Holly Cinema

I worked at this theatre in 1981. I started at the end of the Caligula run.

Here is a January 1939 ad for the Colony from the LA Times:
http://tinyurl.com/ntn524

Here is a 1982 photo:
http://tinyurl.com/cogzd6

As a kid,i saw “Bugsy Malone” and “The Big Bus” as a double feature in 1976 at the Holly.

I guess that they got my donation.

John Oblinger or Steve Gates, what happened to him? Did one of you guys pop him? hehehehe

Here are some October 2008 photos:
http://tinyurl.com/4xtbwd
http://tinyurl.com/3jkszy
http://tinyurl.com/4a22sb
http://tinyurl.com/3q8n4p

I always hated these Mansard roof facades. It seems many theaters were “modernized” with these in the 60s. Yuck!!!

Do you guys remember an usher by the name of Jerri Hovey who worked there during the Caligula years? And there was another unsher there, I think the popcorn girl,Patti, Patty? She looked like a model.They had some hot girls there at that time.

I managed this theatre in 1971 and 72 and was a complete hoot! Being the small fry of the chain, we would get smaller films: “On A Clear Day You Can See Forever”, “Harold and Maude”, “Love Story” and actually got to premiere “The Last Picture Show”. I was amazed how many people demanded a refund because it was black and white.

On occasion we were called upon to help out bigger openings at the “Paramount” (El Capitan) for “The Godfather”, “The Cowboys” and so on, plus further afield at the “Baldwin” in Baldwin Hills for the opening of stinkers like “Cool Breeze”.

The “Academy” was chopped into thirds with the “Holly” taking the middle slice. It wasn’t evenly split and the center of the theatre was off kilter to the left a bit which necessitated putting (I think) five seats on the left side of the aisle and three on the right. There were shops installed on either side. To the left, was a jewelry shop that was regularly held up giving us front row seats to the SWAT team.

But them were the days, at night the sidewalks were a parade of hippies, pot, tourists, Hari Krishnas and old character actors. We were always changing hands and never for the better. During the “Kung-Fu” years, the “Holly” took a dreadful beating, with seats cut up and once the drapes set ablaze. For awhile we tried “Adult Films” like “The Eroticon” and sister theatre “The Century” became a gay house.

The Manager’s office was in the basement.

José the projectionist was from Argentina and ever so clever. He had a television rigged inside of an old speaker box on the wall. By opening the front of the speaker box, the TV would come on. Should anyone open the projection room door, the speaker box would close and TV turn off, thus management never caught him watching TV.

After I left, the theatre had a gala celebration for the 25th Anniversary of “War of the Worlds” and “When Worlds Collide”.

What sticks out in my mind from the “Caligula” era, was that the Holly was one of the few theaters chosen to run the pic exclusively. There was one theater in New York , one in San Francisco, and one in Chicago, I believe. Guccione refused to release it to video for at least the first 3 years of release , and needless to say, it caused a huge unrequited demand. Until of course the managers, ushers and sundry employees of the Holly staged a fake robbery of the 35mm projection print in order to let a fellow in the Valley make ¾" video dupes. Rumour has it the Holly employees were payed over $80,000 by the video duplicator. Funny, most of them quit shirtly after this caper.

Wow… what a shame. The Studio Theatre was really cool looking with the horizontal banding and the awesome circular neon pattern in the marquee. Sad to see that wonderful deco bon-bon bit the dust to make way to build that grotesque faux-Mansard monstrosity with the oversized carriage lamp stuck on it. My god… what were they thinking?

Wow, great find! It certainly don’t look like that anymore when I past it the other week!