Lankershim Theatre

Jimbo on May 20, 2008 at 1:44 pm

That’s OK Julia … just F.O.A.D.

…and post your crap on the AZTLAN website!

DonSolosan on November 17, 2008 at 10:15 am

I stopped by the Lankershim yesterday. It still looks pretty much like the photo above. From up close you can see that all the neon under the marquee has been broken, and everything is run down. It looks like they prepare food or something in the entranceway. There was a sink installed there.

We went inside. There’s a stall set up in the lobby to sell religious videos and whatnot. The small auditorium is pretty much intact, painted white. I would guess that it holds a few hundred seats — maybe around 500. They had built a platform in the middle of the seats to hold a video camera, and there was a small screen masked off by black scrims within the proscenium.

We spoke briefly to someone who worked there, but he said there was a “prayer session” going on (there was no one visible in the auditorium or lobby) and asked us to return in an hour. But we had other theaters to visit, and didn’t go back.

kencmcintyre on September 11, 2009 at 6:56 pm

Here is part of an April 1977 article from the Van Nuys Valley News:

Several hundred picketers protested in front of Lankershim Theater in North Hollywood Friday over the X-rated films shown there. The demonstration was organized by a group calling itself Citizens for Decency, and included parents, teenagers and children. Claudia Clark, one of the leaders of the demonstration, said the group was upset because the theater formerly showed family films until it was purchased by the Pussycat Theater chain in December.

Mrs. Clark said the movie house was the only local theater for children in the area and other protestors complained that the theater was located within several blocks of an elementary and a junior high school. There were scores of signs at the demonstration, declaring “Pornography Is Sick,” “Keep Our Sewers Underground,” “Protect Our Children From Porno Filth” and “Crime, Rape and Murder Next.”

Jim Winters, an aide to Councilman Ernani Bernardi, Seventh District, said the local councilman was “supporting these people in their activity.” Despite the protest demonstration, Mark Edelman, district supervisor for the Pussycat Theaters, said he had “no objections” to the picketers.

Edelman claimed that the theater was losing money by showing the family films before it was bought out. “This theater was operating way in the red but we’ve done quite well” by showing the adult films. He also disputed charges that the X-rated pictures led to an increase in crime and noted that a commission on pornography established by former President Richard Nixon determined that pornography did not have harmful side affects.

Los Angeles police Lt Bernie Conine said that the demonstrators had a right to protest, but also said. “As I understand it. there’s nothing illegal about the theater.”

LMurphy1959 on September 21, 2009 at 1:27 pm

contin…
I spent many Sat. or Sundays at the Lankershim theatre. I remember a lot of mom & pop stores around the building also. I rode my bicycle from Sherman Way to the Lankershim theatre. The movies were fairly new and the building was nice. It’s nice to see some newer photos of that place and that its still there with its marquee in place. Fun to reminisce a earlier time, miss it…

MagicLantern on July 15, 2010 at 4:17 pm

Any idea what year this theatre opened?