Cinema 1-2-3

The address was 410 Fremont Street. Cinema 1-2-3 opened in early June, 1972, according to an item in Boxoffice Magazine’s issue of July 10 that year. It was the fourth theater opened by NTC, the Nevada Theatre Corporation. The 900 seat house was designed by San Francisco architect Gale Santocono. A one-man projection booth served all three screens, with semi-automated Cinemeccanica projectors using 13,000 foot reels.

So awesome seeing that photo. I remember this theater fondly. Wish I could read through the glare to see what posters are behind the glass… Possibly “Q” would be one of them at that time. I saw “The End” there in 1978 and then later a double feature of the Japanese “Star Wars” rip-off/homage “Message From Space” with “The Groove Tube”… Oh yeah and they played the re-release of “Star Wars” itself there in 1979. I also saw “Battlestar Galactica” and “Buck Rogers” there…one being a show that had just run on television that they were presenting as a movie and the other starting as a movie but then became a T.V. show a few months later. Odd. In the early 80’s it became a Grindhouse. At the time I didn’t know the term ‘grindhouse’ but I was fascinated by the fact that every weekend I could choose between a martial arts double feature, a horror double feature or a sexploitation double bill!