Despite its Seal Beach Boulevard address, this theater is best viewed in Google’s street view from around 3401 St. Cloud Drive, which runs along the south side of the shopping center.
The view from St. Cloud currently shows the building with its exposed, white concrete columns and beams and the arched entrance (partly seen in the International Projectionist photo I linked to earlier) and the exposed masonry panels between the columns still visible, but if you move street view onto the driveway of the shopping center in front of the building you get a more recent view in which you can see the results of a remodeling which mostly covered up these original features and plastered everything.
It’s not an entirely happy change, to my eye. The next time Google’s camera car passes along St. Cloud, the old view of the building will vanish, so see it while you may.
If not, try loading this PDF, then search it for theatre (use that spelling) and then click on result #9 (of 11) which should be a link reading: “16926 P. 9-1973 former North Side Garage, prior site of Johnson’s Opera House & Lake Theatre.jpg”
A movie house was operating in Rib Lake at least as early as 1914, but the town’s listing in the 1914-1915 edition of The American Motion Picture Directory used only the generic name M.P. Theatre.
The Armory, managed by Ed Johnson, is listed as a motion picture theater in the 1924-1925 edition of Polk’s Wisconsin State Gazetteer and Business Directory.
The “Theatre Changes” section of the March 9, 1937, issue of Film Daily included this name change: “RIB LAKE — Gem (formerly Armory).” However, there are also earlier references to the house as the Gem Theatre. There is also and ad from 1931 calling the house the Rib Lake Theatre. It was also known as Johnson’s Opera House.
A February 9, 1946, newspaper article seen here said that the Lake Theatre had been destroyed by fire the previous
Saturday afternoon. New owners had taken over operation the previous year, and the name had been changed to Lake Theatre. The article says the building had been erected about 35 years earlier to house farm machinery, but had been remodeled to house a theater and hardware store, so it could have been the theater listed in the 1914-1915 AMPD. It had also served as an armory during WWI.
Though the theater had been destroyed by the 1946 fire the building survived. This is what it looked like in 1973, when it was serving as an automobile garage. A new theater was built at another location later in 1946. Over the years the new house went by the names New Lake Theatre, Lake Theatre, and Laker Theatre.
A Cineplex Odeon spokesperson said at the time of the Northpoint’s closing that the lease was up and the house had been losing money for some time, so the lease wasn’t renewed. Apparently nobody else wanted it either. SF Gate Story.
The Rex Theatre must have been this project described in the June 8, 1912, issue of Pacific Builder & Engineer:
“Eugene, Or.: Lewis & Lewis, archts., Portland, have awarded the cont. for the const. of a 2 sto. brick theatre bldg. to O. Heckart of this city, and the brick and stucco work will be done by C.S. Frank. The bldg. is of Spanish mission design and will cost $30,000.”
Notices about the project in other issues of the journal indicate that it was located on Willamette Street, and that the theater would be operated by J.J. Bryan and Mrs. M.E. Watson. The PSTOS page for the Rex says that the house “…originally had a 2/10 Estey organ (opus #1078) installed in 1912.”
Finding the identities of the architects, Lewis & Lewis, has been rather tedious, there having also been two other architects with that surname active in Portland around this time, both of them quite active, but it turns out that the less-well-known construction-architecture firm Lewis & Lewis consisted of English-born builder William P. Lewis and his son, Robert Lewis. The firm was founded in 1898 and dissolved in 1913.
Thanks for posting the photos, Matt. I was only in the Warner Hollywood once, when I was about nine years old and our elementary school class went on a field trip to see This is Cinerama. The auditorium looks a bit smaller than I remember it,perhaps because the upper part is obscured by the triplexing.
Also, there were the three Cinerama projection booths on the orchestra floor when I was there, and we were seated close beside the central one and very near the enormous screen. But I actually have a clearer memory of the lobby than I do of the auditorium. It’s good to see that the decorative detail is still in pretty good condition.
This weblog post by Matthew J. Prigge describes a business ledger from Michael Brumm’s Ritz Theatre for the month of October, 1935. It’s an interesting glimpse into the operations of a small, independent theater during that period.
Konrad Schiecke’s Historic Movie Theatres in Illinois says that the theater in LaHarpe opened as the Princess in 1929 and was renamed the Amuse-U in 1934. The following year it had to be rebuilt following a fire.
Boxoffice of June 9, 1958, reported that renovations at the Alexandria Theatre, including the installation of the Todd-AO screen and projection equipment for the upcoming road show run of South Pacific, had reduced the seating capacity of the house to 1,250.
The June 9, 1958, issue of Boxoffice said that the Capitol Theatre in McKeesport, which had been dark for several years, was to be converted into a bingo parlor.
The page for the Midway Theatre at Water Winter Wonderland says that it opened in 1940 and closed in 1967. A comment on the page notes that the building was demolished in 2004. There area couple of photos of the building after it had been converted for retail use.
The June 24, 1916, issue of The Moving Picture World reported with the dateline Canistota that “Dr. Clark’s new theater here will cost $10,000.”
Mrs. W.C. Clark, manager of the house, said that the Clark Theatre had installed new Kroehler push-back chairs and a new sound system, and that the lobby had been redecorated, according to an item in the July 26, 1946, issue of The Montrose Herald.
I’m not sure if it is the same theater under a new name, but Boxoffice of April 27, 1959, reported that the Canistota Theatre in Canistota would be reopened after having been closed for two years. New owner B.G. Pletan planned to install a wide screen. The Canistota Theatre was in operation at least as late as January, 1963.
The Hippodrome in Utica was mentioned in the May 1, 1909, issue of Variety. The house was showing movies at least as late as 1921, when it was mentioned in the June 4 issue of The Moving Picture World.
The Rivoli was still being advertised in the newspapers in 1952, and I’ve come across several references to it in books and on nostalgia web sites during the pre-and post-war periods. So far the only reference in a trade journal I’ve found was a brief notice in the January 2, 1936, issue of The Film Daily saying that the house had been acquired by the Braddock Trust Co. in a sherrif’s sale.
jordanlage: Jack Tillmany’s well-researched list of San Francisco Theaters doesn’t have a listing for a house at 200 West Portal, currently the location of Walgreen’s. I can’t find any evidence of a theater at that location, either. Do you remember one being there?
To me the building looks as though it might as easily have been built for an early supermarket or a bowling alley or perhaps a neighborhood department store of the sort once once fairly common in American cities. A lot of businesses other than theaters were housed in buildings with Art Deco or Streamline Modern details.
The interior of the Edwards Santa Maria Stadium 14 can be seen in a fifteen-photo slide show on the web site of BB Architects.
Although the theater’s entrance is inside the mall, the exterior features a monumental, entrance-like structure, designed by LDA Design Group in a Spanish Colonial Revival style, facing the corner of South Broadway and East Cook Street. A single solid door in it indicates that it probably serves, rather incongruously, as a service entrance.
The Big Newport’s rather austere new auditorium interiors can be seen in this slide show on the web site of the firm that designed the remodeling project, BB Architects.
Regal carried out a remodeling of this theater beginning in 2015. Reseating has undoubtedly reduced the overall capacity, but I haven’t been able to discover the current number. The plans for the remodeling were by BB Architects, and the firm’s web site features this slide show with eight photos displaying some of the results.
The Kapolei Commons 12 was designed for Regal by BB Architects of Laguna Beach, California. This slide show from the firm’s web site features six photos of the theater.
Despite its Seal Beach Boulevard address, this theater is best viewed in Google’s street view from around 3401 St. Cloud Drive, which runs along the south side of the shopping center.
The view from St. Cloud currently shows the building with its exposed, white concrete columns and beams and the arched entrance (partly seen in the International Projectionist photo I linked to earlier) and the exposed masonry panels between the columns still visible, but if you move street view onto the driveway of the shopping center in front of the building you get a more recent view in which you can see the results of a remodeling which mostly covered up these original features and plastered everything.
It’s not an entirely happy change, to my eye. The next time Google’s camera car passes along St. Cloud, the old view of the building will vanish, so see it while you may.
Let’s see if this link works.
If not, try loading this PDF, then search it for theatre (use that spelling) and then click on result #9 (of 11) which should be a link reading: “16926 P. 9-1973 former North Side Garage, prior site of Johnson’s Opera House & Lake Theatre.jpg”
A movie house was operating in Rib Lake at least as early as 1914, but the town’s listing in the 1914-1915 edition of The American Motion Picture Directory used only the generic name M.P. Theatre.
The Armory, managed by Ed Johnson, is listed as a motion picture theater in the 1924-1925 edition of Polk’s Wisconsin State Gazetteer and Business Directory.
The “Theatre Changes” section of the March 9, 1937, issue of Film Daily included this name change: “RIB LAKE — Gem (formerly Armory).” However, there are also earlier references to the house as the Gem Theatre. There is also and ad from 1931 calling the house the Rib Lake Theatre. It was also known as Johnson’s Opera House.
A February 9, 1946, newspaper article seen here said that the Lake Theatre had been destroyed by fire the previous Saturday afternoon. New owners had taken over operation the previous year, and the name had been changed to Lake Theatre. The article says the building had been erected about 35 years earlier to house farm machinery, but had been remodeled to house a theater and hardware store, so it could have been the theater listed in the 1914-1915 AMPD. It had also served as an armory during WWI.
Though the theater had been destroyed by the 1946 fire the building survived. This is what it looked like in 1973, when it was serving as an automobile garage. A new theater was built at another location later in 1946. Over the years the new house went by the names New Lake Theatre, Lake Theatre, and Laker Theatre.
A Cineplex Odeon spokesperson said at the time of the Northpoint’s closing that the lease was up and the house had been losing money for some time, so the lease wasn’t renewed. Apparently nobody else wanted it either. SF Gate Story.
The Rex Theatre must have been this project described in the June 8, 1912, issue of Pacific Builder & Engineer:
Notices about the project in other issues of the journal indicate that it was located on Willamette Street, and that the theater would be operated by J.J. Bryan and Mrs. M.E. Watson. The PSTOS page for the Rex says that the house “…originally had a 2/10 Estey organ (opus #1078) installed in 1912.”Finding the identities of the architects, Lewis & Lewis, has been rather tedious, there having also been two other architects with that surname active in Portland around this time, both of them quite active, but it turns out that the less-well-known construction-architecture firm Lewis & Lewis consisted of English-born builder William P. Lewis and his son, Robert Lewis. The firm was founded in 1898 and dissolved in 1913.
Thanks for posting the photos, Matt. I was only in the Warner Hollywood once, when I was about nine years old and our elementary school class went on a field trip to see This is Cinerama. The auditorium looks a bit smaller than I remember it,perhaps because the upper part is obscured by the triplexing.
Also, there were the three Cinerama projection booths on the orchestra floor when I was there, and we were seated close beside the central one and very near the enormous screen. But I actually have a clearer memory of the lobby than I do of the auditorium. It’s good to see that the decorative detail is still in pretty good condition.
This weblog post by Matthew J. Prigge describes a business ledger from Michael Brumm’s Ritz Theatre for the month of October, 1935. It’s an interesting glimpse into the operations of a small, independent theater during that period.
Konrad Schiecke’s Historic Movie Theatres in Illinois says that the theater in LaHarpe opened as the Princess in 1929 and was renamed the Amuse-U in 1934. The following year it had to be rebuilt following a fire.
Boxoffice of June 9, 1958, reported that renovations at the Alexandria Theatre, including the installation of the Todd-AO screen and projection equipment for the upcoming road show run of South Pacific, had reduced the seating capacity of the house to 1,250.
The June 9, 1958, issue of Boxoffice said that the Capitol Theatre in McKeesport, which had been dark for several years, was to be converted into a bingo parlor.
The page for the Midway Theatre at Water Winter Wonderland says that it opened in 1940 and closed in 1967. A comment on the page notes that the building was demolished in 2004. There area couple of photos of the building after it had been converted for retail use.
Hoffman’s expanded into the former Avon Theatre’s space in 1973, according to an article in the Medford Star News of December 4, 2014.
The Avon was in operation by 1936.
Boxoffice of June 9, 1958, reported that Ray Blakeslee had renovated and reopened the Avon Theatre, which had been closed since the previous October.
The June 24, 1916, issue of The Moving Picture World reported with the dateline Canistota that “Dr. Clark’s new theater here will cost $10,000.”
Mrs. W.C. Clark, manager of the house, said that the Clark Theatre had installed new Kroehler push-back chairs and a new sound system, and that the lobby had been redecorated, according to an item in the July 26, 1946, issue of The Montrose Herald.
I’m not sure if it is the same theater under a new name, but Boxoffice of April 27, 1959, reported that the Canistota Theatre in Canistota would be reopened after having been closed for two years. New owner B.G. Pletan planned to install a wide screen. The Canistota Theatre was in operation at least as late as January, 1963.
The Hippodrome in Utica was mentioned in the May 1, 1909, issue of Variety. The house was showing movies at least as late as 1921, when it was mentioned in the June 4 issue of The Moving Picture World.
The Rivoli was still being advertised in the newspapers in 1952, and I’ve come across several references to it in books and on nostalgia web sites during the pre-and post-war periods. So far the only reference in a trade journal I’ve found was a brief notice in the January 2, 1936, issue of The Film Daily saying that the house had been acquired by the Braddock Trust Co. in a sherrif’s sale.
This web page has a drawing of the proposed West Portal Theatre project by architect Irving Morrow, dated 1923.
jordanlage: Jack Tillmany’s well-researched list of San Francisco Theaters doesn’t have a listing for a house at 200 West Portal, currently the location of Walgreen’s. I can’t find any evidence of a theater at that location, either. Do you remember one being there?
To me the building looks as though it might as easily have been built for an early supermarket or a bowling alley or perhaps a neighborhood department store of the sort once once fairly common in American cities. A lot of businesses other than theaters were housed in buildings with Art Deco or Streamline Modern details.
BB Architects now has a five-photo slide show of the Galaxy Tulare at this link.
The interior of the Edwards Santa Maria Stadium 14 can be seen in a fifteen-photo slide show on the web site of BB Architects.
Although the theater’s entrance is inside the mall, the exterior features a monumental, entrance-like structure, designed by LDA Design Group in a Spanish Colonial Revival style, facing the corner of South Broadway and East Cook Street. A single solid door in it indicates that it probably serves, rather incongruously, as a service entrance.
Six photos of Edwards Corona Crossing are featured in this slide show on the web site of BB Architects.
The Big Newport’s rather austere new auditorium interiors can be seen in this slide show on the web site of the firm that designed the remodeling project, BB Architects.
Regal carried out a remodeling of this theater beginning in 2015. Reseating has undoubtedly reduced the overall capacity, but I haven’t been able to discover the current number. The plans for the remodeling were by BB Architects, and the firm’s web site features this slide show with eight photos displaying some of the results.
Seven photos of the Regal Carlsbad can be seen in this slide show from the web site of BB Architects.
The web site of BB Architects (the new name of Blair Ballard Architects) features this slide show with four photos of the Regal Santa Fe.
The Kapolei Commons 12 was designed for Regal by BB Architects of Laguna Beach, California. This slide show from the firm’s web site features six photos of the theater.