Studs at the Pussycat Theatre
7734 Santa Monica Boulevard,
West Hollywood,
CA
90046
7734 Santa Monica Boulevard,
West Hollywood,
CA
90046
9 people
favorited this theater
The Monica Theatre opened in 1940. Since then, the venue has had many different incarnations but is best known for its days as a Pussycat Theatre which opened March 13, 1970 and continued into the 1980’s.
It became the Tomkat Theatre screening hardcore gay adult films for many years.
Today, as Studs at the Pussycat Theatre, it continues to show gay adult features, and was converted into a four-screen theatre in 2011.
Contributed by
William Gabel, Joe Vogel
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Recent comments (view all 104 comments)
The other night I watched a DVD (released in 2006 by Raincoat Theater, a division of Media Blasters) of the 1980 Marilyn Chambers film “Insatiable”—One of the bonus features on that DVD was footage of Marilyn Chambers (the film’s star) at a premiere of that film at this theater in May of 1980, including where she was putting her hand prints into the cement in front of the theater. This was during the daytime and there was a crowd of about 50 watching from outside the theater (all men). The footage also showed a little bit of the lobby including a shot of Vince Miranda. (Chambers narrates the footage, which is well worth watching.)
“Insatiable” was considered Chambers porn comeback after a foray into mainsteam film (the most notable being “Rabid”, directed by David Croenberg in which she plays a vampire) and was hyped for a time due to a scene in which she has sex with John Holmes. The film premiered here and would essentially become the last theatrical XXX film to have financial success with a cross-over (ie couples) audience. This, of course, had to do with the advent of VHS, and even at this point, theatrical XXX audiences were going back to being essentially male.
They should let the guy who cleans the place put his hands in cement…he has put them into everything else. Blecch.
This article “When Cathouses Ruled California” has much history on this theater, and the entire CA Pussycat chain, told via interviews with theater operators and employees. Lots of photos too, including many credited to cinematreasures contribs – View link
And here’s a drawing of this theater during its X-dayz, from a comic book called “Triple-X Cinema: A Cartoon History” – View link
There’s a video on youtube that shows a little of the exterior and the feet/hand prints of the theater briefly…around the 3:35 mark:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1y4VI45IjyU
the management is planning to initiate a “womens night” at studs, where from 11pm until closing groups of 3 women or more get FREE ADMISSION on the 1st and 4th Saturdays of the month..its partly to head off a judgement from a complaint of discrimination by women who claim that they were refused admittance into Studs in 2007 because they had no escorts..
A MAJOR Asian pornstar is planning an appearance at the theater on July 3 2010 to film a porn “documentary” for BANG BROS.
This theatre has been multiplexed. If you look at the floor plan on their website it appears to have four screens now. Info up top should be changed accordingly.
If anyone has any stories about going to/ working at this threatre in its adult days, I would love to hear them. I am chronicling the histories of adult theatres in the US. Please contact me at Thanks!
The prints which remain in front of the theatre are: Linda Lovelace – 12/20/73 Jay Lawrence – 11/19/74 (a radio DJ for KLAC at the time) Georgina Spelvin – 9/29/77 Marilyn Chambers – 5/23/80 Harry Reems – 9/30/82 Eric Edwards & Kay Parker – 7/12/84 (share a tile) John Holmes -2/7/85 There are two blank/patched spaces, which match the dimensions of the other tiles, suggesting there may have been at least two more prints at one time.
March 13th, 1970 grand opening ad as a Pussycat theatre can be found in the photo section.