Pacific's Hastings 8
355 N. Rosemead Boulevard,
Pasadena,
CA
91107
355 N. Rosemead Boulevard,
Pasadena,
CA
91107
8 people
favorited this theater
This started as a large, 1,500 seat, single screen house with a big screen and 70mm Dolby stereo presentation. I don’t have a lot of facts about it, but it was remodeled in the late-1980’s. Easily the best presentation in the San Gabriel Valley. I saw “The Poseidon Adventure” when it opened in 1972. Also “Close Encounters” in 1977 and “Blade Runner” in 1982. At some point, an adjacent building went up housing more screens, and the big auditorium was split in two.
The Pacific Hastings 8 was closed on August 26, 2007.
Contributed by
Rick Rische
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Recent comments (view all 83 comments)
Yes, the main house at the Chinese Theatre is still large as is the Village Theatre in Westwood.
I just viewed some of the photos posted on Cinematour and that huge auditorium sure brings back memories of some of the huge theatres we once had here in New Jersey. Nice wide room, with acres of seats, and how about all that carpeting in front of the screen before the first row of seats. Nowadays all we get are shoeboxes and tile floor (if we’re lucky).
The status of the theatre should be listed as closed now.
I took some photos the day before it closed. They’re just from a cheap pocket-sized Nikon. I just took photos until an usher yelled at me to stop, because they didn’t want photos showing up in the paper (from a cheap pocket camera?), so I waited until she left and took more pictures. What was she going to do, ban me from coming back? The place was closing!
Anyway, exterior:
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Interior, main house:
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Torn draperies in the back:
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Blurry photo of one of the little side screens:
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More exteriors:
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Night shots:
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The original Hastings Theatre was designed by South Pasadena architect Roland Decker Pierson. Pierson had earlier designed at least two other big, single-screen theaters for the Sterling Organization, these being the Rolling Hills Theatre in Torrance, and the Montclair Theatre in Montclair.
The Hastings was the subject of an article in the March 25, 1968, issue of Boxoffice Magazine, describing the unusual features of its design, including its continental seating arrangement and reverse auditorium. The seating capacity was given as 1,542.
Two more theaters that can be attributed to Roland Decker Pierson are the Edwards Huntington in Huntington Beach, and the Azusa Drive-In in Azusa.
The first film I saw at the Pasadena Hastings was ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’, which was released in April of 1968, so this was likely one of the very first screenings at the theatre. I was 10 years old, and since my dad worked on the Apollo space program, I was extremely interested in all things related to space travel, and incredibly excited to see this movie. Since it was a late showing, and the movie long, rather slow-paced, and the seats quite comfortable, I (of course) fell asleep just before the classic final sequence. When I woke up, I asked my parents what I’d missed, and I think it might have been the first time I’d ever asked a question they couldn’t answer. I didn’t get to see it in its entirety until years later, when I finally understood their befuddled silence. It remains one of my favorite films, and the Hastings from then on always a magical place to see movies.
Sorry to hear the Rialto is also no more. That theatre was (along with the Fox Venice- now sadly an indoor ‘swap meet’ and the Nuart, thankfully still screening films) one of the ‘trinity’ of LA area art houses responsible for introducing foreign and independent films to an entire generation in the ‘70’s.
I remember a few movies here as a kid, Close Encounters and Time Bandits. And probably many Disney films in the 70s.
Here is a December 1972 ad from the Valley News:
http://tinyurl.com/npacof
The opening film at the Hastings Theatre was “The Graduate”.
I guess the large curved D-150 screen was taken out when they turned the place into a multiplex. To bad they didn’t keep it in the large cinema. How sad now It sits all closed up.