Capitol Theater
2842 Watt Avenue,
Sacramento,
CA
95821
2842 Watt Avenue,
Sacramento,
CA
95821
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Remember seeing a few films there. The one’s I remember, E.T., The Last Emperor, and some other’s I can’t remember. Funny, but I remember E.T. and Poltergeist were playing in both auditoriums side by side.
this was an Abc theatre then Plitt took it over Plitt was sold to Cineplex, at that time it was sold to Century Theatres
Odd it opened with a double feature,Never heard of that before.
Not a bad place to see a movie. Saw “Young Frankenstein” and “The Great Waldo Pepper” there. Last movie I saw there was “Gettysburg” in the early 90s. Too Bad it’s gone.
This ad from 1989 gives the address as 2824 Watt Ave and there were four screens at that time.
I’ve scrolled through the Sacramento theater list, but I don’t see a listing for the Capitol on 615 K Street, aka Fox Capitol, Alisky, T&D, Garrick and Pantages. I will add this theater unless I am wrong about it being unlisted.
Here is a 1940s era photo from the Pomona Public Library which shows a Capitol Theater on K Street, which obviously predates the theater discussed above.
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The Capitol was part of the Syufy/Century chain for most of it’s life. It was originally two screens, virtually identical to the State Theatre in south Sacramento. The Capitol had the left auditorium split into three auditoriums- the main auditorium became “T” shaped and the other two auditoriums were basically closets. The State had both it’s left and right auditoriums triplexed, making it a six-screener. The Capitol’s right auditorium remained untouched until the theatre closed. That auditorium also had an actual silver screen, the older type with embedded silver particles for reflectivity. I was a projectionist with Century when the theater closed in the mid-1990s. It was a first-run theatre through the mid-to-late 1980s. I remember seeing “Superman” there in 1978, and “Full Metal Jacket” in 1987. The Capitol began booking more art-type films during the late 1980s and early 1990s. During the last year or two it became a discount house. I remember training a film operator one day shortly before the theatre closed. She just started Disney’s “Hunchback of Notre Dame” in the big auditorium and couldn’t get any sound to play in the auditorium, even though it sounded fine at the monitor. Turns out someone stole the speakers from behind the screen. Boy, that was fun.
I believe Century closed the Capitol shortly before it opened the Folsom and Laguna theatres in May of 1996. There is a Raley’s grocery store on the site now, near the corner of Watt Ave. and Marconi Ave.