T & D Theatre
419 11th Street,
Oakland,
CA
94607
419 11th Street,
Oakland,
CA
94607
5 people
favorited this theater
The T&D Theatre opened on November 22, 1916. It ended its life in 1976, showing a lot of “T&A” films for an adult audience.
Contributed by
William Gabel, Cinema Treasures
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Recent comments (view all 39 comments)
Here is a look at some promotion for a Linda Darnell film in 1952:
http://tinyurl.com/39bbt4
Island of Desire aka Saturday Island with Linda Darnell and Tab Hunter was released in August of 1952.
Of all my box office cashering days, I enjoyed working at the T&D. For a whole week in 1973. It was the T&D Follies “showing the best in burlesque” with dirty movies (not X but pretty close). Beautiful theatre, the description from robertgippy was very good! At the time, for $5.00, you got all you can eat hot dogs, hamburgers, cokes, candy. I met Jane Fonda that week when they were filming steelyard blues, you can see a good nighttime exterior shot of the T&D. She went inside for a few minutes (movies were on) and she came out laughing, but said what a beautiful place it was. When Deep Throat opened there, I got a call from Harold, the manager, needing a cashier. First night, we got raided by the Oakland Police. There were over 750 people in attendance, I had to give them all their money back, the police told me to go home. I was back at work there for 2 more days. The girls would bring me food from the Original BBQ on the corner, the french fries with the bbq sauce over them was fantastic! I remember how musty it smelt inside, they repainted the underside of the balcony brown paint. The light dome on the ceiling was turned on and it lit in soft blue, the loge was open at that time and the isles to the balcony were boarded up with plywood to prevent access. The loge was closed when vice saw people drinking alcohol and pot, (the night of the raid). After hours, there were parties and private screenings of some hard core porn, rented out by big shots who wanted to be discreet. Fun job
This is a photo of the T & D Theater in 1975.
Here is an August 1960 ad from the Oakland Tribune:
http://tinyurl.com/cxtcao
The October, 1919, issue of Architect & Engineer published the death notice of architect Harry L. Cunningham of the firm of Cunningham & Politeo. It mentioned the T&D Theatre in Oakland as one of his designs.
Incidentally, Cinema Treasures currently misspells Matthew V. Politeo’s surname as Polito.
KenMc thanks for great newspaper ad I can’t get enough of them Pictures great too,Guys.
I had two cousins that lived in San Leandro in the early 1950s when I was a teenager. I would visit them on weekends once or twice a month and after my older cousin would talk his Dad into using the car, we’d go trolling, or snaking as it was referred to in those days, for broads. In order to have any chance at scoring we would cruise the streets looking for broads or go to the movies hoping to meet some broads. Consequently we were always going to movies that teenage girls liked; i.e., romance pictures, musicals; movies with their current teenage heart throb; James Dean, Montgomery Clift, Marlon Brando, Frankie Avalon, etc. We could never go to a war movie; broads definitely didn’t like war movies. After trolling / cruising the streets for a couple of hours to no avail, we quite often would go to the late show at the T&D, or the “Tough and Dirty” as it used to be called. Over the years we must have trolled hundreds of miles looking for broads; but we had to be cautious that any broads we picked up were of age, lest we’d end up with an under age “San Quentin Quail”. But we had no reason to worry. Despite the miles, the gas, and the time we spent trolling, we never scored once. Ya, the good old T&D; it brings back a lot of memories of a simpler time; the good old days. But in thinking about it, the good old days really weren’t that good after all.
ick Lane (New Member)
Dick Lane
My girlfriends and I went there once to see Tempest Storm. When we walked in the manager approached us and advised us to sit upstairs so we wouldn’t get hassled by the male customers. We did. Snuck in some rum and bought cokes from the snack bar and got blitzed. We had a blast. When tempest storm came onstage she was amazing, how she had the tassles on her breasts go in different directions. This girl named Patty was topless and walked up and down the aisles banging on a drum, selling cigarettes and candy. They showed this movie called the Diary of Knockers McCalla. When we decided to leave we used the exit door of the loge on the left, there was this staircase that went down to 11th street. halfway down the stairs, there was a little apartment that was filled with strippers. We got invited in and partied until about 3 in the morning. What I remember also was above the screen was a plaster face of a woman with glowing eyes in the dark. Kinda spooky looking
Another theatre that utilized a “ramp system” to reach the balcony and fourth floor ballroom was the Hippodrome Theatre (a John Eberson design) located in Okmulgee, OK.
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