Regency Village Theatre

With the sad closing this week of Mann’s National Theater in Westwood, I am reminded of just how imporatant the Village Theater is to me. It is my theater of choice for any major blockbuster. My earliest clear memory of it was back in the late ‘60’s. I took part in a Boyscout/Cubscout Christmas parade through Westwood and, at the end of the parade, we all got to go into the Village Theater and watch The Alamo with John Wayne.

It would be nearly impossible to name all of the movies I’ve seen there on opening night but it’s strongest associations for me now lie with the Star Wars films. Despite the fact that I saw the original three films at the glorious (and now castrated) big screen at the Avco, with the release of the Special Editions in 1997, the Village became THE Star Wars Theater in Westwood and I saw each of those as well as each of the Prequels at the first show, putting in time-share hours over three weeks to see The Phantom Menace.

I’m really looking forward to seeing Spiderman 3 there at the first show in a couple of weeks with a cheering crowd of fans. That’s what the Village Theater will always mean for me. Long may it reign!

Best wishes,

Alan Sanborn

I was watching the Travel Channel today, featuring a show about donuts. Anyway, Stan’s Donuts (that big donut on their roof is known everywhere) and across the street is this theatre. The donut place has been there for 38 years and the owner was recalling way back, a long running feature film (one year) and the two stars ate donuts and coffee and relaxed in amazement as the crowds just kept forming. They show the theatre in a few shots as well as a theatre? across the street from the donut shop. There was a round marquee and I could only make out the letters “BRU”. However, I couldn’t find a theatre in LA with those three letters or even “BR”.

Does anyone know whatever happened to Jim Peters, the manager during “Love Story” who later went to the Century City Theatres?

Earthquake was another Sensurround movie.

So the Village had or still has Cerwin-Vega subwoofers, but they aren’t the old Sensurround Cerwin-Vega’s. Does anyone have any other info on this?

so that myth isn’t true then?

Don’t know if its still the same today, but I do know that back in ‘99 the Village had 12 subwoofers. Half of them were JBL and half of them were Cerwin-Vega. The Chinese had 16 subwoofers, all of them JBL. I know that because I asked manntheaters.com in an email and got a reply from their technical director (his name was Levy I think.)

But the Cerwin Vega’s weren’t Sensurrounds then? Do you know if they were horn loaded like the Sensurrounds were?

and does anyone know how many and what kind of subwoofers this theater has? I’ve heard that this theater has or used to use the big Cerwin Vega Sensurround subwoofers from the ‘70’s.

The Village was a fabulous place to see movies in the 50s and 60s. They had a huge Cinemascope screen (one of the first), and I saw all the Fox scope films there. It was also a great “preview” house, and I saw more sneak previews there than anywhere else, and there were always stars and directors and producers in attendance. I saw two Blake Edwards' previews there, High Time and Experiment In Terror – Blake was there for both of them. Much later, I saw the first of the 70s Pink Panthers previewed there – Blake and Julie were there, and it was such a disaster that they reshot just a little under half the film.

I have VERY fond memories of seeing The High and The Mighty at the Village, and The Tender Trap, when I was a wee lad.

Seems a shame. Even back when I worked at the Village in the early 80’s it was whatever Warner or Paramount wanted. MGM stopped booking with Mann at the Westwood Theatres after Mann pulled ROCKY III (Still doing great) for Warner’s FIREFOX. MGM was not happy about it and did not let Mann move it over to the Plaza like they intended. Instead MGM let GCC book it into the still nice AVCO.

KING KONG really seems a natural for the Village. :–(

This is still by far my favorite theatre anywhere. I’m upset that KING KONG did not open there (Avco instead) today. It should be the Theatre for ALL “event” films opening in Westwood Village. The unfortunate thing is the MANN pretty much caters to Warner and Paramount (Owners) so sometimes the bookings are not very logical.

I was fortunate enough to see Star Wars Episode III opening day at the Village, it was the best movie going experience of my life. The DLP screen as gigantic, bright, and clear. The THX sound is the among the best I’ve ever heard (perhaps outclassed by Seattle’s Cinerama and San Francisco’s Metreon).

The audience participation was great, the auditorium is large, ornate and classy.

Another shot that I took over the summer.

Still the best bet for movies in L.A.

The Village theater in Westwood was less than a year old on January 11, 1932, when it was the site of a murder. Detective Lieut. Hugh A. Crowley of the Los Angeles Police Dept. (who worked for the office of the chief), went to the theater after a call. Unknown to him were two robbery suspects who were in building in the act of committing their crime… and they heard him enter. They hid, and saw him go into the theater office, then walked over and waited just outside the door. When he emerged, they shot him to death. Before he died, the detective. who was a great shot, was able to pull out his revolver and shoot the gun from one of the mens hand. The detective died a few moments later on the floor of the lobby. There is a photo showing the scene taken just after the incident on file at the Los Angeles Public Library, but it is graphic, so I decided that those who are interested can go there and look it up on line for themselves at http://www.lapd.org