Pan Pacific Theatre
7554 Beverly Boulevard,
Los Angeles,
CA
90036
7554 Beverly Boulevard,
Los Angeles,
CA
90036
16 people
favorited this theater
Showing 26 - 50 of 51 comments
There are also some good historical pictures of the neighborhood on the TILE on the walls of the new Pan Pacific Recreation Center — the building that replaced the burned-out Pan Pacific Auditorium that was next door/behind the Pan Pacific Theater.
There is much history on display about the theater, the auditorium, drive-in and the entire area at the Farmers Market. This history was added as part of the renovation of the market when The Grove was added.
I started attending the Pan Pacific Theater when we moved to nearby Detroit Street in 1964 when I was a kid. We still have my parents' duplex there which has been in the family since 1944 when my grandmother bought it. I remember the $1.50 weekend/$1.25 weekday/$.50 child prices (or was it $.75 for children?). The Gordon Theater on La Brea and the Farifax Theater on Beverly & Fairfax had
comparable prices for double features.
My dad told us about the bowling alley that was there when he arrived in 1944.
Auditorium vs. Theatre
So far, the only picture linked from this page which shows the Pan-Pacific Theatre is this one posted a few days ago by ken mc. All the other pictures depict the Pan-Pacific Auditorium, an adjacent but separate, earlier building which was designed by different architects and which never housed a movie theatre.
The streamline moderne Pan-Pacific Auditorium opened in 1935. It was designed by William Wurdeman and Welton Becket. It long served as L.A.’s most popular venue for events such as home shows, car shows, livestock exhibitions, and ice shows, gradually declining as more modern and larger venues opened in other parts of the city beginning in the 1960’s. It closed after the construction of the Los Angeles Convention Center downtown in 1972.
I’ve been unable to find an opening date for the adjacent Pan-Pacific Theatre, but it was probably built within five years of the opening of the auditorium. It was designed by architect William Pereira. The theatre remained in operation for more than a decade after the auditorium closed. The announcement of the closing of the theatre appeared in The Los Angeles Times of September 23, 1984.
Both Becket and Pereira went on to establish firms which would leave a lasting mark on Los Angeles. Becket was responsible for such landmarks as Bullock’s Pasadena, the Prudential Building on Wilshire Boulevard, and the Cinerama Dome on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood. Pereira’s local landmarks included CBS Television City (in collaboration with his then business partner Charles Luckman), the original 1960’s era buildings of the Los Angeles County Art Museum at Hancock Park, and the master plan for the University of California Irvine campus. Eventually, Pereira and Becket collaborated on the design of the spider-legged “Theme Building” at Los Angeles International Airport, but in the era when the Pan-Pacific Auditorium and the Pan_Pacific Theatre were built, the two architects were not collaborators, and the two distinct buildings housing auditorium and theatre were designed independently.
I agree, Joe. The movie theater should be kept separate and apart from the auditorium.
The Julius Shulman photo found by ken mc reveals that, whatever the style of the Pan-Pacific Auditorium (I always thought it closer to streamline moderne than art deco), the Pan-Pacific Theatre was not art deco at all, but plain modern, maybe with some proto-googie touches (all those angular elements.) I’d guess that the Shulman photo dates from sometime around 1940. This entry needs a whole new introductory paragraph.
hollywood90038
Those links are not working.
Great photo, just the way I remember the theater! Beverly Blvd. between Fairfax and LaBrea. What a shame all these wonderful buildings are gone. LA has no sense of history. I mean, when they can tear down the Ambassador Hotel, then what’s next – city hall?
That is Beverly Boulevard.
Here is a photo of the theater and the adjacent ice skating rink. The photo is by Julius Shulman:
http://jpg2.lapl.org/pics06/00012582.jpg
The link is
View link
The postcard is of the art deco facade of the Famed Pan Pacific auditorium. But it was not of the movie theatre that is this thread is about.
My mom and dad used to go there on dates before I was born.
It was a nice little theater in the late 50s/early 60s. On Saturdays they had a talent contest for the kiddie matinee. I won it. I do remember seeing The Court Jester there, back in 1956.
The Pan Pacific, one of the all time dives known to man. I remember seeing Animal House, Apocalypse Now,and Stripes there. The theater was on a month to month lease with the city for several years until it was finally torn down in 1984. To this day the space the theater sat on is still empty.Depite being a dive the Pan Pacific certainly had atmosphere and was fun to go to. There was an old bowling alley next door as well as the legendary Pan Pacific Auditorium behind the theater.
Saw many double features around 1980 here for a mere .75 cents (lol, I’m assuming this was the childs price). I had no idea there was a bowling alley next door, but can vaguely recall a drive-in theatre on the other end of the block (around 3rd & Gardner).
Yes, there was a bowling alley next door to the Pan Pacific Theatre.
Seems to me there was a cafeteria and a bowling alley in the same building as the Pan Pacific Theater, with the theater operating long after the closing of the other entertainment venues. As for the Pan Pacific Auditorium, I remember attending a performance of Ice Follies (or maybe Ice Capades) in the 1950s — all I remember about that outing was that I sat behind a post, and couldn’t see much of the show. The Pan Pacific Auditorium was really TWO auditoriums — a North Hall and a South Hall. Supposedly, the side with the ice rink had the largest ice surface in Los Angeles.
I remmeber how amazed I was in November, 1977 (when I arrived in LA)
to find two relatively new features playing together at this theatre for $1.25. Wow, a double feature of new movies for a little over a buck!
We never had dollar houses and double features in South Carolina (except at the University of South Carolina).
I regularly attended double features here and at the Gordon Theater (on La Brea) for years. My fondest memory of the Pan Pacific: my buddy and I were the only ones laughing at a screening of Steven Spielberg’s “1941”.
I always wondered about the history of the Pan Pacific Auditorium next door, since it was closed and deserted (even though the architecture was still very imposing and memorable).
It’s sad the way LA treated it’s heritage (Schwabs, the Garden Court Apartments, the Brown Derby, etc.) when I lived there (1977 – 1987).
Actually, Dejael…a correction needs to be noted.
The Pan opened its doors on Saturday, May 18th, 1935. Not 1936, as previously stated.
Xanajew
The architect of the Pan Pacific Theatre was W.L. Pereira in 1941.
The above post that lonnie posted is for information on the Pan Pacific Auditorium, not the movie theatre. That is listed at the above address on Beverly Blvd..
you can find some of the information that you dont have on this page.
View link
In some of the below comments, people have mixed up the Pan Pacific Auditorium with the Pan Pacific Theatre. The Pan Pacific Theatre was located at 7554 Beverly Blvd. and the Pan Pacific Auditorium was located around the corner on the West side of the building going towards CBS building. The Pan Pacific Theatre was not part of the Laemmle theatres chain. The closes Laemmle to this location was located on Melrose and Van Ness Blvds. The Continental Theatre & on the west the Westland Twin. (They played the reissue of “Rear Window”. The last time I was in the Pan Pacific Theatre it was a VERY run down location. So there has been a lot of confusion about both the theatre and the Auditorium.
The Auditorium can be seen in the movie “Xanadu”.
Many vintage theaters and auditoriums with distinctive architectural features have been closed down and the property put up for sale, and for some unknown reason, in many cases this attracts the attention of unscrupulous real estate developers, who would either acquire the property for ten cents on the dollar through land auctions only developers and real estate people are informed of, and either demolish, deface, destroy, or remodel the building so that its original style and design are either lost forever, or greatly obscured. This usually happens due to neglect of the property and changes in architectural trends and business over the years, and illegal, criminal vandalism or suspiciously-set arson fires are often the unhappy result.
Perhaps the most famous incident was the Art Deco Pan Pacific Auditorium on Beverly Blvd. in Los Angeles, which had achieved historical preservation status with the city and county, but a Los Angeles Times Newspaper reporter discovered that the developer hired someone under the table to torch the structure and an arsonist burnt the building down in April 1989.
There were two theatrical buildings in this general location with similar names – one exclusively a large public auditorium, the other expressly a movie theater a block away.
In 1935, the Pan Pacific Auditorium was designed according to conceptual drawings by Norman Bel Geddes, famous Art Deco Designer and Architect, and built in 1936 for the Pan Pacific Exhibition in Los Angeles. It was an awesome display of futuristic Art Deco Moderne architecture, with four massive masts for flags above the front main entrance which gave the place a totally unique style and a grandiose look. The Art Deco influence could be seen all the way to the parking lot lamp posts with a stylish flair.
My family often went to the Pan Pacific Auditorium during the mid-1950s. It was the home of the Los Angeles Home Show, held every year there since 1938. It was also the site of the celebrated GM Motorama held every year there from 1949 to 1961.
In the 1960s, it was a popular venue for everything from boxing and wrestling matches to a live concert by Elvis Presley.
And of course, its last fling in the eye of the media was as the classic disco nightclub “XANADU” in 1980.
The last time I was there to see and photograph the Pan Pacific Auditorium was in the spring of 1987, and there was only one of the original parking lot lamp posts still standing over a weed-infested field, where the asphalt parking lot had long before been broken up by bulldozers.
It was sad to see it looking so forlorn and forgotten with derelicts hanging around it, pigeons roosting on its parapets, and unsightly graffiti and “KEEP OUT” signs on the front auditorium doors which were originally glass and gleaming metal bustling with visitors from all over America.
I worked at the Pan Pacific theatre in the mid 70s as a projectionist. One film I remembered running there in 1975 was The Sunshine Boys. The theatre was on Beverly Blvd. just east of CBS Television City. A U.S. post office now sits on the site.
I used to frequent this theater a lot during the early, early 80’s. My best friend’s sister was the manager and it was very run down and so dark. I remember a man caught masturbating during “The Seduction of Joe Tynan”.