Royal Theatre
11523 Santa Monica Boulevard,
Los Angeles,
CA
90025
11523 Santa Monica Boulevard,
Los Angeles,
CA
90025
14 people
favorited this theater
Showing 1 - 25 of 27 comments found
I too used to eat at Dolores in the 80s and 90s. Earlier this year I revisited and had a tasty soy burger. The waitress was pleasant, but it was late evening and it was very quiet. Still a viable after movie option for old times sake.
One of the last of the single screen theaters in Los Angeles. Small and intimate – a great place to see a film. They do a lot of special programing. Parking though is a real drag; the meters and public lots charge $1 an hour! Ouch! One of my favourite things over the years was to have a meal at the old Dolores' Resturant up the street and then catch a film at the Royal. Sadly, the Dolores is under new owners and they have ruined the place. Bad service, over priced and, worst of all, no toast with their breakfasts! Unexcusable. Stay away from this place.
Here is a December 1973 ad from the LA Times:
http://tinyurl.com/ydkgcaf
November 2009 photo of the Royal Theatre courtesy avilon music.
View link
Too bad that I missed that.
The theater was called Tivoli Plaza in this October 1966 item from the Northwest Arkansas Times:
On Nov. 4, the Mary Pickford-Douglas Fairbanks version of the Shakespeare comedy “Taming of the Shrew†will be seen at the Tivoli Plaza Theater in West Los Angeles.
1982 Photo
More photos are here.
Here is a photo of the Royal Theater. And this is their website.
On a cheerier note, I saw the French film “My New Partner” at the Royal in 1985. Unfortunately I haven’t been back since, so I can’t comment on the current condition of the theater and amenities.
This is part of an article in the LA Times on 4/6/80:
LOS ANGELES-A 27-year-old Los Angeles man was charged with felony drunk driving, four hours after he plowed his car backwards into a Friday night theater crowd, injuring 16 people.
Police say Bradley Jacobs got into an argument with an attendant at a gas station across the street from the Royal Theater, 11523 Santa Monica Boulevard, shortly before 10 p.m. Friday. Witnesses told police that the attendant refused to sell gasoline to Jacobs because he thought Jacobs was drunk.
Jacobs then reportedly accelerated his car backward and then broadside into a line of about 100 people waiting to see the film “Clair de Femme”. Eight ambulances and nine fire companies were called to the scene.
In addition to the 70 mm series linked by Jonesy above, we also have a series starting Dec. 12th featuring 7 foreign films, one from each decade of the 70 year history of Laemmle Theatres.
http://www.laemmle.com/viewmovie.php?mid=4588
Box office proceeds from this series will be donated to the Los Angeles Conservancy (who have done fabulous work in preserving a number of classic theatres) as well as the Library Foundation of Los Angeles.
It looks to be a fun December at Laemmle’s Royal, what with the foreign film series running from Dec. 12th – 18th and the 70 mm series running from Dec. 19th – 23rd.
Great looking 70MM series December 2008:
http://www.laemmle.com/viewmovie.php?mid=4615
Jonesy
www.OnTheBigScreen.net
well the royale is a art house,and its competetion is the near by nuart(except on sat nights when the nuart plays rocky horor),so im sure bussiness is as usual.as far as the development of the area,dont forget to take into accout that uni hi was build in that area in 1923.hope this helps you.
I wonder how the nearby “Landmark 12” opening recently has affected the Royal’s business…
Indeed the Tivoli and Royal photos are of the same theatre. In 1977, there was still metal grillework above the marquee concealing the original facade. The facade, with its Corinthian pilasters, is now exposed, and has been for a number of years now. It looks exactly like what is shown in the photo at the top of this page, though the Royal marquee shown in the 1977 view is still there.
UCLA has changed the URLs of the photos in the Times collection,and no longer displays the very large versions they once did. The remaining version of the 1977 photo cited in ken mc’s post of May 18 is now available here.
This theatre, the Tivoli opened on March 8th, 1924. It was a very big deal. The owners took out full page adverts in the Santa Monica Evening Outlook. The photo is certainly that of the Tivoli. But the marguee is not the original.
Here is a 1977 photo from the UCLA collection:
http://tinyurl.com/27mljl
Laemmle has their Home office on the second floor.
Are we certain that the photograph accompanying this listing is of the Santa Monica Boulevard Tivoli? I’m just trying to recall when that area was first developed. The building pictured is in a style characteristic of the late teens-early twenties, and I’m wondering if maybe it isn’t a picture of the -other- Tivoli Theatre, built in 1921, located on Central Avenue and later known as the Bill Robinson theatre. My memory of the Royal is terribly vague, but in the back of my mind I picture it having been in a one-story building, and its neighborhood having been of more recent vintage.
I’ve been unimpressed with the presentation at the Royal of late. Not only the sloppy projection has become an issue, the broken seats and a family of crickets, who chirp during the film is a major turn off.
The current seat capacity is 600 seats.
I first went to the Royal Theatre in the late 1980s during my first years in college to see Ayn Rand’s “We the Living.” This was the first art house I ever visited. I did not return to the Royal Theatre again until very recently to see “Beyond the Sea.” I have to say even though I appreciate a good single screen theater like the Royal Theatre, I do not find it to be one of the better theaters in Los Angeles. It has a rather dull lobby and exterior with an auditorium with some character but nothing superlative. Sadly however it maybe one of the better theaters still regularly showing films.
The Royal, due to its classy atmosphere and the quality of the films shown there, is considered by many to be the L.A. equivalent of NYC’s Paris Theatre.