Stamm Theatre
912 G Street,
Antioch,
CA
94509
912 G Street,
Antioch,
CA
94509
3 people
favorited this theater
Additional Info
Architects: Vincent G. Raney
Functions: Church
Styles: Streamline Moderne
Previous Names: Stamm Spotlight Theatre
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The Stamm Theatre opened on November 17, 1948. Once a gathering spot for the local community, and a key part of the city’s main cruise. The Stamm family chose not to maintain the theatre due to the newer and bigger screens opening around the area and in was closed in 1994. It briefly reopened in August 1996. It was sold to a church group who have turned this once welcoming theatre into another church.
Many a blockbuster film was shown here in it’s heyday. Beautiful alfresco murals of Portuguese fishing men and women lined the walls on both sides of the auditorium with deep maroon carpeting and high loges for those attendees wishing for a spectacular view from above.
This theatre will be sadly missed by most east county natives.
Contributed by
R.Soliz
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Recent comments (view all 20 comments)
CORRECTION: The grainy pics on my post are from Motion Picture Herald, not Box Office. Oops!
The Laurel Theatre in San Carlos used the same master drawings for some of the human figures in its auditorium murals as were used in the Stamm. A photo which proves this can be found in “Theatres of the San Francisco Peninsula” which theatre historian Jack Tillmany and I co-authored. They are the same figures, but arranged differently.
I actually have two pictures of the murals in the Stamm Theatre but I’m not sure if I should post them. They maybe the only pictures of the murals. I have searched the internet and haven’t found any except for Gary Parks rendering of one of the murals. The Theatre opened November 1948
Linkrot repair: The 1949 Gullistan Carpet ad with the photo of the Stamm Theatre’s lobby is now at this link.
Joe Vogel: Thank you, thank you, a million times thank you! I’ll post the repaired link in my Cinedrome post on the Stamm without delay.
goodyear4: I hope you’ll decide to post those pictures of the Stamm murals, and that you’ll kindly allow me to add them to my Stamm post at Cinedrome along with Gary’s rendering. With credit, of course, and gladly!
JimLane: I am a descendant of the Stamm family, although I was too young to see the Stamm in its former glory, I still loved hearing stories about the beauty of the theater itself. I’m not sure if we have pictures of the interior, but I know we still have some old ads. Once I get a chance to dig through them I will post what I have for you all to enjoy.
Nov. 17, 1948 was the opening date. Vincent Rainey of San Francisco was the architect of the $300,000 theatre built for owners Fred and Ethel Stamm. The theatre features six luminescent murals on its walls and ceiling
dallasmovietheaters: Correction – The Stamm “featured” six luminescent murals, but no longer; all were destroyed when the theater was gutted, and Gary Parks’s reproduction from memory of one of them is apparently all that survives. I hoped to be able to reproduce more at my blog, Jim Lane’s Cinedrome, but I never heard back from deanharris of the Stamm family, or from goodyear4, who mentioned having two pictures of the Stamm’s murals that he or she was reluctant to share.
Many of the image links in the comments here are no longer available, alas. Also, my own comment of 3/3/2011, provides a link to my post about the Stamm from my old Blogspot version of Jim Lane’s Cinedrome. A better version of that post is here at my new, improved Cinedrome site.
If anyone has additional images of the Stamm – or better copies of the one I’ve posted – I’d be grateful for permission to share them. With credit, of course, and gratefully!
It appears that the Stamm Theatre was once closed on March 27, 1994, and sat abandoned for a little more than two years.
The Stamm Theatre briefly reopened back as a first-run movie house on August 30, 1996 under the name “Stamm Spotlight Theatre”, but only lasted four days of operation.
It ended its life as a first-run movie house though, but the Stamm Theatre did had a brief return as a live house several months later. Then it turned into a church after the Stamm family sold the theater to a church group.