Holiday Theatre

wow I’m surprised to find this theater listed up here, i thought it was long forgotten. I used to ride my bike (as a kid) from the end of Devonshire to this theater and remember seeing things like “Orca”, “Laserblast” and “The Crater Lake Monster” here. Sometime in the early 80’s i can remember taking my grandmother to see a double bill of “Blade Runner” and “Dragonslayer” here. Yea i remember it as a dingy dive as described above, interesting it was owned by the old Criterion people. Few people remember the Santa Monica Promenade back in the late 70’s/early 80’s when it was a ghost town with closed down businesses and homeless., the Criterion was a seedy cheap dive then as well. i think i prefer it that way. Things will probably revert to the way they were on the course we’re going.

Which Century Theatres operated this? It’s too old for it to actually be the Syufy/Century chain, and I wasn’t aware the the Century chain from the east coast operated on the west coast. Was there a third Century chain?

Those dollar theatres are a true thing of the past. The people that ran the Holiday also ran the Criterion in Santa Monica, Meralta in Culver City and the Great Warner Beverly Hills Theatres as dollar houses. They would pickup theatres that were sitting dead by their former chains. In those days you could still make some money from those theatres in second or third run. They started out with the Criterion and Meralta theatres with double-features and priced at .49 cents for ALL SEATS. When they reopened the Warner Beverly Hills Theatre it was priced at one dollar & then $1.50 a seat. I remember going to the Criterion many times and seeing full houses on the weekends. The Criterion Theatre was a real money maker during this time. There were only a few dead theatres left in the Los Angeles areas that really worked.

It’s odd to see the Holiday Theatre included amongst truly amazing places such as the Egyptian. I grew up in Canoga Park in the 1970’s/80’s and even then the Holiday was an eyesore. All it ever was was a big brick box in the classic 1960’s style, no ornamentation at all, and very much a dirty/grim dive. It can’t even be considered “shabby chic” or “faded glory” since there was never any chic or glory to become shabby or faded! Still, I remember with fondness attending 10-cent Saturday matinees in the late 70’s where they had an MC for the kids and gave away prizes and showed older kid-friendly films like “Island of the Blue Dolphins”. That was a last-ditch effort before it went to the inevitable end of all unfashionable theatres, i.e. Spanish language, and then it became an auto-parts store. At least it never stooped to porn! It’s still an auto parts store as of 2004, and a crappy one at that!

The other theatre at Devonshire and Mason was just called the Cinema. It was once operated by Century Theatres then Loew’s and GCC in the early to mid 70’s.