Cine Grand
Calle Loiza,
San Juan
Calle Loiza,
San Juan
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I don’t remember if it was a Llamas theater at one time, I knew it as a Cobian theater, part of Commonwealth Theaters. Originally named the San Jose, Commonwealth renovated it and renamed it the Grand.
El Grand did have its charm. There was always the uninteligible marquis displaying missing, reversed or simply misspelled film titles, but even those may have remained unchanged as new schedules played. The absent or reversed marquis letters were in fact quite in fashion in many a double feature house. Still today.
But in the 60’s the Grand also had this distinct lanky, sharp, spotty black/white vitilgo ticket taker who was the incarnation of the broad film spectrum features reeled from this theater. They played shorts, Movietone and Lufthansa news as well as European movies with English subtitles. As in all moviehouses then, thick smoke betrayed the otherwise transparent film projector. Everybody smoked in their unwieldy seats, regardless of the signs and the glass shaded hall at the back of the room. The lanky ticket taker doubled as usher who was never called to assist seating arrangements for anybody. The flashlit walk every half hour gave ample time for a quick cigarette duck. Many seats wouldn’t yeald and it screamed for cleaning, but it was there. it was cheap and a kids mind is not the most demanding when some freaky japanese creature fills all eyes as it suddenly jumped out up close just when you knew was his duty. Until Psycho ((Paramount Theater?), the post-climatic woman screech had little effect. But shit, Psycho gave it all a whole new depth.
An outside mosaic tiled corner sign at the Grand identified “Teatros Llamas” as the original owners. That’s worth a comment.