Main Theatre
438 S. Main Street,
Los Angeles,
CA
90013
438 S. Main Street,
Los Angeles,
CA
90013
3 people
favorited this theater
Showing 26 - 47 of 47 comments
I’ll Cry Tomorrow is only on vhs so far….but you made me think about ‘Possesed’ with Joan Crawford from 1947 where she goes nuts and is wandering around skid row downtown somewhere. I’ll have to watch it again and get screen shots if any theaters are visible. Also, I Want To Live with Susan Hayward might have some shots. I know this is way off topic, but if you click on the link below, you can see a list of my personal dvd collection. If anyone sees a movie I have that might show theaters, let me know and I’ll create screen shots and post them.
http://imdb.com/mymovies/list?l=13961306
I know that the Susan Hayward film “I’ll Cry Tomorrow” was filmed on 5th Street, but I haven’t seen that film available for rental. I saw it on AMC years ago.
I just ordered the film from Amazon. Thanks for the tip.
After re-reading the original comments above, I wonder if this theater was converted from another retail/restaurant space in the 50’s or 60’s. There is not much mention or evidence to a theater here before that time. The 1950 Sanborn map doesn’t say anything about a theater there. It just says ’S'. I don’t know what that stand for.
Yeah, here’s the link…its pretty cheap and not that great of a movie but for reference its great.
View link
Most likely the Main Street gym. Is this movie available on DVD?
Ken mc, If you haven’t seen it, you should watch The Street With No Name. Almost all of the exterior shots are on this block. It’s incredibly seedy. If you watch it, get ready to hit the pause button often. There are also a lot of scenes in a boxing gymnasium, I wonder if they used the place that stood where the Hippodrome was. I’ll have to take another look.
I’ve been faithfully patronizing the bookstore in a small effort to promote business on Main Street. It reminds me of old town Pasadena in the very early stages, before the Gaps and Old Navys took over. Old Town was a rather decrepit area in the mid 80s, with mostly boarded up stores. I did read an article last month about chain retailers expressing interest in the revitalized downtown area, so when you see a Gap and a Starbucks at 5th and Main, you will know that the area has come full circle.
I can’t find much about the Main but I assume from this that it wasn’t a theater by this time:
(Oct. 19, 1931)
T.J. Curry, manager of a lunch room at 438 South Main street, mistook a bandit for a customer early yesterday morning and the error cost him $100, he reported.
The building in ken mc’s first picture with the marquee is definitely the National?/Regent. You can see the back side of the front arch in a picture I took a few weeks ago when I was inside the Regent here:
View link
From looking at that photo and the Sanborn overlay it looks like the sign that says ‘Cut Rate’ something might be the Banner at 458 s. Main. If the address for the Main is correct and it was actually in the Canadian building then the space is still there. It’s a strange craft store now with all kinds of styrofoam balls in the window right next door to the new Metropolis book store.
Thanks, Joe.
ken mc: The Main was in the Canadian Building, next door to the building with the marquee. I think the theatre must be the Regent, before its remodeling. See your own photo from January 2007 above for comparison.
The Hidalgo is the theatre posted on Cinema Treasures under its later name, the Estella. It was next to the Plaza church on North Main Street.
Somebody was asking for information about the Hidalgo just a couple of weeks ago. The question is on the Grand Theatre page. I left a reply with what little I knew, but there’s been no response yet. You could post the link to the Hidalgo there, in case the person comes back.
Here are two photos which raise some questions. The first shows a theater between 4th and 5th that could be the Main, circa 1920s. It’s more likely a predecessor. The second shows the Teatro Hidalgo, but as I have no caption I don’t know where the Teatro was located:
http://jpg3.lapl.org/pics35/00067233.jpg
http://jpg3.lapl.org/pics35/00067232.jpg
Looking at the January 2007 photo, I’m thinking that this could not have been the Admiral Theatre, unless the entrance had once been in the central of the three storefronts shown here rather than the narrow storefront on the right which is where the Main Theatre’s entrance was. The Admiral had a fairly wide entrance, with some decent terrazzo flooring, as I recall.
Here is a January 2007 photo:
http://tinyurl.com/skwoc
I always thought the auditorium pine paneling gave the Main Theatre an informal, relaxed feeling, and those loge seats were very comfortable.
The lobby was not all that narrow, maybe ten feet wide by twenty feet deep. There was a narrow hallway with restroom doors between the lobby and auditoirum.
It looked as if in an earlier time before the Main became a porno house it might have been a screening room for quality product.
When Joe Vogel first asked if I had ever seen the Main Theatre my first reaction was that I had not. After reviewing some old notes and devoting some thought to this subject, it turns out that indeed I did visit this little porn house once in 1983.
Flashing neon outlined the Main Theatre. A cinema faded that appeared to date back many decades. Admittance was through a single set of hammered glass doors. The lobby was a long and narrow hall, decorated in 1940’s bright modernist design. An elongated chrome trimmed boxoffice/concession counter guarded the mirrored right wall. At the far end of the lobby were four steps that lead up to the auditorium entrance. Steps necessary to provide a slope the auditorium floor.
One tufted leather door opened onto the one and only auditorium isle that ran along the left sidewall. All chair rows dead ended against the right sidewall. Back rows were of the loge variety. All other rows were typical upholstered metal theatre seats. Walls were veneered in knotty pine. Scalloped plumb velvet covered the worn ceiling. A bunched purple velvet valance dressed up the proscenium arch, but no other stage drapery was apparent.
The Main has been converted to retail space. There is no trace of the theater remaining, but the narrow interior suggests an auditorium.
The Main was visible in a 1981 episode of Hill Street Blues. It was showing adult films at that time.
What has just occurred to me is that the Main Theatre might have been the Admiral Theatre into the 1960’s. After about 1968, I only had occasion to visit Main Street once or twice, as the bus lines I took downtown which had formerly run there had been moved to Spring Street or Olive Street. I have no memory of seeing Rector’s Admiral after the 1960’s, so it’s possible that its old marquee was removed (perhaps condemned- the Admiral was not well maintained) and replaced with the one seen in the Parkinson Archives.
As I recall, the Admiral’s marquee was a rather standard sort of the late 1930’s-early 1950’s. I never took much note of the building in which the theatre was located, but I do remember it being not too far from the Regent. If the Main was indeed the Admiral, then it dates back farther than it’s appearance suggests. I always had the sense that the Admiral was an older theatre which had been remodeled a few years either side of WWII.
I wish I could get to L.A. and take a look at the building myself. As it is, my memory isn’t clear enough to say for sure whether the Main was formerly the Admiral or not.
Joe; Thanks for that information. I agree, the photo of the Canadian Building is definately the same building which housed the Main Theatre. I have e-mailed the Parkinson Archives to correct their mistake.
Though the Main Theatre appears to have been a 1960’s or 1970’s conversion from retail space,for the purposes of showing “X” rated movies, the building in which it was located dates from 1909, and was designed by the firm of Parkinson and Bergstrom, according to this page at the Parkinson Archives. (The caption on the page mistakenly gives the building’s address as 424-438 S. Spring Street, but the accompanying photograph is unmistakably of a building located on Main Street, and the theatre’s name is readable.) Despite the building’s architectural pedigree, I don’t think the theatre itself should be attributed to Parkinson and Bergstrom, unless some proof can be found that it was not a comparatively recent conversion from retail space, but the location of a theatre from the time of the building’s construction.