork.com/2006/09/07/estuary-rape/

...is the address of my essay about my time running this theatre, or more specifically the thing I swiped from it when UA gave up. I'm hoping the statute of limitations applies.

When I lived in LA (1979-84) I'm pretty sure this was not called the Festival. What name did it have back then?

Around that time it was the UA Theatre Westwood.
This theatre should also have listed as known as:
UA Theatre, Westwood
UA Egyptian Theatre, Westwood
Odeon Cinema, Westwood

Also, the initial first-run engagement of THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW was here (in its UA Westwood days), back when it was treated as a "normal" movie and not a cult curiosity. Supposedly, this was one of the few theatres where the movie was successful, and there was already a sort of recurring clientele that attended which suggested to Fox executive Ashley Boone that the movie could have a second life as a midnight movie.

Recent nighttime view of Mann Festival theater:
http://i85.photobucket.com/albums/k79/hollywood90038/wstwdMannFestivalmar92007.jpg

I saw Oceans Thirteen at this theatre today, and unfortunately there was a problem with the sound. Every 7 or 8 seconds, there was a small electrical buzzing through the center channel. Not noticable too much in the louder scenes, but in the quieter ones, it was distracting! I notified the people who worked there and unfortunately their reply was "the tech is up north"... as in "we can't fix this." I almost went to see this at the Century 15, but went to the Festival to support these slowly dying 1 screen theatres in westwood. If they can't get their presentation up to par, that's a real shame...

The manager wrote to me personally letting me know that they've brought the technician back in, and the sound is now back up to par! All is well at the Mann Festival. They even threw in a couple free passes to boot. Classy - I'll continue to go there...

Most theatre chains are good that way. If you complain, they'll send you a couple free passes. I have always found the presentation at the Festival to be up to Mann's Westwood standards. I wonder how long Mann will hold on to the Festival, being that their theatres are dropping like flies in Westwood. I think they would need to hold on to it for flexibility in bookings since they only have 3 screens left in Westwood.

Mann Festival October 14, 2007:
http://i243.photobucket.com/albums/ff204/hollywood90038/wstwdFestivalOct142007008.jpg

At night:
http://i243.photobucket.com/albums/ff204/hollywood90038/wstwdFestivalOct232007001.jpg

In light of what is happening with the National, the Rialto and other single-screeners, I was a bit disappointed that the Cinematreasures are holding their meeting to discuss theatre preservation etc. at the brand-spanking-new Landmark 12!!! Less than 2 miles away from Westwood Village, the densest grouping of open single screeners in the country. Are they serious? Are they serious about preservation?

I expressed my disappointment here:
http://cinematreasures.org/news/17409_0_1_0_C/

Feel free to express your feelings as well.

For me, a lit marquee on a cold, rainy, damp day can make seeing a matinee of a bad-mediocre film very inviting:
http://i243.photobucket.com/albums/ff204/hollywood90038/FestivalFeb23200805.jpg
http://i243.photobucket.com/albums/ff204/hollywood90038/FestivalFeb23200808.jpg

The Festival is a nice screen. I'm sure it won't last forever, but it fits the Westwood Village mold perfectly, it is one of the last single screens in a world of "Monster-Plexes".

I've been unable to discover who was the architect for the conversion of this building into a movie theater in 1970, but the building itself was designed by Russell E. Collins, and built for Ralphs Market in 1929. In 1988, the city of Los Angeles declared the building Historic Cultural Monument #360. In 1992, it was added to the National Register of Historic Places.

Whatever name you call it this has always been an also-ran to the grand palaces of Westwood, but with the demise of these (National, Plaza, Regent [still there, under different mgt.], Picwood, and the Mann Westwood and UA CInema Center) it is one of the few left. Even ACVO is a distant memory of what it once was.

Apparently, the Festival is now closed.

http://www.laobserved.com/archive/2009/07/westwoods_mann_festival_r.php

Hmmm...I wonder what the future will be? Could someone take the lease? Westwood has so many empty retail spaces so converting it to a retail outlet is not logical. But at the same time it costs a pretty penny to operate the theatre. Sad, because this is a very nice screen.

Are we doomed to see the Chinese Theater (unfortunately also operated by Mann) and possibly the Cinerama Dome become the last operating single screen theaters in Southern California?

I really seem to think Mann is slowly closing shop. They are not renewing any leases in SoCal. All plans for new venues have been cancelled. The Chinese is getting mostly awful bookings. Before too long Mann theatres will be a thing of the past.

Manwithnoname, Technically, Cinerama-Hollywood is no longer a single, since it now shares a common box office with other screens. Like ArcLight, of course, this is what should've been done for the National-Westwood: new wraparound construction girding an historic core. It's what Mann did at Chinese-Hollywood in the 70s with the Chinese Twin; again this decade with the 6. It's what UA tried to do with Egyptian-Hollywood in the 80s but were blocked (look what American Cinematheque did later to that place - horrible). Hopefully, all the Westwood singles will remain as upgraded, first-run movie houses and not reduced to other uses.

LA times reports Mann will not renew leases on Westwood's Village and Bruin:
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-westwood-movies1-2009aug01,0,542882.story

I think the Vista and Aero will also be with us for a while. I worry about the Egyptian, between the Cinematheque's two houses.

Oh man, some scary news to be found here about Mann. Simply unimaginable.

Meanwhile, on the subject of the UA THEATRE, as I knew it in the 1970s, I'd like to add my remembrance of "1984", as well as (I think): the Herzog/Kinski "Nosferatu", "High Anxiety", and "Sherlock Holmes' Smarter Brother". There were surely more, but some of them stick in your mind and others don't. And I definitely remember the balcony, and appreciative full houses for the Brooks and Wilder.

Zubi: You are absolutely correct however the Chinese and the Dome (the Dome itself being the finest place in L.A. to see a movie) had other screens built around them rather than being multiplexed and are still separate buildings which are for the most part unaltered. I still get that special feeling when I go there. I think other single screens, like the El Capitan, will eventually stop running film (or digital) and be used for other purposes. No other theaters have the unique characteristics of the Dome and the Chinese.

I worked as a relief projectionist once at the then UA THEATRE. The movie was the the first run engagement of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. with Reserved seats yet! at the 8pm show there were only 7 people in the audience.

Has there been any buzz about the future of this property?

Here are some photos from this weekend:
http://tinyurl.com/m29h6f
http://tinyurl.com/mpluar
http://tinyurl.com/lujgtk
http://tinyurl.com/nn97y8

I was heartbroken to find out about this. I was looking up the listings at the Mann site to see what was playing there today, only to find out they are closed. Early in 2007 I went to see Children Of Men starring Clive Owen. That movie was very special not only to me, but also to the staff working at the Festival. I saw it several times, both from the main floor and also from the balcony, and enjoyed hot dogs and soda while I was there. I have the movie on Blu Ray and I know a tear will come to my eye when I watch it again.

Westwood Village has changed so much since just 2008. Stores open...stores close. Eateries open and close. The homeless grow in numbers. Very sad.
http://i243.photobucket.com/albums/ff204/hollywood90038/Festival2.jpg

Unbelievable. Absolutely unbelievable, to any of us who knew and cherished Westwood Village in (in my case) the 1970s and 1980s. That this kind of area in any decent city, let alone one on the scale of L.A., could see this kind of change so rapidly, is shocking to those of us who have been away for some years. It's unimaginable.

Westwood was great in the mid-80s, when I used to go. It was a combo of the tourist getting shot and killed in the village in 1988, and the SM promenade gearing up around the same time.