Fox La Brea Theatre
857 S. La Brea Avenue,
Los Angeles,
CA
90036
857 S. La Brea Avenue,
Los Angeles,
CA
90036
2 people
favorited this theater
In the late 60’s, this former Fox movie house became the Toho Theatre which ran films from Japan. (The Toho also opened a theater off Broadway in Times Square in the 60s.) The old marquee was taken off in the mid 80’s.
If you have the DVD for the film "How the West Was Won" in the short film about "HTWWW", you can see a shot of this old Fox theater.
Today, the former Fox La Brea is used as a church.
Contributed by
William Gabel
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Recent comments (view all 36 comments)
The Gordon Theater was listed at 614 N. La Brea in the 1942 city directory. I will add it if it’s not on CT under another name.
In the 1950’s I lived on Sycamore near 9th & La Brea. My friends and I would walk over to the La Brea Theater for the Saturday morning matinees (“kiddie show”). It was wonderful! Cartoon, Movietone News, & a feature film. We paid 10 cents, and were upset when the price was eventually raised to 12 cents! Sometmes between the films, they gave away door prizes. I actually won a plastic wallet, which was pretty exciting (plastics were the “big thing” then). My parents & I also went to the movies there in the evenings. I remember “skipping” home happily, after seeing “Singing in the Rain”. Wish I had a photo of this theater from the 1950’s!
The Gordon Theatre is listed under Regent Showcase Theatre on CT.
This theatre was owned by Dan Sonney at one point. He and his daughter discuss this in the documentary Mau Mau Sex Sex.
Here is a photo taken today:
http://tinyurl.com/y9kty7z
There once was a rooftop sign that said Fox La Brea Theatre.
Here is an interesting article about the re-opening of the theater in June 1960, from Boxoffice magazine:
http://tinyurl.com/yd776gp
You should add to the also known as Art La Brea above.
During the summers of ‘70 and '71 (and maybe before, but not after I’m pretty sure) the Toho La Brea ran a several-week-long series they called the “Monster Film Festival,” consisting of a headliner feature and some revolving second features. In 1970 the main feature was “King Kong vs. Godzilla” and one of the seconds was “Matango.” (I remember calling the theatre and the nice woman referred to the film as “Matango, Fungus of Terror.” Little did I know, it was the actual title of “Attack of the Mushroom People,” parts of which I’d already seen on Channel 9!) I never got to the festival that year, much to my regret. In '71, tho, I begged and pleaded with the folks to take me because the festival’s main feature was none other than “Destroy All Monsters.” Quite upset at having missed “Destroy” during its initial AIP release in '69 (with “The Terrornauts”) and one of its reissues (with “The Incredible Two-Headed Transplant”!), to a monster-crazy pre-teen this engagement seemed like a gift from movie heaven. The second feature that day was “Dagora, the Space Monster,” another picture I’d caught parts of on Channel 9’s “Strange Tales.” I learned two things at that memorable double feature: 1.)that creature features played better when they weren’t dubbed, and 2.) you could never have too many of those Carnation ice cream sandwiches with the red and silver foil…
The May 9, 1960, issue of Boxoffice featured a photo on the front of the Modern Theatre section depicting the auditorium of the recently-renovated Art La Brea Theatre.
A fuzzier version of the same photo was one of several that illustrated an article about the opening of the house, which had been closed for some time, in the June 6 issue of Boxoffice.